THE conferences organised by the Southeast Asian chapter of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM-SEA) have always been meaningful, fun, and interesting for me – both as a musician and an academic.

Last week’s conference in Bangkok was a revelation of sorts; I needed this trip.

During my early years of attending conferences, I was still finding my groove and identity – I wasn’t even sure then if I would stay in academia.

However, at a media and cultural studies conference in Hong Kong, which I attended on a whim, I finally discovered what I am: an “artist-researcher.” For this conference, I didn’t apply for funding, paid for my own flight, and stayed in a hotel room shared with another academic friend from a public university (when they had real conference funding) who had a spare bed.

I only recently discovered the term “artist-researcher” – I had often referred to myself as an “artist-academic.” Since others in the field now refer to me as an artist-researcher, I stand corrected.

At that Hong Kong conference, I turned out to be the only artist-researcher among the small but diverse group of academics who attended and presented papers.

Naturally, I was treated with much interest for being the artist-researcher, as most of those who researched popular music artists were just academics – or, as one Korean professor I admire calls them, “professional fans.”

After attending four IASPM-SEA conferences – a committee made up of artist-researchers whom I am fortunate to now call friends – I reflected on several advantages that an artist-researcher has over pure researchers or pure artists.

The artist-researcher sees both sides of the coin

As an artist-researcher, I tend not to be biased in either world, although the artist in me is the stronger part of my identity. I see the researcher side as my curiosity about the world, expanded and framed within specific disciplines.

This framing is important: without it, the world would be just a general collection of interesting, unrelated ideas, free-floating and missing the rigour that academic research demands.

Being too much of a researcher, however, can lead to detachment, as one of the rigours of academic research is the notion of objectivity – the idea that the researcher is merely an observer and should not partake in what is being researched.

Wildlife research in tropical jungles or the savannahs of Africa comes to mind.

It wasn’t until a local professor told me that I have exclusive access to knowledge and experience that might elude most researchers – since I am a participant in the world I am researching – that I began to appreciate seeing both sides of the divide.

The research keeps the artist alive

Looking back at how I became interested in music when I was younger, you could say I had always been doing “research.”

I was always curious about the artists I admired, and during the pre-Internet decades of my youth, only magazines, books, and the occasional lucky glimpse of a music video (often sandwiched between TV shows) provided more information about them.

This sense of wonder and curiosity must be maintained for my artist persona because, frankly, it is easy to become jaded and disillusioned as an artist – not just in this country, but everywhere else (something I also learned by attending these conferences).

However, research alone is not enough. One must articulate the research findings and write them out.

I am not disciplined enough as a person to research and write purely as a hobby. Hence, being an academic with Key Performance Indexes motivates me to publish my research. Writing and publishing my research distinguishes the artist-researcher from an artist who is merely curious or a researcher who is churning out findings.

And, of course, being an artist-researcher provides some monetary stability, allowing me to keep the artist in me well-fed and bathed.

The artist inhabits the research (and vice versa)

One of the dilemmas I am trying to articulate is how to research my own artistic practice. This form of self-reflection, as I have discovered, is what my colleagues in the field during the conference referred to as “auto-ethnography.”

According to Wikipedia, it is “a form of ethnographic research in which a researcher connects personal experiences to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings.”

Bingo. This is what I have been doing all along in my academic research publications without realising it (since I am not an ethnographer). These little discoveries and wonderful stumblings are what I live for, both as an artist and a researcher.

I have come to realise that I need both worlds to exist. – August 2, 2024. 

* 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.