 MAWI - or Asmawi Ani, 24 was a kampung boy before an opportunity landed him in the third edition Akademi Fantasia. I watched the elimination round when 20 prospective candidates vied for 12 places in the academy. From my own judgement, MAWI was among the better ones - of the boys. Of course, I, like the majority of Malaysians have only my ear to be the judge, my only training and experience in judging of the tempo, pitching, diction, voice colour, stage performance as well as interaction with the audience came from Akademi Fantasia I & II. And like MOST Malaysians who by CDs and cassettes of their favourite artists are NOT experts in music or voice control or chord control or vibrato, falsetto, soprano, rammification and the like. They see what they like, they hear what they like , they buy the CD or cassette. Simple as that.
I am not writing about Mawi specifically, but what has emerged out of the TsuMawi phemenomenon - as observed by me, of course. These phenomenon may have existed in the previous AFs but was less trasparent as compared to AF3. Here goes ....
A ROLE MODEL - Mawi somehow emerged as a role model. Even during the elimination show, my kids were WAITING for Mawi. I have not seen or heard him before this. I liked what I saw and thought he deserved a spot, contrary to the judgement of the juries. Why were they waiting for him? I found out later that he has a somewhat strong religious background (not to say that the rest did not ..), specifically that he was a former quran reciting champ ( or something like that ..). I even read in a Malay Daily that a five-year old boy was upset that he missed his Quran lesson that afternoon (reason not cited..) - for fear of not being able to be like Mawi. Has any Ustaz, teacher or parent been an inspiration like Mawi? Hmmm, Mawi works ... let it be. He conforms to the need of the young, there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, we should have more Mawis...
THE JUDGING - We keep hearing the jury and the trainers in the academy urging people to judge the AF3 candidates based on their talents. We are!! This talent is based the opinion of the untrained PUBLIC, from 5-year olds to as old as you can get (I don't know, do I ..?). So there you are, stop asking silly questions since you gave the power of vote and decision to the PUBLIC.
HUMAN NATURE - This edition also revealed the human nature of both public and experts. One jury came with the initial intention of 'bashing' Mawi, and that was said in public. Talk about biasness, when they should be impartial. A few openly admitted supporting certain students, citing that he or she is the best, when the power to decide who is the best is in the hands of the voters. The public too revealed the nature of humans, the nature of being judgemental and saying nasty and hurtful things.
So, just have fun, and enjoy the good things that come out of it. Aiyaa, tak tau lah ...
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