Malaysia celebrated its special day yesterday. 60 years since the Peninsular gained independence from the British empire, 54 years since Sabah and Sarawak joined us. I’m glad to be born here, where I get the yummiest food 24/7, get to call all hawker owners or taxi drivers my aunty or uncle, and can utter a sentence made up of 4 different languages and still be understood. Like seriously, how can I not be? I’m proud to call Malaysia my home despite the many flaws that it has, and I’m sure many feels the same way too.

Last week, when talking about music, my Canadian friend asked me, “how’s Malaysian music like?” I didn’t know what to answer. The truth is, despite my appreciation for talented local artists whenever I stumble upon them, I don’t really give them much thoughts. I mean, a quick glance through the Malaysian Top 50 chart on Spotify today shows zero, I repeat, ZERO Malaysian artist. The radio stations plays 95% global top hits, and repeat songs like Despacito 10 times a day instead of playing songs from Malaysian artists. It’s hard to properly appreciate the local talents when we don’t get enough exposure for them.

I felt extremely bad about it. So the past week, I made a playlist that consist of awesome songs performed by some of the most talented Malaysian artists. I spotted some new songs that I never heard before (praise the Lord and prodigies of technology for Spotify’s Recommended Songs feature) and it’s been on shuffle for the whole week. Every time someone is with me when any of the songs were playing, I’d be like “guess where is this artist from?” The proud Malaysian in me smirks with joy whenever I surprised them with the answer.

Here’s a playlist of my favourite Malaysian hits, I try to keep it to only English songs (with a few exceptions) to keep my playlist universal. I name it “bolehlah”, which literally translates to “Can-lah.” Can refers to Malaysians’ can-do spirit, and lah is just a very Malaysian slang. 😅

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I hope you enjoy this playlist. Be sure to comment below if you have any other awesome recommendations for me because I LOVE discovering new awesome tunes. Happy (slightly belated) Malaysia Day! ❤️🇲🇾  xx Wendy

Featured photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash.