Veteran Brunei artiste Ahmad Laini Hj Abd Rahman said the young generation seems to forget about traditional songs and are more keen to sing songs from the west.

The Ministry of Culture Youth and Sports should organise the Asli Rama or Chanang Citra Budaya song competitions, he suggested.

He advised the youths who want to be musicians to work hard, gain knowledge and upgrade their skills. Hopefully one day, Bruneian artistes can make the country proud at the international level, he said.

Ahmad Laini said to be a creative musician and to be an artiste someone has to be prepared with knowledge, skill and experience, and be sincere.

Only someone with a very high spirit of competitiveness can reach the top.

And only who is really talented can maintain the popularity and will be remembered even after they died, like Tan Sri P.Ramlee, Ahmad Laini said.

In the 60′s, a 13-year-old boy who used to hang around the SOAS College was offered a job as violin cleaner by a music teacher from Sri Lanka who gave him a broken violin, which he repaired himself , and learned how to play it.

In the mid-60′s, he became active in music and joined his friends in the band call “De’Idaman”.

In the 1970s and 1980′s, Ahmad Laini was always been invited to backup popular singers from Malaysia and Singapore. The big names then were Ahmad Jais, Sanisah Huri, and Abdullah Chik.

The local group’s quality performance made Bruneian musicians proud because we could back up bands for top artiste from Singapore, he said.

Since 1975, the De’Idaman Band stopped performing and he became a freelance singer and musician. Sometimes RTB invited him for TV programmes.

Tan Sri Dr SMSalim made a big name as an orang asli singer in Malaysia He was invited in 1970 by the Ministry of Culture Youth to Brunei and the De’Idaman band backed him up.

Datuk Mohzani Ismail, RTB Orchestra conductor said if Ahmad Laini stayed in Malaysia, he could have earned a living as a full time artiste and musician because he can sing and play the guitar and violin.

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