THE latest single from my 2020 album John Bangi Blues is a Malay song called Penghasut Blues. I collaborated with a filmmaker friend We Jun for a cheeky music video (our fourth low-budget guerrilla-style music video collaboration) starring actor-producer Tuan Tapai Faisal.

It’s my own little tribute to how the word has journeyed from being relatively underused to being an unintended ‘profitable’ thorn in the The Man’s side. A music video is an interesting form to me as it embodies two different mediums: the audio and the visual.

In his artist statement, he described the song as: “Rousing and anthemic, but also snarky and sarcastic, it delivers on every front. It felt like he was once again slipping into familiar shoes, using his God-given gift of noise to be the rakyat’s mouthpiece, channelling the collective angst of the everyman.”

And by “everyman” I often assume it’s in the plaintive storytelling and niche country/ folk/ blues genre I trade in to distinct myself from the glamour “artis”-types you tend to see in popular media and billboards.

The term ‘penghasut’ (which means ‘instigator’ in English), while always already present in the Malay language lexicon, took on greater political meaning and weight during the Najib Razak administration when The Man himself decided to quell dissenting and critical voices, particularly when protest artist Fahmi Reza brilliantly turned the proverbial symbolic tables on The Man. 

Fahmi came up with a catchphrase that resonated with the populace, and the election campaign of the then-opposition and eventual the 2018 General Election results: “Kita Semua Penghasut” (“We Are All Instigators”).

The catchphrase had its roots in his ubiquitous clown caricature of Najib back in 2016, which eventually culminated in him being convicted of “uploading an edited image of the prime minister on Facebook with the intention to offend” and charged under Section 233(1)(a) of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, which is punishable under Section 233(3) of the same Act.

Along with the charge came a RM30,000 fine, which probably The Man and the system thought would teach Fahmi a lesson and deter others to not follow suit – typical of all punitive actions in ‘making an example’ out of a person or case in hopes that others will be afraid to take a similar path.

Little did they know then, as did the current regime with Malaysiakini recently (oh how they never learn), that dissent is not something someone picks out of thin air to ‘upset’ people in power.

Like Malaysiakini, Fahmi even leveraged the catchphrase to produce merchandise and successfully help fundraise his fine through his crowdfunding campaign brilliantly branded as the Penghasut Solidarity Defence Fund.

Although it would have been really cool if Malaysiakini produced some stickers or wallpaper combo as he did, alas it is not common reflex creative practice in the field of journalism, although many in equally staid yet important fields of work should take note.

Along with cartoonist Zunar (whose satire graced Malaysiakini from its early years) – they are bearers of an important tradition that is not valorised in our renowned ‘Truly Asia’ hospitality: the protest tradition.

Dissent and satire are important elements of any democracy and the protest tradition, regardless of how upfront or subtle, contrary to the public’s limited belief, is actually well and alive in good ol’ pastoral Malaysia, especially in the visual arts, theatre, and Twitter.

Protest thought, though, needs a medium to lock itself onto in order for its meaning to be communicated or disseminated.

Most recently it has also emerged re-energised in feature films most recently in the award-winning film One Two Jaga directed by Nam Rom – a film that took an unflinching look at the culture of corruption in Malaysia and broke the cinematic taboo of portraying the police as the bad guys (a trope modern Hong Kong cinema ironically overuses to box office brilliance).

While these are encouraging trends in the creative arts, there is one form which is underdeveloped: music. It’s not like it never existed – you only need to read between the lines (or even simply pay attention to the lyrics) of P. Ramlee’s songs other than Getaran Jiwa (probably the only P. Ramlee song Millennials and Gen Y’s know) or even some of the music from 1980 that I grew up listening to like the folk humour of Hang Mokhtar or the Malay working-class laments of Kembara among others.

In the current Klang Valley indie music circuit where I ply my trade, it seems only Brian Gomez and myself are the active torchbearers of this tradition (we are also of the same age group along with Fahmi).

By ‘active’, I mean recording and releasing songs to the public in any physical or digital form, not just performing live.

While I personally wish and hope for more critical and dissenting voices from singer-songwriters and bands outside of the punk subculture (one of the best bands of this style you should check out is Dum Dum Tak), I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

Music seems to have been incorporated into the broad “lifestyle” category of cultural consumption – music is to chill to or sip your cappuccino or shout “Cheers!” along to – not to ‘instigate’ or ‘agitate’ political emotions and actions.

Songs are in essence very affordable to create – if you’re not stuck and trapped by the deceiving industry standards.

Songs are almost free in terms of resources needed aside from maybe a guitar, some paper and pen as an initial investment to write your lyrics and chords down, the cost-profit ratio of songs is amazing even if you get tips from busking your original songs.

Songs need to be performed – they work on a crowd like a dynamo does: it’s only productive and meaningful in action and motion. Hence, it’s actually tougher work to make a song “work” in this age of media saturation and distraction since songs as a musical form does not literally stand still.

Songs should not be skipped as Spotify tends to advertise. Skipping a song is like tearing a satire cartoon image in half.

It is just in the nature of mediums which is more apparent and a welcome challenge to the artists who produce an art work as opposed to audiences who consume the end art form.

In the still resonant words of media theorist and philosopher Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message. – March 26, 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.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.