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.