In the past, there have been protests against him and pictures of him burned. They are many references, so they defend me,” he said. They can look into my purpose and my motive through my music and my film. I have come out with a lot of different music videos and content. “I guess this is because the world is changing, and people can do research by themselves. However, the multi-hyphenate Namewee – who can call himself a singer, songwriter, composer, scriptwriter, director and actor, among other things – believes that Malaysians are more accepting of him these days. For the past 12 years, there has been a lot of bad news about me,” he said. You can say that they didn’t like me before because of all the controversies. The compulsory screening scheme compels cinemas to give a minimum amount of airtime to local movies as a means of supporting the industry. (The film was eventually postponed to this year because of the pandemic.) Namewee is no stranger to controversy, which was why he recalled being surprised when his latest movie received compulsory screening status from Malaysia’s Film Development Corporation (Finas) last year. The movie, which opened on Jan 27 and is also showing in Singapore and Brunei, is the prequel to 2011's Nasi Lemak 2.0, which was a box office hit in Malaysia. Namewee is now back in Malaysia to promote his movie Nasi Lemak 1.0, where he incidentally stars as a cook. You could find some similar ingredients. I improved my cooking a lot in Taiwan.' “You needed to go to some Indonesian or Vietnamese shop in Taiwan. The hardest part to cook Malaysian food was finding the ingredients,' he recalled. At that time there was no Malaysian food (there), unlike now. He would later improve on his cooking skills when he went to Taiwan to study mass communications. Namewee, whose real name is Wee Meng Chee, shared how he learned to cook by watching his mother when he was younger.

The level of the drum and piano must be balanced. Then when you determine when you want to put in the vegetables and how big the fire will be,' the 38-year-old told CNA Lifestyle in an interview in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday (Jan 25).

For me cooking and making music are the same thing. If Namewee hadn’t been cooking up a storm with his controversial music videos, songs, or films, he reckons he'd be cooking up a storm in the kitchen for a living instead.

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