The KugiranHUJANkeUK Foundation was founded in September 2007 by a group of Malaysian music enthusiasts studying in the UK. This group of students has been exposed to organising a variety of extracurricular activities, from cultural events to academic conferences. Having seen too many redundant events been organised by Malaysian student societies in the UK, we thought of adding variety to the lives of Malaysian students in the UK. As passionate followers of the Malaysian music scene, the band HUJAN seem to have an extra edge over the rest due to its originality and groundbreaking fan base. Thus the idea of bringing HUJAN to the UK was officially established once we came in contact with the band itself, dubbing the name ‘The KugiranHUJANkeUK Foundation’.
The foundation works on the basis of a fundraising organisation hoping to collect enough funds to support the band to come to the UK from Malaysia and to organise several events where the band will be able to perform and promote their music. We believe this project can help show the students here the struggle local musicians have to endure in building their reputation for their art. We believe the band’s exposure of this nature can strengthen and enhance their fan base abroad and also cultivate Malaysian music listeners in the UK to have an anti-piracy attitude. We strongly feel that piracy has polluted our local music industry today and many methods have been employed to curb the problem. None of these methods has genuinely succeeded, causing frustration among artists and musicians and also further discourage newer crops of real talent to flourish. The KugiranHUJANkeUK Foundation attempts to play its part to help diminish piracy by trying to help change the mentality of our music listeners and will hopefully give an extraordinary impact in changing the market.
The13-18 age group is the prime demographic of music listeners, most of whom are high school/college students and not all students are able to afford CDs set at market price, forcing them to illegally download music off the internet. There are 12000 Malaysian students in the UK and most of them are of an older age group (approximate age range of 19-25 years) are just as enthusiastic with music and have a better ability to afford CDs sold at regular prices. With the number of Malaysian students in the UK which forms a substantial number of listeners, a priceless marketing platform is waiting to be exploited not only for HUJAN but other struggling musicians.
