Malaysian vocal groups or whats left of em anyway.

1- Malaysian urban vocal groups started way back, as early as the early 90s if you count Pancha Sitara out. I have to admit that I lacked the knowledge to write a proper thesis on the history of Malaysian vocal groups so I would not waste my time doing that.

2- As we all know, back in the states, the mighty goliath of a music called Rock was killed by Kurt Cobain and his seattle cohorts with a new music called grunge. In Malaysia, rock was killed by rap music. MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice wannabes were all over the place while the purists would resort to the more obscure NWA and Public Enemy.

3- Malaysian mainstream music scene was swarmed with rap groups from all over the place led by a trio of siblings calling themselves KRU. Then you got 4U2C, NICO, MSteen, Res2, Feminin and of course the more obscure Krash Kozz with their debut, New Jack The Street Beat which was released in 1993. While most of the acts concentrated with writing cheesy rhymes in malay, some of the above mentioned groups did produced songs centred around vocals and minimal harmony vocals. KRU for example produced an acappella song called Untukmu which was made famous by Feminin, most probably the first urban girl group from Malaysia.

4- Then enter Shades, the first mainstream vocal group to achieve success after years of honing their talent at the stairs of Central Market. Their acappella rendition of the classic, Malam, introduced acappella to a lot of new listeners in the 90s. Then there was KOOL. Remember them? A lot of people would associate them with dance music due to their hit song, Bebas, but if you would listen carefully to each of their songs in the debut, you would be surprised to learn that there were elements of new jack swing and RnB all over the place with complete 3 lines of harmonies on all of the songs. The group even added a fifth member to adhere to the discipline of harmony singing.

5- I believe it was during this time that more underground vocal groups started to emerge with Innuendo spearheading the movement. Vibe, Euphonious, SoulStreet, Surreal, Foreplay, Cest La Vie, Deep, Emberz of Soul, Quevox, Touchess and Signature just to name a few, swarmed the underground stages alongside other hiphop acts from Klang Valley.

6- The release of RuffEdge (formerly known as Vibe) and Voices of Ephonious (formerly known as Euphonious) split EP, Extreme Pleasure, reignited the interest in RnB vocal groups amongst the newer faces. The stage was swarmed once again with groups in the likes of Hearts of Mean, Soul Dinero, Flowwidus, First Edition, Quizziclez, Infinatez, Crescendo, Muzieclez, Quadrose, Siarra, Quest and Luscious, again just to name a few.

7- Then there was the death. I dont know how and I dont know why. The scene died.  

Benign