Poodien’s street stencil works are born from an awareness of racism, first sparked by the punk subculture which offered the alternative knowledge missing from public schools. He emphasizes that racism is not mere individual hatred, but a systemic and structural force deeply embedded in post-colonial laws and power frameworks. His...
Malaysian punk godfather Joe Kidd in his everyday surroundings in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur (1993) Founded by Malaysian punk pioneer and cultural historian Joe Kidd, The Ricecooker Archives is a community that explores and shares the history of rock’n’roll in Southeast Asia. Dedicated to being a “Southeast Asian Rock’n’Roll Treasury,” focused...
Malaysia, a nation where diverse ethnicities, languages, and cultures coexist. We are accustomed to emphasizing harmony and tolerance among different ethnic groups in our daily lives, mutually influencing each other in culture and even language. However, we seldom pause to consider: How do these different sounds intersect in music? What...
Music subcultures and countercultures have always been scapegoated by politicians in Malaysia for political mileage since the early 1970s. The formula of conjuring mediated moral panics that puts the sole blame of Malaysian society’s ills on rock bands and rock culture has been so commonplace and successful that this trend...
Since the late 1970s, a burgeoning sonic rebellion has echoed beyond the fringes of Malaysian mainstream society. On the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, groups of Malay youth sporting Mohawk hairstyles and Doc Martens would gather every weekend at the Kuala Terengganu central bus station. Here, they’d trade their coveted...