2018 started with caving & hiking in Mulu National Park with my family ⛰ And in mid-Jan had a group art exhibition in KL 🎨 February, Sri Lanka with Rubén 🌊 Released the first Kelabit-language music video 🌾 March, played 4 shows at the mighty SXSW in Texas USA 🇺🇸 Spent April in Mexico 🇲🇽 eating too much. Dived in freshwater caves. In April we lost our longhouse to fire 🔥 In May, acted for a telemovie for the first time (coming to screens in 2019) 📺 Balik Kampung to undi 🗳 Malaysia got a new government. Performed a whole lot more with my island brothers & sisters, in Iceland 🇮🇸 Spain 🇪🇸 Norway 🇳🇴, and Indonesia 🇮🇩 sharing the stories of our shared ancestors through music and indigenous languages 🎶 The bond that we have is as tight as blood ❣️August to Dec, I had more shows in Italy 🇮🇹 Malaysia 🇲🇾 Thailand 🇹🇭 UK 🇬🇧 and Taiwan 🇹🇼 In 2018, I had a live audience totalling around 100,000 beautiful people 👫👭👨👩👧👧 23,000 streams on Spotify 🎧 Over 1.3 million collective video views to date 🎥 It kinda blew my mind when I heard myself on BBC Radio 2, and NPR Music 📻 In October I cheered the loudest at mum’s PhD graduation 🎓 A compilation album I contributed to (Small Island Big Song), is dubbed “Best Album 2018” by Songlines 🌟 Received the Miri Mayor Tourism Award 🏆 Was part of a video campaign which was debuted at the General Assembly of the State Parties for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Paris 🤸🏽♂️This year I learnt the feeling of burnout. Negotiated my health 🤒 Nurtured my creative daemons ✍️ cocooned 🐛 I am just a vessel for these stories. We all are ⛵️ Thank you to everyone who is part of this journey with me. Thank you for your support and love 💕
