LYIA META is one of the very few local musicians who found recognition beyond the pub scene after winning international awards such as the World Music Artist of the Year award in 2018 and the Global Music Award 2019.
She was supposed to attend the International Portuguese Music Awards recently, but was unable to do so due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
When asked if her career had changed since winning the awards Lyia said: “It has not changed drastically, [but] it has changed in some ways in how people perceive me. There are a lot of independent musicians out there who are really mucking it out. They come out with their own music but not a lot of places let them perform their music at all.
“When you perform in pubs, they don’t want to hear your original music. I used to have people say that to me before I won the awards. After winning them, some people actually came to see me sing my original songs.
“Where pay is concerned, I may be paid a little bit more, but there is not much of a difference. I would like to think of myself as the flag bearer of the average pub musician who has been mucking about in pubs for years. I have managed to come out of it and do my own stuff and get recognised for it.”
Though she still performs at pubs, she hopes to inspire others to do what she did and put their music out there for the world to enjoy.
“You don’t even have to do it outside the country, you can do it here. You just have to find a way to do it. Not everybody’s market is abroad.”
She is also a visual artist, something other musicians such as Ronnie Wood, David Bowie, Yusof Islam and Bob Dylan are known for as well.
Her love for music and art stems from her father who used to work in the civil service (many government departments had bands consisting of members of their staff) and was a member of Kilat Band, which was popular in its era.
He was also an avid painter who made a living painting at popular landmarks around Malacca.
She said when she and her siblings were in pre-school, they would draw on whatever scraps of paper they could find.
However, it was not a field she thought of pursuing. So she concentrated on her music instead.
She did, however, get requests from the hotels where she worked to paint backdrops for their stage or the huge Christmas decorations that cover the facade of the hotel.
“Professionally I decided [that] when my son turned a certain age I could pursue my art without my priorities shifting and without feeling guilty that I was not focusing on him.”
Prior to this, painting was something she did more as a hobby.
Her first exhibit was in 2016 and it came out around the same time as her first EP.
“I am a singer-songwriter. I can write a lot of things down on paper, and I can express myself when I record it. But there are nuances that you can’t put into words. It might become too heavy and affect the song itself, making it too sad. What I cannot put into my music goes into my art. That is my way of expressing myself.
“Some people who saw my first exhibit, said it was very beautiful, but very painful. I didn’t see it as painful. I saw it as something I drew. If you listen to the EP and see the exhibition, you might see a connection there.”
Lyia only started working on huge canvas pieces in 2016 and has had a few exhibitions since. She uses any medium she can get her hands on, including chalk and marker pen.
“There is a piece of me that goes into my work almost to the point that it is difficult for me to part with, a lot of the time. There is one piece (I haven’t shown it yet) that took me two years to complete. I did it with a ten-cent blade.
“What I am trying to say is that a lot of thought, time and also emotion goes into my paintings. When I start on a piece, I cannot stop working on it until it reaches a point where I have exorcised everything that is in me. If what is in my head can’t be translated on canvas, then I can’t rest at all.”
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