AS a solo underground artist who operates alone, I have the liberty to act upon whims and spontaneous decisions compared to one who has an ever slightly larger team.

An often-unspoken thing about being a musician in Malaysia is the fact that we have a small market that is disproportionate to the ratio of talents that we actually have in abundance.

While the public only really see the tiniest tip of the iceberg when it comes to singers – most of whom have professional management teams to also feed – the vast majority of Malaysian talents go unnoticed by the mainstream and it’s not because of a lack of effort: it’s just that there a lot more different types of people and artists who make music.

The ones who seem to have greater public visibility tend to be those who really do it full time and being in the public eye just comes with the job – pre-pandemic, mid-pandemic and beyond.

Many of us – and I speak mostly as someone from the underground or ‘indie’ music community – are fine with the arrangement of being out of the spotlight.

The most misconstrued assumption made by the public and perpetuated by the mainstream media is that people who do music do it to seek fame and glory.

This assumption is as true as assuming that a fisherman fishes because he or she likes to get wet.

It is just the public and social nature of the vocation of being a musician and its valorisation in popular culture that creates this assumption of ‘fame and glory’.

In fact, it is quite the opposite of what the music industry (read: mainstream) has been stating repeatedly. Physical albums such as CDs, cassettes and vinyl are actually still in demand but just not the way it was in the industry’s ‘good old days’ before the digital age.

I’m still getting orders for my 2020 CD album John Bangi Blues and in fact just sent out a couple via PosLaju this morning (and still proudly not on Spotify or any of your favourite streaming platforms).

Us in the underground and indie music community don’t really mind since we just carry on doing what we love in our particular niches – we just need to adapt and adopt new ways of doing things (something our politicians seem to be perpetually unable to do).

Granted, the allure of fame and being adored publicly may play in the mind of a budding young singer but in order to be sustainable as an artist who is serious about their Art (yes, with a capital A) one must look ahead beyond the shallow allure of ‘fame’.

I take it as an occupational hazard of what being ‘famous’ entails, although fame is, in all honesty, a relative concept.

We take joy in the journey itself and the more pragmatic of us are oftentimes multi-hyphenate individuals who also earn a living doing other things aside from the arts that we pursue.

Heck, even the famous ‘stars’ don’t just earn from their music or shows – most also help endorse products as ‘product ambassadors’ to leverage on their face and fame (which is as finite as the public’s short attention span) to earn something while it lasts.

Most of you, dear readers, have probably never heard of my name or my music, but even if you have, my reputation precedes the music or even the message my songs intend to communicate.

Once some find out I’m a ‘singer’, the most immediate endearing gesture is to ask me to sing a song. Most of the time I smile and reply in jest: “No man, come to my gig,” and carry on with whatever proceedings that were planned.

Do you tell an accountant you’ve just met at a party and tell them: “Hey, can you balance my sheets?” or to a pastry chef to “make some croissants for us”?

Of course not, because there’s an assumption that they need their tools and whatnot to make those things happen.

With music and singing, well, the body is the instrument, so there is an assumption that one can just drop everything and tantalise whoever makes the request.

I wonder how many times the late great Michael Jackson had been asked to moonwalk or break into his famous ‘eeeheee, oooo!’ at parties.

Most forget that the larger live music community is also occupied by venue owners, venue staff, sound engineers, equipment rental companies, event management companies, food and beverage suppliers, drivers (trucks, not limos) and so on – the behind-the-scenes crew that most similarly disregard after a film ends.

How many of you sit through the film credits to appreciate the hundreds of professionals who helped to collectively make the piece of entertainment that you either really enjoyed or simply pass off as ‘lousy’?

Such is the nature of showbiz – the seemingly seamless flow of the show itself, be it a live music performance or feature film or theatre performance, takes precedence over the unglamorous cumbersome toil and labour that goes behind making it happen.

There’s a saying in sports that goes ‘the greats make it look easy’ and as an avid sportsman myself, this adage rings true to all creative industries.

As with sports where we only see the star player, we don’t see the hours of practice and the supporting crew of trainers and whatnot behind the scenes.

So, we need to get back to doing what we do best for even though to some of us it’s driven by pure passion, there are those in the larger cultural ecosystem who earn a living in the larger community.

What we do in this vocation affects others directly or indirectly and this is why it’s important for things to start moving again but with the caveat that it’s not going to be the same as pre-pandemic.

Most of us have put that to rest and are focused on the task ahead. We are resilient and we don’t need anyone to tell us how to get by.

We can do this, together. All we’re asking (not begging) is for the bureaucrats to do their jobs aka serving us – their ‘amanah’ as Malays call it – not just serving their false masters above in the pecking order. – September 24, 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.