"I Am A Macha" & That Effing Show! Interview with Ezra Zaid

If you haven't seen the surprise hip-hop sensation "I Am A Macha" yet, do yourself a favour and WATCH IT NOW!

JAWESOME!

"I Am A Macha" is currently the 4th instalment of That Effing Show, the newest programme on Internet television platform PopTV (The Fairly Current Show or The Wknd Sessions also ada). Effing is your standard liberal/progressive news-commentary thingy -- but peppered with random (and often so-lame-it's-great) humour.

We speak to Ezra Zaid, proprietor of publishing house ZI Publications, budding rapper, and host of That Effing Show about cracking jokes, being serious about politics, and dancing the macha-rena.

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So: That Effing Show. What the eff is up with that?

The guys behind The Fairly Current Show -- Hardesh Singh and Mark Teh -- brought up the idea of adding another show to PopTV. We brainstormed in late November 2009 about what kind of show we wanted to create, who/what we wanted to address, etc.

But, equally as important, we were keen on exploring the idea of providing interesting content to be communicated online. If this encourages other kids to get creative and produce their own videos, cyberspace will really be buzzing with creative content made by Malaysians.

The show's got obvious socio-political content. What do you hope to achieve?

Everyone involved in the show -- we’re what you call "young adults", and we care a lot about what goes on in this country. And, when these really important matters aren’t being discussed honestly/intelligently, we feel a responsibility to make some sense of it -- if not to others, then at least to ourselves.

Humour, comedy and sober observations -- that’s what we’re banking on. Hopefully that will keep everyone’s feet on the ground and their heads tuned in to what is and isn’t ridiculous. And maybe it'll also get others to participate towards making a difference, in their own way.

Who writes the episodes? What's the process like?

Usually on a Friday evening, I sit down with Umapagan Ampikaipakan (he reads books like we eat chips!) to go through the week’s worth of news -- politics, business, entertainment --and we pick out the bits of news that are joke-worthy.

We fine-tune the ideas on Saturday, and when I meet the PopTV guys on Sunday for the shoot, we figure out how to make the joke on paper translate into something funny (sometimes funnier) on screen. During that short process, even more wacky ideas come into play! That really keeps a buzz about the comedy every week.

How did "I Am A Macha" come about?

The idea initially was to shoot a bad-ass music video (a la what Adam Sandberg and the people at Saturday Night Live do) as one of our skits. Then we realized we needed more than just an idea: we needed a song, a theme, some music and lyrics, a group dance ... and we needed it to be funny.

Hip-hop, and especially the music videos, leaves us with a lot of room -- lyrically and visually -- to be funny and creative in telling the story.

The "macha" theme came about as identifying something that bound us as Malaysians that had some street-cred attached to it, not with something that was pasted on billboards and commercials. Also, more than 10,000 folks joined the "macha" Facebook group: that is just hilarious, honest and impressive all at the same time, so that strengthened the idea.

What about the macha-rena?

The principles behind the original Macarena dance were useful for us — get a big group of people, do some simple gestures while moving in place, change direction, repeat ad infinitum, annoy people.

We asked one of the top dancer-choreographers in the country -- Elaine Pedley -- to come in and work with our machas.  Don't play, she has worked on Malaysian Idol; in Germany, UK, France, China and Singapore ... but never in a mamak! So we were more than happy to give her a break.

Why a mamak?

Coz machas and mamaks go together like roti canai and dhal curry!

Any reactions to the video yet?

The response has been awesome, right across age-groups. Folks have been sharing it on their Facebook walls, forwarding it via emails; some Malaysian students are even playing it on radio/podcasts in the UK! Its great that it has struck a chord and we hope that the ideas we have in store for future shows will generate as much interest, if not more!

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So what do you think lah, machas?