BY SHAMEETA

“In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political

I must listen to the birds

and in order to hear the birds

the warplanes must be silent.”

― Marwan Makhoul

I came across the Boiler Room in Kuala Lumpur post after seeing another Malaysian artist repost it on their Instagram stories. I was shocked as I immediately caught Shelhiel’s name on the poster, someone I have been following for a few years now and whose work I have consistently enjoyed. It was, like many others, how I also learned Jax Jones is Malaysian. I then scanned the caption, which started off with a “Salam Sejahtera”. How dissonant. 

Boiler Room posted about their Kuala Lumpur event, named after Shelhiel’s ‘Kelab Durian’, a little over a week ago. Marking its second appearance in Malaysia, with the first being at Good Vibes Festival back in 2019, the event is currently slated for the 20th November, and like many of their other shows, is invite only. The night is hosted by both local and diaspora artists and DJs including Jax Jones, Shelhiel, DJ KOTE LEMBU, Northern Anthem, I-SKY and otakotak, a collaborative project between Shelhiel and Mulan Theory. The UglyMalaysiana-esque poster design with the stage names of these DJs and their music are altogether brash, charming and familiar. Electronic music has largely remained in the margins of mainstream music in Malaysia, but with the Boiler Room endorsement marks perhaps a new wave of the genre here. 

The original post on Boiler Room was met by a shock of frustrated people across the scene, inundated with boycott-related comments along with numerous independent music and events-related organisations and spaces calling them out. The “Free Palestine” comments were scattered all over, to the point Boiler Room had to turn off the post’s comment section. As a response, a Boiler Room alternative has also been set up by event spaces such as fono, Triptyk and Scream Bloody Bar called ‘Spoiler Room’. In their announcement, the Spoiler Room organisers affirmed to stop telling them to not politicise underground music “when underground music IS political.” At the time of this writing, hip hop collective SLATAN had just announced its decision to pull out from the event, stating that the withdrawal “should not be read as a form of rejection; rather, it reflects the different realities and responsibilities that each artist must navigate within this ecosystem.” No matter how many languages Boiler Room fit in their caption, it is clear that there is significant unwelcome of the event to Malaysia given that it comes at the expense of an ongoing genocide against Palestinians.

Boiler Room is a music broadcaster, with events held all over the world, often within smaller, “non-mainstream” music communities, on the premise of “championing” them. Despite being for non-mainstream work, the company must be profitable, evidenced more so by American global investment firm KKR’s acquisition of them. Their profitability exemplifies the social capital that can be gained from marginalised aesthetics and communities they proclaim to champion, to make visible to a bigger audience. There is an economy on being niche, and since corporate diversity began, an economy on being on some sort of margin; an economy that taps into perhaps a primordial yet also hyper-21st-century desire of wanting to be unique. When marginalisation becomes commodified as such, communities risk being co-opted by and complicit with perpetrators of violence who have shown us time and time again they do not fundamentally care about liberation from colonial powers. They instead embody colonial practices, such as the extractivist nature of Boiler Room events hidden under the guise of celebrating underground music communities and being counter-cultural. 

When KKR’s Superstruct Entertainment acquired Boiler Room in January this year, the relationships between a British broadcasting company hosting events in the Global South are further complicated as Boiler Room’s profits become KKR’s, a company linked to Israeli real estate and military. Boiler Room gets to accumulate monetary and social capital from their events in the name of community and some associated image of radicality, to then use these forms of capital to continue enabling and furthering the genocide of Palestinians. 

The reality that the independent music scene in Malaysia has had to grapple with for so long is that we do not have the luxury of being financed. So when a long-standing institution like Boiler Room drops by Kuala Lumpur, it’s easy for the company to sweep their wings across the city, turn them over and see who gets caught, or rather, clings onto in between the feathers. The state of creative pursuits, even more so independent ones, are in constant threat and in conflict with broader pervasive institutions and their policing. 

But, it’s lazy and a cop out to excuse participation with Boiler Room because the booked acts need the audience and, subsequently, income that Boiler Room promises. We should question if this is the sort of visibility we are okay with and welcome for independent music in Malaysia, for both creators and audiences. Epistemologically, the visibility one can gain from participating in a Boiler Room event is by virtue of them taking the role of “discoverer” to fundamentally benefit their business and branding. Sure, Boiler Room can put you on the map alongside famous names like Kaytranada, Charli xcx and ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U, with possibly viral moments once the set gets broadcasted, but it’s a map that still holds Western sight as the benchmark of success, and values what they deem cool enough. If the ultimate goal is to put Malaysia on the map, then is this really what Malaysian independent music needs?

Sound has also always been political, in perpetrating violence and as acts of resistance. Recall Marwan Makhoul’s words: “in order to hear the birds, the warplanes must be silent.” Or in Khaled Juma’s poem, ‘Oh Rascal Children of Gaza’, which opens with the lines: “Oh, rascal children of Gaza, you who constantly disturbed me with your screams under my window.” Where we make and connect with music matters just as much as where we choose not to. By performing and attending the Boiler Room set, it reinforces the position Boiler Room holds as a business that profits off of music and its power within communities to partner with Israel and enable their committing of the ongoing genocide against Palestinians. Our music community can hold a lot more power against such colonial-capitalist violence when we stop listening to music blasted through corrupted speakers, and instead, look towards rebuilding our own sound systems.

The most potent feature of the indie music scene is the possibilities it offers us; to not have to be bound by the logics and parameters of colonial capitalist practices that only promise gains for some while harming others, and in this case, complicity with the Palestinian genocide. More and more, we see institutions within the music ecosystem continuously fail both musicians and listeners. Spotify barely pays royalties and now runs Donald Trump-aligned ads while also investing in military defence company. Ticketmaster and LiveNation get away with charging stupid amounts of money which artists themselves are not always aligned with. Universal Music Malaysia will throw their acts under the bus instead of standing up against sexist moral policing. It’s everywhere and hellbent on changing the way we relate to music. It has normalised big major wins for only a handful in music globally. It has made us dependent on the convenience of participating in their systems which, by design, hides all the complexities and harms perpetuated in music making and listening. 

Independent music offers a way out of this. It offers us the tools to imagine better, to not capitulate to what fascism demands of creativity. But this requires friction and slowness. To continuously reflect on how music is produced and listened to. It will be about creating music ecosystems that centres care alongside transgressing capitalism. Part of this is holding the artists participating in genocide-complicit entities accountable, and creating ground-up alternatives that do not repeat such practices. We see it now with the Spoiler Room event being organised on the same day as an alternative, along with an open letter by cosigned by creatives and concerned individuals calling out the artwashing of genocide and to boycott the Boiler Room event. We have the power to channel our energy and resources into such alternatives. Collaborating with washed out posers like Boiler Room will not get Malaysia’s independent music anywhere, it only reiterates how weak the politics of some within the space are.

Shameeta is a casual writer from Ipoh. Besides music, her interests include surfing through music archives, reading and being in nature.