Anggun is an Indonesian-French singer-songwriter and TV personality who has been performing music since the age of seven. Her first international album, “Snow on the Sahara” (1997), and her six studio albums to follow have throned her as the Asian artist with the highest album sales outside Asia, with gold and platinum album status across Europe and Asia. Anggun first ventured into television when she represented France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 with the song “Echo (You and I).” Anggun then appeared as a judge for “Asia’s Got Talent”, the French version of “Masked Singer”, as well as the Indonesian versions of “The X Factor”, “Got Talent”, and “The Voice”. Anggun was invited to serve as a Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations twice, first for the International Year of Microcredit and then for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Harvard Political Review: How has your global upbringing shaped your music?
Anggun: I’m originally from Indonesia but I’ve lived in London, Paris, and Montreal. I’m definitely 100% Indonesian in everything I do, but I also feel like I’m influenced by all of these places and the people that I’ve met. You always take something from your surroundings, good or bad. I believe that when you live your life to the fullest, everything sort of evolves naturally. Maybe I’m still too young to look back and realize that, “Oh, I got that from there, or I got this from here.” But I don’t know if it really matters at the end — we’re social beings constantly evolving, influenced by our surroundings. As an artist, it’s important to be able to change settings, decors, and language, because we have to keep nourishing ourselves with the different foods of life. You can’t just read the same thing over and over, or eat the same thing over and over. You have to vary that.
HPR: More broadly, how have travels shifted your worldview?
Anggun: Travel helps a lot with my writing. I’m more interested in writing about others or being an observer from afar — what’s going on in Indonesia, what’s going on in France. I also write essays for this platform in Indonesia, where it’s highly patriarchal. I’ve written five essays already — the last one was about communism, the one before that on LGBTQ+ issues and feminism. When I’m writing songs, I feel like I’m more straightforward. Now that we’re speaking in a different language, you just have to go straight to the essence: the message that you want to bring. For instance, there’s a song from my latest album called “Righteous.” It says in the chorus, “Everybody wants the truth but no one wants to be honest.”
HPR: Could you tell me more about the essays that you wrote?
Anggun: Since I live abroad, I can be seen as someone who is not pro-Indonesian. But I try to talk about religion. That’s a heavy topic for Indonesia because basically 90% of Indonesians are Muslim. Being a minority in that country, or anywhere in the world, is really hard. I try to be fair to the majority, but I try to help the minority — and that doesn’t sit well with the majority. I talk about that and the injustice of religion. I also talk about how gay and lesbian people are disregarded, unfortunately, not only in Indonesia but in a lot of countries. The older I get, the more I’m interested in the world and other people.
I’ve been thinking about my next topic over the quarantine. One thing for sure is that if you don’t have health, your money, your power, your celebrity status — that doesn’t matter. When you get sick, you’re sick. When you don’t have access to your liberty, then what is it that you’ve been fighting for? Hopefully, self-confinement will teach us to be less selfish, less egocentric, and maybe more caring. We need more caring. Hopefully that will be my next subject for my essay.
HPR: What were some of your highlights and lowlights of your career?
Anggun: A highlight is when I sang at the Vatican and met the pope. I come from Indonesia where it’s the biggest Muslim populated country in the world, but I went to Catholic school. So meeting the pope was kind of a big deal. My first shows and festivals in America — seeing people singing back my songs to me — that’s a highlight. The downside of my career is knowing that everything can be manipulated. Now there are “stream farms” where you can buy views and likes. That’s the low point of music in general. At the moment, I’ve been reading a lot of interviews of artists whose tours and concerts have been cancelled. It’s a hard time for artists, but at the same time, this is when we need the music the most. We need entertainment. We need to take our minds off of the virus.
HPR: Could you tell me more about your work with the United Nations?
Anggun: I was extremely honored when the UN contacted me. I was first involved with microcredit. I then worked with the Food and Agriculture Organization. I went to China to talk to people about deforestation and reforestation. We don’t talk much about reforestation, but it’s actually happening. The Chinese people were able to plant millions of trees in matters of weeks. What we’re trying to achieve in other parts of Asia and in other countries, China achieved in a matter of weeks. Comparing it right now with the quarantine, people in countries like France are protesting because their freedoms are being jeopardized — but in other countries like in Korea or in China, people just follow the rules and you see results.
HPR: What were your takeaways from your work in the UN?
Anggun: What I took from the UN work [was] that I [got] to see how the world organized itself [through] the success of a program. But I distanced myself a little bit from the UN because some UN member countries fail to pay the money that is used to finance these programs. Also, when private sectors enter the UN, some countries push on their agendas more than others. It’s no longer about the global need. This made me want to take a certain distance, but I don’t regret any of my years with the UN. Now, I continue my activism work on a smaller scale. Of course, there’s no global action without local action. I’m more involved in my community in Paris, especially with the homeless. I do more things that have less feedback but more impact in real life.
HPR: What does Asian representation mean for you?
Anggun: It’s funny because wherever I go, I always feel like I have to act as if I’m the ambassador of my country, which is something that I did not know how to deal with at first. I take that as a very noble mission because I am portraying an Indonesian heritage — the way I am, the way I speak, what I write. I always incorporate Indonesia. Whenever [people] see me, of course, they don’t think I’m Swedish. I’m proud that being an Indonesian representative is something that I cultivate. But at the same time, I don’t want to always put that [out there] as a label [for myself]. It should be more like a perfume — something that you can smell, but you don’t really see.
I think we need more and more Asian singers, Asian actresses, Asian book writers, and Asian lawyers everywhere. We need to see us more. We have centuries of baggage behind us that could probably be beneficial for other people to learn. It’s not just the anecdotal, “Yeah, I love Chinese food or I love eating sushi,” and then you eat it with a fork. Learn about how to use chopsticks. It’s fun. I’m really into East meets West. I’m into collaborating and making something hybrid. I’m into genetically modified culture. It makes the world richer if we share culture. The world needs more wisdom that can only be found from the island of Java or Taiwan. It could be small things, but it’s nice when the world collides together, you know?
HPR: In a previous interview on your Eurovision performance, you’ve said that you’ve never thought of music as competition. How did that perspective carry through when judging competitive shows like “Asia’s Got Talent”?
Anggun: When I did Eurovision, I didn’t see it as a competition — I still don’t see it as a competition. For me, music cannot be seen or judged that way. You can judge the capacity or the technical ability of singers. For example, [you can say,] “Oh, she hit that note higher or with more power than the other singer.” You can measure things like that, but something [as] subjective as songs is very difficult [to judge].
But “Asia’s Got Talent” is different because it’s not really competition in that sense. It’s a family oriented show where performers show off a palette of “This is what Asian people can do.” They’re representing their country and they’re so proud of their fellow countrymen. Then you get votes from this country and that country. What was beautiful was that we had Indonesians, for instance, vote for Filipino acts, just because they found the act[s] so universally touching.
HPR: Any lessons that stuck out to you from “Asia’s Got Talent”?
Anggun: I’m super open-minded but there are often things where I draw the line. The show has definitely broadened my horizon in what we call in France spectacle vivant, a living show. As a contestant, you can basically show anything because there’s always somebody who might like it. I had this singer from Mongolia who used to sing only for his sheeps and goats, and he mimicked their sound. It was incredible. Then, of course, I have my other judges like David Foster, who did not like him at all. It’s probably after doing [“Asia’s Got Talent”] that I’m more indulgent with myself and with other people — they’re all just trying to show you what they can do. Give them their attention and then if you like it, say that you like it. If not, don’t try to be harsh. Try to be sweet. Just say that it’s not your cup of tea but somebody might like it. I cannot be definitive in anything. That’s probably my take on it.
HPR: How did you enjoy mentoring contestants? Any words you shared with them?
Anggun: I mentored contestants while I was a judge for “The X Factor” and “The Voice”. I love doing that because you see a lot of raw and beautiful talent in front of you. You have to feel the love. You have to feel the joy. Try to mean it. As musicians, we have the mission of taking off people’s pain in three minutes, the length of a song.
David Foster always says to the contestants that you have to breathe and sleep music, every second of it. I agree only to a certain degree because I think you have to get life in as well. You need to let life sneak into your art. You need those failure moments and the broken heart bits. The most interesting artists I’ve met have a lot of stories to tell. Many introverts have noisy stuff going on in their heads — they make the best songs and the best books. Silence can be very loud when you’re alone with your mind. Don’t take it as an enemy. You have to survive some bad love stories, experience life, come back, and write a song about it — it will hit straight in the heart. You want to suffer a little bit for your art.
HPR: Do you think you’ve personally suffered that “little bit”?
Anggun: I’ve suffered a lot, but I don’t ever want to let myself get lost in the process. I welcome a lot of things in my life. Maybe it’s a very Indonesian/Japanese way of saying it. You don’t ask yourself whether or not this life could be different. You just live it. You just accept life. I have that to a certain degree, and the rest are repeats. I don’t always want to be in the passenger seat, though it’s good to be there from time to time. But you have to get back in control when you can and you should.
HPR: Looking back, what advice would you have given yourself?
Anggun: Try to be elegant in everything. Even in your failure, try to be elegant. You have to make your mistakes, you have to own your mistakes, and you have to win … from time to time because it’s good for your ego. It’s important that you have to, in any type of situation, try to be elegant when you’re either losing or winning.
Image Credit: Antoine Gouiffes Yan