budaya

As usual, the issue of Malay identity continues to be a hot topic here in Malaysia. Just thought I'd share with you guys a couple of videos I found of YouTube that make for interesting observations.

In this clip from 1952, we hear R. Azmi singing in a jazzy, big band style identical to what was in vogue in Hollywood.
A couple of years later, we see a shift. Though male characters continued to dress like they were in Harlem, you could hear a starkly different sound. In this clip, not only do you not hear anything remotely jazzy (despite the jazz band depicted), the musical style was, if not almost like ramvong. Ramvong is a musical genre popular till today in the Indochinese region (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia), with whole channels devoted to it. Just in case you missed it, the female voice also grew a lot shriller.

For the modern Malaysian, the joget sequence, with the strange music and dance style, will likely appear very odd. You could even say that by today's standards, it is not very 'Malay'.
p/s the word budaya itself came from the sanskrit 'buddhi' meaning 'of intelligence'