The Innovators

In Singapore, where cultural and systemic challenges to a career in music are endemic, it is no coincidence that these five musicians have built polymathic careers, branching beyond their craft and beyond our tiny island so as to thrive. Today, they are each piecing together a singular path toward a future in the local arts scene.

- Terence Poh 

Over a Zoom video call one afternoon in November, Aisyah Aziz, the Malay singer-songwriter, speaks to me from within her home. What struck me instantly was her casual, confident disposition, perfectly set off by her head of bold, vivid yellow hair cropped into a pixie cut. In a loose, white T-shirt, she is snacking on a pack of roasted almonds. Her face, devoid of the graphic, daring makeup looks she often wears in public, is dominated by wide, round eyes, softly angular cheekbones and a pointy chin. Her speech is laden with Singaporean colloquialism and often ends in laughter, conveying a sense that the 26-year-old doesn’t take herself too seriously; one is instantly put at ease by her relaxed presence.

Another notable trait of Aisyah is how she likes to answer almost exclusively through anecdotes. She recounts instances to me as though she’s thinking out loud, her self-referential responses — “And I was like… And she was like…” — marked by a spontaneity in word choice and in her animated facial expressions.

This hyper-candidness might lull one to imagine that her career as a musician, which she embarked on at age 19, has been an easy course.