LSA100: If Jaclyn Victor says the time for ‘glory’ is now, best believe it is

100 Malaysians, 100 Milestones – LSA100 this year spotlights singing legend Jaclyn Victor, now in the twentieth year of her career and fresh from her first-ever solo concert. With a brand new album brewing (after a decade!), we’re about to see a new era for Jaclyn Victor as she fully embraces the gift that she has.

If there’s someone on our LSA100 line-up who needs no formal introduction, it’s Jaclyn Victor. Since she first joined Malaysian Idol back in 2004 — and became its inaugural champion — her singing career soared to the skies. She has been lovingly dubbed “Malaysia’s Whitney Houston” by fans, or “Malaysia’s Fantasia Barrino” (who had also won American Idol in that same year). In other words, she is something of a legend.

But the Jaclyn Victor that walks into the studio this overcast afternoon is just Jac, stripped back from all the glitz and the glam and the glory. Underneath all of that, you can still find the girl from Kepong who perhaps lacked the confidence that she has spent the last twenty years building in herself.

“I think people often forget that we are in an industry where you could be up today and down tomorrow,” Jaclyn muses. “Nothing is actually certain. I’m reminded that in a blink of an eye, I could lose it all. But I’m not trying to be who I am because I don’t want to lose it all, you know? I’m just grateful. People ask me all the time, like, ‘How come you’ve not changed?’ or ‘How come the fame hasn’t changed you?’ I’m in it not for all that. I’m in it because I love singing, and I love what I’m doing.”

Her same modest and unassuming nature reveals itself again when I approach the matter at hand: her first-ever solo concert, held just a month ago at Zepp Kuala Lumpur. And the question I thrust upon Jaclyn is: exactly how is this the first time she’s held a solo concert in the twenty years of her iconic career?! As I would soon learn, it’s all about timing. Just like how the planets align to create a cosmic event, this to Jaclyn feels like a milestone worth going all out for.

She recounts the time she tried out for Golden Teen Search, almost a decade before Malaysian Idol. She hadn’t yet learned to recognise the sheer talent that lies within her — she’d put too much pressure on herself before she knew what it meant. “I was 17 or 18, and I was totally clueless,” she says, laughing now at the memory. “So, the program was recorded live. We had a guest singer who, the minute she started singing, was like, ‘Ah, buat lagi sekali lah.’ So when it came to my turn — and I’m, like, very hard on myself, right? So I sang one or two words, and I did the same thing! Like, ‘Can you start again?’ They all looked at me and they said, ‘We’re gonna have to disqualify you.’ But it’s okay. I always believe that it was not my time.”

Fear is still a factor today, though not as intense. She admits that part of the reason for the delay is her fear that nobody will show up to the concert — which, I say aloud: That’s crazy. But also, besides it being twenty years and a “real reason to celebrate”, Jaclyn says that it’s just about where she is in life as a person: “I’ve grown, I’ve matured.”

“There’s something that Madonna said, about recreating yourself,” she also says to me. “Like, reinventing yourself.” It’s a great quote that she slips into our chat, because she’s also been spending the past year working on a new album. The first single off of it is already out, but here’s the most exciting part that she reveals — we’re getting a re-recording of her hit song “Gemilang”, now in English. As a way to sum up her long-reigning career, it is fittingly titled “Glorious”.

It’s wild to think that this is your first-ever solo concert, seeing as you are such a legend in Malaysian’s hearts for the past 20 years. What made you feel that this is the right time for a solo concert?

So, the backstory is just the fear of no one turning up. Like, the fear of something that you really want getting cancelled or something, I don’t know. (laughs) I am my own worst enemy. But I think with Gegar Vaganza 9, and then the All Star Gegar Vaganza, plus the 20-year thing coming when it did — I just suddenly felt like, ‘You know what? Let’s just do it. Yeah, I think I’m ready now.’ And besides it being twenty years and a real reason to celebrate, it’s also just about where I am in life as a person. I think I’ve grown, I’ve matured. Just berserah lah. Just surrender. Let’s just do it. I’m usually quite… kalut.

But it actually surprised me how calm I was, even with a lot of problems. My thing was, let’s focus on what matters — which is my voice holding up. I think I sang for almost three hours. And I didn’t drop the key. It was all in the original key — which, you know, all my songs are high as the heavens. (laughs) I’m thankful that it all went well, and what I could control went well. I don’t know if that comes with age. I just let loose, let go, just let it flow. Which is quite good lah in the end for me. I couldn’t believe it when we got to it. We got to, like, one song where it clicked for me like, ‘Wait a minute, this is the second last song and my voice is still holding up.’ So yeah, I was really happy.

At the concert, you announced that you’ll be releasing a full studio album in a few weeks. It will be your first full-length album in a decade! Can you tell us a little bit more about it?

‘Cause we’re in a season of singles, I had no plans to release an album. But I again thought, 20 years… this is to celebrate the milestone and everything. It’s just different. People always like to put a label on me and say, “She sings ballads the best.” So I’ve tried in the past to mix it up a bit, do a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I think in this album — and also what I feel — it’s like, you can maintain who you are and your identity, and go into a different place musically. So just because the trend of music is Billie Eilish, you’re not gonna find me singing like Billie Eilish. Do you know what I mean? I always say you should always not run away from who you actually are. People know you for this. So your music can change, but you can still stay who you are. So yeah, I’m excited about it. We re-recorded “Gemilang” in English, and I’m really pleased with that one. There’s been a lot of work happening quietly. I recorded the whole album in New York.

Really?! Tell us more about it!

Oh, just that I have friends who are musicians. They were here and then they found their way to New York. So they’ve been in New York for about ten years now. We are really good friends and they really supported me throughout Gegar Vaganza and stuff. And I’ve known them for a long time. But we really got close during Gegar Vaganza and we were just talking one day, and the idea came up for the concert. I thought, ‘Okay, why don’t we try to do some music?’ I already released one last year with them, and I liked how it went. So this year, we just did it lah. The idea was eight songs, and then I thought, ‘You know what, if you’re gonna put on an album, why not make it 10?’ And we re-recorded “Gemilang”. And whatever we could come up with, we did. And I like it also because it’s personal to me, in the sense that because they’re good friends. They listened to my whining and whinging and whatever. So, they kind of also wanted to inject that into the song. It’s not just me singing something for the sake of singing. It was, in a way, specifically written for me as well. So, it’s nice. It all happened very smoothly. I’m really excited about it.

You mentioned staying true to yourself and everything, you know, and 20 years is a long time. You’ve managed to be very successful and you continue to make us proud throughout the years. How do you stay grounded through it all and ensure that your passion for singing continues to shine in that way?

The passion for singing has always been there. Always, always been there. That’s something I just do without even thinking. So, if God says, “Okay, you’re done now, you can just shut up now.” Then I will stop. (laughs) But I think when you’re given something like that, you have to put it to use. It’s like a muscle that you have to keep. And when you’re getting older, your muscles don’t work the same way anymore.

I didn’t really care before this, I was just singing and whatever, now I have to think how to [take care of it] so the lifespan of your vocal chords and your voice and everything can stay for as long as it can. It was unfortunate that I didn’t have time to do any vocal training this time around. The plan was to do something with a vocal teacher. No time! But what I did was — because you need to tell your body that this is coming, you’re gonna have to sing for three hours — I went to the karaoke joint and I sang my heart out. (laughs)

Oh! And how I stay grounded, right? I think people often forget, we are in an industry that you could be up today and down tomorrow. Nothing is actually certain. I’m reminded that in a blink of an eye, I could lose it all. But I’m not trying to be who I am because I don’t want to lose it all, you know? I’m just grateful. People ask me all the time, like, ‘How come you’ve not changed?’ or ‘How come the fame hasn’t changed you?’ I’m in it not for all that. I’m in it because I love singing, and I love what I’m doing. I came from a very bad, poor… you know, not having anything — my childhood was that. But for me to be able to now raise the level of my family’s life, that’s what is important to me.

Reflecting on your singing career since you were on Malaysian Idol, what’s something you learned early on in your career that made you a better artist? 

I think as a person, obviously I have grown a lot, so the whole ‘being very calm’ now and not getting too worked up about something or… kalut lah. So, [getting] the nerves is fine, but I used to get so nervous that I would literally be sick. And I think one of the things that I learned very, very quickly was to handle criticism. So Malaysian Idol was the first real big thing, right? So I don’t remember getting very bad comments from the judges, but it wasn’t the judges that, you know. We had a forum back in the day where you just had people and it was the slightest little comments. Like someone said, “Oh, she shouldn’t be in this competition. She’s overly confident.” And I’m like, is confidence a bad thing? And I don’t think I was arrogant, but people said stuff like that, which kind of upset me because I didn’t understand it.

I remember my mom saying to me, “People will always say whatever they want, if it doesn’t make sense to you or it’s irrelevant, then fine. But if it’s something that maybe you can fix, then fine, take it. But if it’s something bad, totally just hating on you, just leave it, just ignore it.” And I’m like, okay. Because I used to get really upset, like, ‘How can they say that about me? Don’t they know that I’m like freaking out back there, I’m not confident!’ But because of my years of singing in clubs, it was like, no matter what, you have to go up on stage and make it seem like everything’s okay.

Your cat died ke, your dog died ke, you had a really tough day… people don’t wanna know, people don’t care. Your job is to stand up there and be the happiest person there. So I had to learn that. And during Malaysian Idol, my entire schedule was upside down. I just had to get on with it lah. Yeah. It’s like, when my mom said what she said, after that I had a five-minute rant. If someone says something really bad, I’ll rant about it and then I’m okay. I get it out of my system. I mean, I’m only human.

How has your approach to performing your beloved songs changed over time? Especially when you were re-recording “Gemilang” this year?

When I was rerecording “Gemilang” in English — so it’s called “Glorious” — it was without even thinking, I was under a lot of pressure because again, I had to recreate the song that I have sung like 75,000 times. The approach of the song,  well, it’s gonna be in English. And we were recording it in New York. So the pronunciation, the whole American pronunciation is not ‘overly pronouncing’. Because I tend to enunciate a lot. And so we put it right at the end [of the album].

But we recorded it so quickly, it was crazy. That’s why I said this whole experience of recording the album was just really great. It was a great experience. But whatever song I would’ve performed back in the day, for some reason I feel like I perform it better now. Because I’m… I dunno lah, I’ve grown. So every little skill, like, I don’t think I was the best person on stage because I hadn’t learned the stagecraft. But there’s a sense of confidence now, I think because I am a woman. Even though I was 25 going on 26 during Malaysian Idol, I still felt like I was a bit of a child. High-strung a bit. (laughs)

And it was also a different art. I had to relearn singing in Bahasa because I was in a covers band, we were singing in English. And singing in Bahasa was like, ‘Whoa.’ So, I really had to learn a lot lah. The whole stagecraft, looking at the camera. I hated the cameras, and because it’s sort of a reality show, there were cameras following you everywhere and whatever you were doing. I was like, “Please! Leave me alone!” And being on stage, singing to the cameras. I was really shy.

Were you able to get used to it towards the end of Malaysian Idol?

It took me a long time. Like I said, it was a whole different ballgame. When you’re singing in the club, no one really cares. It’s almost like background music or whatever. But yeah, on TV it’s different. So I had to learn all that. That’s why I had tutors and mentors and all that, for that stuff.

Looking back, what would you tell your younger self, fresh from the Malaysian Idol stage, about what lies ahead?

I would just tell my younger self to just calm the hell down. (laughs) I don’t know. Would I change anything? Probably not. Yeah, I’d just tell her to calm down.

editor-in-chief & creative direction MARTIN TEO | interview PUTERI YASMIN SURAYA | editorial team MALLIE MARAN, MELISSA FOONG | photography EDMUND LEE (ONE3FOUR STUDIO) | assisted by ZANE | videography JACKIE MAH & SIMON TAN | art director JOYCE LIM | makeup SHENG SAW | hairstyling EDVID KWA | styled AZZA ARIF | jewellery TIFFANY & CO | wardrobe DOLCE & GABBANA, SANDRO

Check out LSA100 Class of 2024 HERE.