Malaysia has the music. Zamaera wants the world to hear it at SXSW

When Malaysian rapper Zamaera hit send on an email to South by Southwest’s (SXSW) music team in mid-December, she had already been told she was returning to Austin as a showcasing artist. What she wanted was bigger: a stage for Malaysia, the kind Japan, Taiwan and Britain already had at the US music festival. “They have a stage … for Japan. Taiwan already has a stage … even the UK and Germany,” the 31-year-old rapper, born Sharifah Zamaera, told This Week in Asia in an exclusive interview. S...

By Iman Muttaqin Yusof