In this interview for the Sunday read, we speak with Azmyl Yunor, a senior lecturer at Sunway University’s Department of Film and Performing Arts (DFPA).
Azmyl is a bi-lingual Malaysian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and interdisciplinary academic and writer focusing on cultural politics and the arts.
He has independently released works ranging from folk to noise rock since 1997 from the Malaysian underground and non-mainstream music scene.
Noted for his observational eye on the cultural politics of contemporary Malaysia, some say this sets him apart from other local artists.
His latest album ‘John Bangi Blues’ – a rootsy rock n’ roll romp dedicated to his district of Bangi south of the capital, was launched mid-pandemic in September 2020.
“You can stream it here. Even though I am publicly known as a singer and musician, my background is in filmmaking and journalism – I am not formally trained as a musician,” he proudly says.
He published a chapter on Malaysian singer-songwriters in a book called Made In Nusantara (recently launched in 2021), co-edited by our DFPA Head of Department Assoc. Prof Mayco Santaella and saxophonist/academic Dr Adil Johan.
He also has several self-produced music video collaborations with Malaysian artists, students, and filmmakers to promote songs from my latest album, and doing ground research for a chapter on Malaysian Chinese metal bands for an upcoming book on global metal music edited by renowned music scholar Jeremy Wallach.
“I’m always working on new songs for what may be a new release in the future. I live and breathe songs and stories.”
We asked for his views about the Malaysian art scene and how will art change post-pandemic.
For him, while the artists were still in the thick of the pandemic, they had to focus on the day-to-day kind of stuff.
He says arts are reflective of any social and cultural changes and the only thing permanent is change. “Artists must be adaptive to social, political and cultural changes as their works will be seen in the future as a representative of the epoch the artist lived in.”
“While the so-called ‘industry’ has been severely affected by the pandemic – notably live performing arts (for example, I would have been touring and performing locally and regionally now promoting my new album in ‘normal’ times) – the need to help out artists in need is greater than ever as their livelihoods have been affected tremendously.
“What the pandemic has shown is that we are still ill-equipped structurally as a nation in making the arts a central part of our culture and identity beyond tourism,” he says.
As an Industry Advisory Panel committee member of The Cultural Economy Development Agency (CENDANA), he thinks it is of the utmost importance to elevate the arts beyond just being a sideshow into a potential cultural export of the country – talent is not the issue, getting stakeholders into understanding the needs and potential of the arts is critical.
“The arts represent the soul of society – it’s not just an ‘industry’. The younger generation is very vocal about the world they live in and this can be articulated artistically so that the previous and coming generations have a genealogy of understanding themselves and the world we live in. The arts elicit empathy. A caring society is an artistic society.
Azmyl Yunor is Sunway University’s Department of Film and Performing Arts Senior Lecturer. He has an MA in Communication, RMIT University, Australia (2002) andBA in Mass Communication (double major in Film & Television and Journalism), Curtin University of Technology, Australia (1999).
