BY the time this article is published (and you, dear reader, are reading it) today, I would have performed last night in public for the first time since October 2020, when busking was allowed after the first MCO was lifted.

I have been performing monthly at Publika Shopping Gallery for a couple of years now for their singer-songwriter-centric once-a-week busking sessions that usually features three singer-songwriters performing one hour slots after each other.

Unlike most of the other busking performances elsewhere in the city, which are mostly under the purview of MY Buskers Club, the series at Publika is curated by the mall itself and emphasizes on singer-songwriters performing their own original songs. 

What is a singer-songwriter, you ask and how do they differ from a plain old singer? Well, the name is self-explanatory: a singer-songwriter is someone who sings songs they’ve written themselves.

Most pop singers do not compose the songs they sing by themselves – it’s such a norm here in Malaysia that most members of the public (at least those whom I’ve encountered and spoken to) assume that all singers with a hit song on the radio get paid (or even better, get rich) every time their song is heard.

That unfortunately is not the case. The bulk of a recorded song’s earnings (after the record labels take their agreed share) often goes to the song’s composers and the subsequent royalties too.

I’m not going to get into the technicalities of what specific rights and intellectual property categories these fall under (Google it yourself) but what I’m trying to say is that singing and playing music live to earn a living in Malaysia is often forgotten as a form of labour – just like the hours, energy and time you put into your office work, day job, construction, food delivery, engineering work etc.

A lot of musical acts tour or perform live to earn from the labour they put in accordingly and this is also what happens in music making. Once you minus the costs of practice studios, traveling, parking, etc., the gross income emerges and it’s usually not that luxurious.

One might ask “What about Siti Nuhaliza or (insert name of the latest “breakthrough” pop singer) and such?” Well, pop singers like movie stars are acutely aware that popularity is fleeting as is one’s time as the flavour of the moment – that’s why their rates are often very high.

The problem is, the unknowing and probably uncurious public assume that all singers and musicians (and actors) function in the same paradigm and wage scale, for after all aren’t they just as talented (or occasionally even more talented) in singing the same songs and appearing charismatic to audiences?

Now back to the singer-songwriter: if you compose your own songs, perform them yourself, manage to get them some airtime on the radio and online, and publish them through a publishing company (while retaining the rights to them), you will at least have other well deserved avenues to earn something from your music-making 

If you get a hit, then you may earn a lot more (and maybe get rich). A singer-songwriter also has creative and artistic control over what material, genre, and image he or she chooses to pursue compared to a pop singer who is picked out of an audition and do not read the fine print in his or her recording contract.

As much as it is a romantic notion to be signed to a record label, most budding singers forget that as a signed recording act, you are an employee of the recording company and the budget they bestow on you is a loan that they expect you to not only pay back but also, they can profit from.

The rise of “indie” music stems from the notion of independent singer-songwriters and musicians embracing entrepreneurship (even if one Wikipedias “singer-songwriter” something specific genre-wise may appear) and has changed the music industry landscape for the past one and a half decade or so.

The archaic players of the “music industry” of old have had to adapt to a younger generation who made things happen for themselves although to the general public these archaic players are still seen as the faces of music making in the country.

If you didn’t know, our proud export Yuna started out as an “indie” singer-songwriter in the Kuala Lumpur indie music circuit (I last had a conversation with her onstage during soundcheck for a concert in Shah Alam back in 2009 when the Malay entertainment press began hounding her with gossip) before being transplanted to the greener pastures of North America.

She was a law graduate who pursued music on her own independent and entrepreneurial will as opposed to the traditional route of “signing to a label”. The idea of the singer-songwriter is essentially the idea of the individual with a voice facing the wilderness of the world and articulating his or her experience and observations in song.

It’s a romantic notion but don’t we all like a bit of romance? I never heard of the term “singer-songwriter” even while I was releasing my own homemade cassette albums in the underground music circuit for years (I always thought I was just a “solo artiste”) but sometimes it’s better to not know what you are doing and just go at it with furious joy and creative abandon.

Sometimes it’s also good to have a game plan ahead if you’re aiming for gold but at the heart of a singer-songwriter is an independent Merdeka spirit, who will lead you to unexpected places, near or far. – March 12, 2021.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.