What do the White Stripes, the Racounteurs, Jack Johnson and Neil Halstead have to do with music in Malaysia ? Well, other than all of them being artistes that I've listened to and liked to varying degrees.
In fact, they all belong to two recording labels who have jointly signed a Malaysian singer. Born in Miri, Sarawak and based in KL for the last 10 years, Zee Avi signed with Monotone/Brushfire Records late last year.
Her's is a modern success story - success to the extent of signing a recording contract, to date. Discovered through that great talent show - no, not Malaysian Idol, or American Idol, or Britain's Got Talent, or any of their ilk - via YouTube. Zee's got an album out and is currently on tour in the US.
So, despite all the publicity for Hannah Tan being the first Malaysian to produce an album in Japan, my bet's on Zee to succeed before Hannah Tan.
Seriously good shit. And it's not because I'm trying to be patriotic here.
As an aside, you can read about the press conference for Hannah Tan's recording deal here. In it, her record company's CEO pointed out the qualities that he noticed about Hannah. That would be : her wonderful smile, her strong influence among the Asian pop-culture market, fast growing web presence, humility and positive attitude. I though it was terrible but will leave you to figure out the reason why.
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