Cover Story: Unravelling the art of being Aina Abdul

Aina Abdul has been a household name in music for about a decade now — but what makes her different is her ability to be vulnerable, whether it’s through her performances, her poignant songwriting, or her eccentric fashion sense.

There’s nothing quite like watching Aina Abdul in motion — and I don’t mean when she’s belting out ballads at her show-stopping performances, or brandishing her beautiful (albeit seemingly outrageous) outfits. I’m referring to the rhythm with which she naturally moves. She is a free bird on the set of our cover shoot, flitting about the studio as the camera captures her. There is very little direction required for someone like Aina Abdul, a luminary in the world of showbiz. She’s been in the deep of it for long enough that we let her take the reins.

Aina, with her face encircled by flower petals for her close-up (a callback to her iconic avant-garde Behati look at the Anugerah Bintang Popular Berita Harian red carpet that broke the Internet), is grinning when we gush about how flawlessly her first shots turned out. Then as soon as the camera’s all geared up again, she quickly schools her expression back to that of a fierce, fashion-forward diva. But a ‘diva’ Aina is not. She’s open to suggestions for improvements and trying out the most interesting poses, and she keeps her composure through the long afternoon — all while nursing a very sniffly cold.

When Aina released her debut album Imaji back in late October, my first thought was, Finally. ‘Aina Abdul’ is not a name that goes unnoticed, and I’ve seen her floating around the headlines for so long now that it genuinely shocked me to learn this is her first full-length album. Aina has always possessed that sought-after star quality most artists would envy — but having gotten her start a lot later in life, she handles her ever-growing fame with grace.

Imaji marks the culmination of Aina’s entire career; a testament to the years that made her the singer-songwriter she is today. “I wanted to take people on the journey of getting to know me,” she opens up. “‘Imaji’ is actually a word that I found while I was still completing the album. I was looking for a name that would sound cool and innovative for the album and found this word — it originates from an Indonesian word. It means something that you see beyond your eyes, and something that you hear beyond your ears. Basically, something that you can envision beyond just the lyrics or visuals.”

Everything Aina does is by design. Like a mastermind, she likes to lay the groundwork for her fans to unravel, whether it’s in her song lyrics or her fashion sense. “I’m a Scorpio, so I like mysterious stuff,” she says, laughing. “I like to be quiet but also surprise people.” I’ve spent the last week listening to the album. Sonically, it embodies Aina’s existing oeuvre (which has of course established her as our vocal powerhouse) but the album’s lyrics are a clear, mature reflection of her journey. Imaji opens with its title track, and right off the bat, it stuns, setting the tone for the rest of the album. As soon as I’ve picked up my jaw from the floor, I already have that indelible bridge — I know my worth, and you can’t dictate me — memorised.

“Throughout all these years, people know me mostly from the fashion that I portray, apart from my vocals, and my songs,” Aina says. “I don’t want people to just label me as something like, ‘Oh, Aina Abdul? Yeah, she’s going to wear something pelik-pelik [weird].’ I’m trying to tell people that behind all these layers, there’s also a girl who’s writing songs about the simple stuff like heartbreak and love, and she’s just like everybody else. She’s just a little bit ‘extra’ when it comes to appearances. But she’s still just a normal girl. I hope that my fans get that message from me.”

Another chance to shine

Long before she became known for her eccentric fashion sense — before she’d made a big name for herself in the world of music — Aina Abdul was simply ‘just Aina’. (Today, she is with Aina Abdul Entertainment, her own label, which she and her team built from the ground up five years ago.) But even as ‘just Aina’, she already knew that this was the dream. Charmed by the glitz of it since she was a child, she finally got her first big break as an entertainer on the TV music show Mentor Legend in 2014 — where she placed second after being mentored by the queen of rock herself, Ella.

But the success did not happen overnight. “I was waiting for my song,” Aina tells me, and I sense the weight this sentence would come to hold. “I thought the formula was like, ‘I’m a singer, so I know where I’m going.’ I felt I was going to be one of those power ballad singers — that was the thinking and the mindset I had. But as I was waiting for the perfect song, it didn’t come to me. I continued learning instruments, teaching myself guitar and piano through YouTube.”

After having left UCSI University post-Foundation in Music, Aina found herself returning to finish her degree. “I didn’t have anything else to back me up at the time,” she shares, “and none of my family members are into music — everyone was in the education line. So I continued my degree, and that was when I was introduced to many musicians.”

This was also when Aina decided that if the song wouldn’t come to her, she would have to write it herself. “The first song I wrote was an English song called ‘Reminiscing’,” she says. “It was a slow progress for me, I actually really struggled to get the song recognised.” Then after about four years writing more English songs, a friend prompted her to try writing in Malay. “It’s not that I didn’t want to write Malay songs,” she went on with a sigh. “It’s more that I was kind of heartbroken by the Malay mainstream industry and everything, you know? I felt like they didn’t want to appreciate me. Yeah, I had that kind of mindset back then. And all my friends at UCSI University were Chinese; I was the only Malay student there, so I was very comfortable with that kind of life. And I think that was my ‘problem’ — I was too comfortable with my own situation.”

She put herself to the challenge, and thus, her-first ever hit single “Sumpah” was born. “Sumpah” not only established Aina as the power ballad singer she always wanted to be, her message as an artist was also clearly made known: this was the story of heartbreak, and this was one woman’s comeback.

How to ‘build’ an icon

What’s great about the slow progress to success is that Aina got to discover herself before the rest of the nation did. She took the extra time to learn exactly what she liked and didn’t like; she got to craft her own sound and identity in the music industry so that now, at 30, no one would be able to doubt exactly what ‘the style of Aina Abdul’ means. She has more than earned her superstar status when she debuted at Anugerah Juara Lagu (AJL) 34.

“I think what’s become easier now is that I’m more clear with my direction,” she says, when I ask her to pinpoint something that she’s mastered which she hadn’t, say, four years ago. “I don’t really spend as much time in the recording studio as I did before. Maybe because I already know that I don’t really have the patience to sort of brainstorm for a long time. I’d rather be with myself and figure out everything that I want to do before I meet with my sound engineer. I’m more comfortable working like that, I don’t like to have people waiting for me.”

Since she first discovered the wonders of songwriting, Aina has dived deep into it. As she shares the creative process behind Imaji with me, I realise she is a writer through and through — in fact, the album was a writing challenge she put herself to, to be able to pen 14 songs within one year. Over the course of writing, the album went from 14 songs to 12, and then 10, then back to 12. And then with just two months to the album’s release, Aina penned yet another two songs.

I quietly express my excitement for her sophomore album, already thinking about how it could top the gravity that Imaji possesses — the expectations are boundless. But despite what gets churned out at the studio, the actual studio (as Aina puts it) is a really humble space. “It’s a home studio,” she says, and I don’t hide my surprise. “It was my teacher’s house — he’s a teacher, but he’s also very passionate about music — and he had this storeroom that he turned into a studio. So, it’s really small. There’s a computer and a keyboard, and my sound engineer would sit in the middle. And right next to him would be me, with my microphone. It’s minimal, but I’m really proud of how it turned out, because we know how we started in the beginning. Some people don’t really pay attention to these things, but for me, I’m like a freak when it comes to the gadgets I use. And over the years, I’ve ‘completed’ my collection — I have all the tools I need, and I’m comfortable with my surroundings.”

Outside of the studio, Aina Abdul the megastar emerges. Less than a month after Imaji was released, Aina held ‘A Night With Aina Abdul 3.0’, the third instalment of her yearly live performances, and her first concert of that large scale. The concert was held in Axiata Arena Bukit Jalil and opened its doors to 10,000 of her devoted fans.

“It was a really, really life-changing experience,” Aina says, a coy smile in place, “especially going from 1.0 to 2.0, and now 3.0 — it was huge. Alhamdulillah, I didn’t sangka [expect] that we could make it a full house, but we did it. From there, I can see how I’ve grown, personally, as ‘Aina Abdul’. That’s what I like, to see the growth. And I feel like my fans, they are very detailed. Those who have followed me from the beginning, I hope they can find inspiration from it and apply it to their own field; not necessarily in music. I love to hear their stories. Sometimes I get to meet them and they would tell me how my experience has helped them in certain ways in their lives. I don’t know how but it’s just crazy.”

“In particular, this year, I got to meet Ziana Zain a lot and came to know her up close and personally,” she shares. “And I feel like when I’m older, I want to be like her. I met a lot of more senior artists, but getting to know Ziana Zain was really inspiring. I still remember the first encounter that I had with her — it was through a Raya program, and she was sitting next to me. I said, ‘Hi, Kak Ziana Zain.’ And she was like, ‘Oh, you are Aina Abdul!’ Then she held my hand and started saying, ‘Oh, I love your song, [“Sumpah”].’ And she cried. I was so shocked when she cried! I thought, ‘Did I salah cakap [say the wrong thing] or something?’

But she was just giving her thoughts; she said that my song really made her feel. She’s had her own personal journey as well which I think was very difficult, so the song kind of uplifted her. And I was very happy that it spoke to her in a certain way. I got to know her more and more and she’s made me feel welcomed, appreciated. She’d know if I was nervous at events and stuff, and she would always just give me a pat or something to make me feel comfortable.”

And if that’s not telling enough, Aina’s success has most recently taken her across international borders. With her original song, “Kasih Merintih”, she ventured into the Indonesian film industry for Hanung Bramantyo’s latest horror feature, Trinil: Kembalikan Tubuhku.

“That one was a little bit different in terms of process, because I had to write a song based on something,” Aina says. “I have to sort of do my own homework, and there’s a lot of going back and forth — the thought process, the sound, the journey of the song. But I’m also really grateful, because the production gave me a lot of freedom with how long I could take to finish the song and everything. It was also a new challenge for me, because the film is a horror — and the setting is 70s, 80s. So, I had to change my sound, make it a bit more ‘oldies’.

And I’ve never done any classic songs before! I remember when I wrote the song, for two whole weeks I didn’t listen to any pop songs.” She laughs. “I went full-on P. Ramlee, Saloma, and all the old-time singers; even singers from Indonesia, too. I really put myself in that zone to make sure that the ‘mood’ would come. It was also kind of scary at the time, you know? I mean, here I am writing for a horror movie, and I’m in my own house, and most of the songs I was listening to, the singers have passed away. But it was also a really fun environment to work in. I was nervous to work with the director at first — Mas Hanung, he’s really famous, he directed Surga Yang Tak Dirindukan 2, Ayat Ayat Cinta, all those hit movies in Indonesia. But he and the producers really liked the song, so I was really happy.”

Finding not what’s common, but what is unique

Of course, it’s impossible to talk of the illustrious Aina Abdul and not dwell on her unconventional fashion sense. Besides her vocals, Aina’s name makes the headlines for her many looks — often dubbed ‘controversial’ and ‘outrageous’. But according to Aina, it is all in the name of art. It is simply her chosen form of expression; her means of communicating with her fans and, as the saying goes, ‘The girls who get it, get it.’

“Actually, similar to my songwriting journey, I didn’t start with being a ‘fashion geek’ or something, you know?” Aina admits. “When I got to be in the music industry again with “Sumpah” and then later with Anugerah Juara Lagu, that was when I thought, ‘Oh, I have to be different.’ Because at the time, when I was being interviewed by reporters, the one question that they would ask was always, ‘Apa kelainan Aina? [What makes Aina different?]’ And I didn’t know how to answer that. It got to a point where I was like, ‘Do I have a kelainan?’ I even asked myself that.

“So, I talked to my team after that — I know I don’t have the best ‘fashion body’ in the world, but I knew that I loved fashion,” she goes on, laughing. “I love to be in front of the camera. And I knew some different poses. I was introduced to my stylist, Abu [Shaef Hamza]. He’s my permanent stylist now. He really understands me and knows how to channel my inner self, my alter ego. At the time, I didn’t know how to be ‘fashionable’ but I knew that I wanted to relate my fashion with the songs, my songs that I put out. And that’s how I started, just connecting all the dots and giving Easter eggs in fashion to link back to my performances, and my fans can do their ‘work’ with it. I like to make people think in that sense.”

Alas, who can forget the iconic white dress drenched in blood during Aina’s performance at AJL 34? It got a lot of attention — both good and bad — but at the end of the day, it was meant to be symbolic. “Sumpah” is about heartbreak after all, and Aina chose to express it most viscerally.

“For ‘Aina Abdul’, she is in her best element when she is vulnerable,” she muses. The way she says it is so raw and poignant that I know it will stick with me. “When she channels her ‘failing’ moments and turns them into something uplifting, that’s when she’s at her strongest. The best way for me to flow creatively, whether through music or fashion, is when I choose to be vulnerable.”

This unabashed vulnerability — plus her courageous fashion sense — has more often than not branded her synonymous with Lady Gaga, whom Aina has previously counted among her influences. It is unsurprising then that her look at AJL 36 two years later, where came onstage as a ‘blooming flower’ once again sparked buzzy conversation.

“After AJL, when I realised I’ve gotten a lot of recognition through my art and my performances, I thought, ‘Oh, this seems like it’s gonna work.’ So, I feel like I have to continue this. It makes people talk, and that’s a good thing. And at the time I wasn’t really ‘young’, you know. I was already 27. Then I got introduced to Behati as well. Kel Wen and I, we work really, really well together. I think it’s because he’s also a Scorpio like me. I feel really lucky to be introduced to Behati, and Melinda Looi too; designers who understand my vision and try to interpret it. They’re really the bigger force behind me that makes the looks ‘viral’, so to say. I feel like I’ve finally found my footing in the industry. I think I can finally answer people when they ask me, ‘Apa kelainan Aina?’ I can finally answer that after so many years.”

editor-in-chief MARTIN TEO | interview PUTERI YASMIN SURAYA | styled by ARDI IDEWANI | assisted by IZZATI SAADIN | photography EDMUND LEE / ONE3FOUR STUDIO | videography SIMON TAN & JACKIE MAH | makeup SAHIR SABRI | hijab styling NAZLIVINGASTYLE | wardrobe BEHATI, COACH & LULULEMON | jewellery SWAROVSKI

Find out more about AINA ABDUL in the latest issue of LSA Digital Cover Vol. 016 HERE.