The Spark of Something New

Aniq Rusyaidi shares the achievements and challenges of his popstar aspiration with Aisyah Ridzham and how he learned to believe in his passion.

The experiences and opportunities that MusicVox gave Aniq helped him strengthen his confidence in his talent and passion. PHOTO CREDIT | ANIQ SULAIMAN

Singing and playing instruments are the two things that final-year-student Aniq Sulaiman,

19, has an unfaltering passion for.

It started with a school hall filled with 100 primary six students and their parents watching a graduation party performance.

Aniq says: “The feeling of being on stage was amazing and I felt so alive.”

At age 12, he discovered how much he loved being on stage performing and wanted to work towards his dream. His dream to be a popstar.

It sounds more like a child’s phase instead of a career to work towards but this did not stop Aniq from pursuing his childhood passion.

In secondary school, he took Music as a O-level subject where he was able to figure out how serious he was about pursuing it as a career. Aniq knew that the music industry is unpredictable and that “you either make it or not and even with qualifications… there is no guarantee [that] you can make a decent living out of it.”

The struggle in believing in your talent or that your passion will be enough to make a name for yourself is a challenge far too familiar for Aniq.

Aniq described his struggle as his fear of falling into the Dunning-Kruger effect, where someone wrongly overestimates their ability. As much as he was confident in his passion and his abilities in singing and playing instruments, he was afraid that his confidence was wrongly placed.

In times like this, it is important to have someone to bring you up. When you lose belief in yourself, your friends will help you realise your worth and how far you have come to not back down in times of struggle.

Now at 19, Aniq won third place in Singapore’s Got Talent and often plays song covers for gigs at community areas such as Our Tampines Hub and Heartbeat@Bedok.

His most recent achievement is his original composed song We Thank You. A song that calls out to Singaporeans to be strong for our nation that was first performed at the Appreciating NSmen Video Competition 2019 Award Ceremony.

In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, the song regained publicity through the ST Singalong Challenge, as a form of dedication to Singapore’s front liners. Aniq also expressed his hope for it to become a National Day Parade theme song for 2020.

In an ideal world, it would only take dedication and hard work for us to achieve our ambitions. That doesn't seem to be the case.

The music industry in Singapore is small but growing. Artists such as Jasmine Sokko, Fariz Jabba have left their marks on our independent industry in their respective genres, which further emphasizes the need to bring something new if you want to succeed in the industry.

This led to the incorporation of Mandarin songs into his music sets. As a Malay Singaporean performer, Aniq decided that the covers of songs such as Xiu Lian Ai Qing (Practice Love) by JJ Lin and Ni Hao Bu Hao (How Have You Been?) by Eric Chou, would appeal to the Singaporean public, which is majority Chinese.

Although he does not learn Mandarin in school, the “painstaking process of reading the Romanization and listening to the song back and forth” has helped him memorize through muscle memory.

Aniq emphasized the importance to diversify his skills to improve himself to help gain an edge in the industry.

“I’m being smart and practical about it,” he says. Having learnt skills that improve his other skills along the way allows him to wholeheartedly pursue his passion in the Music industry while preparing backup plans just in case.

The future is uncertain but the possibilities are endless. Passion may not be enough to make your way to the top but the journey of believing and working hard to pursue something you love makes it worthwhile.