Nak tahu apa industri muzik dan filem Malaysia perlukan untuk maju dan berdaya saing di peringkat serantau, apa lagi di pentas dunia?

This is a thread based on my 25 years in the Malaysian entertainment industry and endless discussions with REAL stakeholders.

Pertama sekali.

Tidak perlu 1001 persatuan diterajui mereka yang mengaku seniman pada nama dan hanya gunakan persatuan sebagai batu loncatan kerjaya politik ataupun demi mendapat networking atau cable demi projek.

Apa yang di perlukan adalah kesatuan atau UNION.

Sebagai contoh kesatuan atau union menentukan dan enforce minimum wage dikalangan penggiat sesuatu bidang.

Contohnya pelakon.

An actors union can also set acceptable working conditions and be mediator for disputes apart from calling for total shutdown kalau ada pihak ingkar.

Dengan kesatuan, kepentingan semua lebih terjaga.

Dunia TV dan filem contohnya, biasanya penggiat sebalik tabir kurang perlindungan kerana tiada atau kekurangan perwakilan kerana 'tidak glamer'.

Kesatuan juga tidak boleh diwakili mereka yang kepentingan bercanggah.

Antara contohnya, seperti industri muzik.

Di Malaysia, seharusnya monopoli syarikat rakaman antarabangsa harus dipecahkan.

Ini hampir setiap badan atau persatuan ada saja wakil atau pelobi.

Kepentingan karyawan akan lebih terjaga dengan kesatuan.

Jika ada antara persatuan yang ingin teruskan aktiviti mereka, tiada salah.

Tetapi seharusnya mereka digabungkan menjadi satu badan dibawah kerajaan dan fokus pada kerja kebajikan.

Tidak perlu 50 persatuan wujud hanya pada nama dan sekadar memberi sekampit beras kalau photo op.

All associations should be put together into one body, under the jurisdiction of a ministry to come up with database semua penggiat seni AKTIF supaya tahu setiap individu yang layak dibantu.

Ini baru nyanyi funfair 30 tahun lalu takde orang pun demand hak sebagai penyanyi.

There needs to be standards and requirements on siapa yang patut digelar karyawan.

Aku pernah lakon tiga telemovie.

Kira aku pun leh mengeluh sebagai pelakon? Mati aku dipijak @sharifahamani kerana berangan.

We need proper definition of who is a player within the industries.

Since I mooted the arts council years ago, tiba2 ramai lak dalam setahun dua ni mengaku ada perancangan sama.

An arts council can only be formed when music, TV, filem and various other disciplines have their own councils, and can represent their respective homes.

The councils MUST focus on development.

Fuck this charity shit and looking back 40 years in the past.

We need to look forward and cultivate new talents and potential leaders of tomorrow.

Truth be told we have pretty much stopped developing in the last 20 years.

I will speak specifically on music when it comes to this.

We have zero understanding of those on power now, because they are absolutely clueless.

Bayangkan bila ada mangkuk2 jamban gila pangkat main politik diberikan tanggungjawab perjuangkan muzik....

Tapi bila di tanya soal berapa jenis royalti wujud buat pengkarya muzik dan diminta huraikan, hanya mampu begin reaksi....

Bila ada kegagalan peringkat atasan soal dasar, memang kelaut lah kita.

You can't build if you still exist I. The era of cassettes.

And ini yang paling sakit hati.

Dalam dunia digital, masih ada yang lantang bersuara kata soal cetak rompak kaset dan CD menjadi masalah.

Kalau ada yang rasa ini lawak, rasanya antara aktivis seni yang ada dalam satu mesyuarat tak lama dulu leh backing aku cita seorang 'lagenda' yang katakan (and this is so fucking painfully true)...

"Apa digital ni streaming YouTube iTunes Spotify semua... Ini Malaysia. Kita jangan ikut dunia. Kita buat cara kita. Tak payah digital semua."

The contents of meetings over the last 2 1/2 years I have been religiously attending is mind boggling.

The amount of stupidity is staggering and I swear a lot of people in the industry are neanderthals in their understanding of how things work.

This is why, me and a lot of friends have taken a step back.

When politics interferes with art, that's it. It's game over.

We have no hope.

In the last nine months, the amount of dumbassery has tripled.

The only real hope is for us to soldier on our own.

And rise when the occasion allows.

Truth be told, it's not because we don't have quality content or acts in Malaysia.

Whether it be TV, film or music, we have what it takes to compete regionally, and even globally.

One of the main problems of our industry, is misguided moral policing.

We will NEVER have a successful international film festival, for example, because of insane censorship based on ancient rules.

Our products are subject to local censorship gatekeepers.

Who have no understanding of relevance.

This leads to self censorship to avoid loss of having your work banned.

Which in turn ends up with our best moving elsewhere cause...well...fuck this shit.

Unnecessary battle.

So we suffer a brain drain.

You have no idea how many Malaysians are working on top Hollywood titles, or in TV around the world, or involved in music industries elsewhere making their game and fortune.

You'd be surprised to know how many Malaysians contribute to the KPop scene.

I personally know some mates from when I was studying, who are producing top Chinese music artistes.

And yet, they will never come back to Malaysia.

Our system is so broken.

Music wise the likes of Yuna and Zee Avi made waves ON THEIR OWN.

When they head home, they do not get the support they deserve, and the broken system hails little manufactured crap that benefits the few heading the business.

Enough with the archaic, ancient shit.

It's NOT an industry when you run the show like some backyard business.

There's so much more to share, but summary is as above.

For any change to happen, you need a sweeping change involving those at the top.

For music, we tried and failed over 22 months.

And in the last 9 months, we have only seen it deteriorate further.

Imagine this.

South Korea - population 52 million.

Malaysia - population 33 million.

And yet our music industry contributes less than 0.1% of our GDP.

AND YET.

Government spends millions wrongly with no impact.

South Korea meanwhile thrived.

As Japan led the way in the 90s, South Korea observed, learnt and developed their soft power approach and started emerging two decades later.

Today, music, TV, films etc help the country as a support factor apart from significant contributions.

You can look this up.

Forget the music industry in total

In 2019, BTS alone contributed USD$4.65 billion or 0.3% to their GDP.

There IS money in the arts.

We just need the right people who are actually living in this day and age to helm, and develop our industry.

It pains me to see our TV, films and music suffer like this continuously thanks to self serving opportunistic idiots who have no future anywhere so they decide to latch on to practises that damage our industry.

Nak sembang sampai kiamat pun leh.

Tu yang ramai kita da letih.

Aku tak kisah lah ko sapa.

Ahli politik ke feeling legend dalam industri.

Hakikatnya, orang sama pegang kuasa 20-30 tahun takde beza pun.

Tapi mereka lah yang game system ngan terus berkuasa, kayakan diri sendiri.

We need sweeping changes and reform.

Kalau sebelum ni aku dan ramai lagi karyawan muda tawar kan khidmat pada KKMM secara PERCUMA...kegagalan akibat birokrasi dan politik sekali lagi melontarkan kami kembali ke zaman dinosaur.

We have been ousted. Thrown out and ignored.

In place are those with political connections and absolutely zero knowledge of development for the future of our arts.

Even @NancyShukri and @MyMOTAC have not followed up since our meeting earlier this year.

This is the state of our affairs now.

This is why those who follow me here know of my mood swings.

My constant fight with trying to get up to be inspired and do something to change the industry for the sake of tomorrow.

Kalau anda seorang anak seni, avoid these associations like a plague.

We need to rebuild.

Nak sembang sampai bila pun tak habis.

Too many factors are in play.

But most of all is how the arts too, has been totally hijacked by politics.

So where do we go from here?

Say fuck the system.

Terus berkarya.

Terus berkarya kerana seni adalah udara yang anda perlukan untuk bernafas.

No one's coming to save us.

We save ourselves.

Build your own pockets of communities and grow them.

Align with others.

Eventually, one day, we will reclaim what is ours.

Semoga satu hari nanti, anak seni sendiri akan menjaga hak sendiri tanpa campur tangan oportunis dan yang isi poket sendiri dengan menindas anak seni.