Amresh S. Jessy
Satire, in any form has always held a special place in my heart. Locally, we’re fortunate to have the likes of Vikarworld, Jinnyboy and Luqman Podolski dropping content of the musically-hilarious kind but we want and need more! Till the day more local Weird Al’s pop up in numbers and consistency, we’ve taken the liberty of rounding up some of the most hilarious locally produced songs from way back then up till recently.
Without further yapping, here’s Gendang’s list of hilarious local songs that’s guaranteed to crack you up (in no particular order) and along with it, our questionable interpretation of each song’s meaning. Not for the easily offended.
‘K.E.N.T.U.T’ by Cicak Kobain
Not much is known about this mysterious Cicak Kobain character but if we were to draw a premature conclusion on his music style, we’d say categorize it under ‘Crotch Rock’. A class of its own. ‘K.E.N.T.U.T’ specifically can only be described as a motivational song that urges you to keep pushing and pushing, regardless of the discouragement and protest you may receive from others. His other songs are equally as… deep.
‘Banana’ by Jin Hackman
Do you not know what it’s like to press ‘3’ for Mandarin and feel like your grandma’s worst grandson ‘cause you can’t carry a convo beyond jo san? Well then, you’re not alone. It isn’t easy belonging to any respective race and not being able to speak your mother tongue. Apart from the severe shaming you get that fortunately, you don’t really understand, conversing with your grandma is near impossible and in the case of Jin here, going to the mechanic also can be quite a pain. That’s what this song is all about. We wonder what Jin’s been up to these days, we sure could use more stuff like this and how dare he leave us hanging without a 2019 Malaysian Rap Up!
‘Coffee’ by Chirin Chirin
Daily, Malaysians go through the struggles of improperly thought-of food and beverage packing techniques. From torn plastic bags to leaking containers, there’s nothing worse than setting your mind and taste buds for a treat only to spend a majority of your time trying to unpack it. This song follows the hardship and suffering a coffee-deprived individual goes through trying to untie that damn packet of tapao’d kopi ais. The struggle is real. Fortunately, some useful tips and pointers are shown in the music video on proper techniques of untying that dreaded tali rafia ikat mati.
Ni Hao Ma’ by Khalifah
A classic Rock ballad with crazy riffs and tells the tale of a man, who while cycling sees a figure in the distance… and as he approaches it for some reason, discovers it to be an “amoi”. So he goes, “Sup? Ni hao ma” (hence the song title) and asks for her ASL and if she’s single, and then asks her to have a bicycle race with him. If you really dwell on it, it’s about unconventional love, isn’t it? Also, the sheer awesomeness of bicycle racing. We can’t help but wonder what Lim Siew Ping’s up to these days.
‘This is Malaysia’ by Pak Itam (vikarworld)
What do Childish Gambino’s ‘This is America’, Big Shaq’s ‘Man’s Not Hot’ and Lil Dicky’s ‘Freaky Friday’ have in common? They’ve all been given the local Malaysian treatment by Vikarworld, that’s what. Besides his random rants, pranks and how-to videos, his rapper alter ego Pak Itam drops some of the funniest (and well produced) parody videos. Naturally, given the “controversial” nature of some of the topics he covers, public outcry is something he is unfortunately accustomed to. It’s satire, calm down. We say eff that, you keep doing you, Viknes.
‘Paper Lama’ by Lock Up
Sang against the popular “Dapangkuthu” beat, this whacky tune is easily recognizable by even non-Tamil listeners thanks to that “paper lama” horn. As for the meaning, the song is a subtle message of unity in its simplest form – we all may have different terms for “old newspaper”, from “paper lama” to “sao kao pou chi”, yet we all go to that same guy to get our 30 cents for a KG of newspapers (those were the good days). And similarly, despite our differences, we all at some point in our lives, need to throw away unwanted things from our past and move on with our lives. The song also encourages you to tie the newspapers with a string before throwing it in the lorry and teaches us the sound the lorry makes – which, in case you were wondering is “pom pom”.
‘Kecik-Kecik Lembu Jaga’ by Hang Mokhtar
The late Hang Mokthar, if you didn’t know, is a Melaka-born singer who is somewhat an underrated OG when it comes to topical and political satire. Under his belt, he has more than 90 songs that he has written, composed or sung for – some of which include, Siapa Tak Sayang Bini, Lobang Korek, Bila Den Pencen Askar, Joget Mak Datin, Aku Lelaki, Kocik Kocik and he even had one dedicated to Dato Samy Vellu after the introduction of tolls. Yes, he tried to fight for us.
This song in particular was notoriously famous and before anyone flips out about how seemingly racist this song is, let us remind you we’re in 2020 and despite how sensitive and ever ready certain adults are to take drastic measures and create a stir, you, you reading this right now, do not have to go down that path. Besides, the author of this post is Punjabi and he finds this song hilarious. Anyway, let’s just say this song revolves around a certain myth (or is it…?) about members of the Sikh community and a certain bonking preference. It would be good to note though, that this joke stopped being funny about three decades ago, which is about a year into this song’s release. Have a listen and you’ll understand.
‘Berbulu’ by Ben’s B*tches
This song was probably my first introduction to Malaysian songs with a humorous spin. Back when I was a young, motivated, delusional wannabe Journalism student at Taylor’s, totally unaware of the crappy realities of the local media scene, Azmyl Yunor was one of my lecturers. Word got around about, undeniably the coolest musician/lecturer around and then we found this song by this band that he was a part of. A touching story of a man who one day, while innocently taking a walk feels a sudden indescribable itch in his pants and upon inspecting the itch, comes to a realization that will forever change his life. The song also highlights the importance of personal-down-there-hair-care. This song deserves a legendary status in our books.
‘Ayam’ by Jalil Hamid
Jalil Hamid may be better known as a comedian and actor but he did put his skills to good use through songs as well. One such musical gem simply goes by ‘Ayam’ – an informative Malay tune which describes the variety of chickens that exist and the many forms and context in which chickens can be depicted by especially in the BM language. The song ends with a word of advice saying that despite the fondness for all things “ayam”, just stay away from “tahi ayam”. You just don’t get advice like this anymore.
‘Apa Lagi Kita Mau’ by A-Kid ft. K-Main & Klash
You’d think that with the abundance of material just waiting to be made fun of thanks to our politicians, someone would’ve made a song like ‘Apa Lagi Kita Mau’ much earlier. But alas, for obvious reasons no one did so Cheras-native A-Kid stepped up. Made in reference to Utusan Malaysia’s “tasteful” headline back in 2013. Beneath the quirky lines (and factual ones like referencing Klang as home to the best Bak Kut Teh), is the important message that no matter your race, colour, attire and whether or not you like Bak Kut Teh, we as Malaysians can and should learn to respect each other and our differences. The fact that he got K-Main and Klash to rap in BM and Tamil respectively just makes this song all the more hilarious and impressive. The lyrics are definitely worth paying attention to.
BONUS TRACK:
We know this ain’t a full song, but this Puasa-version of Future’s ‘Mask Off’ by Luqman Podolski just gets us each time we watch it. And we’ve watched it a lot.
Comments
Loading…