Local Chinese Recorded Music and the Imagination of Malayan Multiculturalism in Singapore, 1950s and 1960s

Multiculturalism has been an inherent concept for the Singapore state to facilitate interracial relations since independence in 1965. Recent scholarship revisits the cross-ethnic cultural interactions emerging from the 1950s anti-colonial movements, albeit focusing on activities of the Chinese intellectuals amidst post-war socio-political transitions and risked overlooking the everyday experiences of the general population. Engaging with the extant discussions, this article explores how the local Chinese recorded music in 1950s and 1960s Singapore contributed to the imagination of Malayan multiculturalism, through the (re)presentations of local conditions and lived experiences. Apart from using Hokkien and colloquial expressions of the heterogeneous Chinese population, the recorded repertoire also consisted of a newly emerged hybrid music form, which drew elements from Malay music melodies and vocabularies, before infusing and (re)creating them with the Mandarin Chinese lyrics. Echoing David Wang Der-wei’s call to understand the Sinophone in relation to its entanglement with the Xenophone, this article foregrounds the hybridity and trans-ethnic cultural interactions in the local Chinese recorded music, giving agency to both Sinitic and non-Sinitic languages and cultures. Expanding on the meagre studies of Sinophone music, this article listens to the malleability of a sonic Chineseness.