Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur wants buskers to drop pop, return old city beat for tourists
The move is part of a government drive to promote the country’s culture in the lead-up to its 2026 tourism campaign

The government is on a hard push to promote the country ahead of its Visit Malaysia 2026 (VM2026) tourism campaign, aimed at pulling in 35.6 million visitors and an estimated 147.1 billion ringgit (US$33.2 billion) in tourism receipts.
Kuala Lumpur boasts a vibrant busking scene with performers from T-shirt-clad, grunge-era holdouts to Michael Jackson impersonators flexing their vocal muscle and dance moves to draw crowds.
The scene even drew Pakistani trader and singer-songwriter Muhammad Shahid Nazir, otherwise known as One Pound Fish Man, who gained fame for his novelty song “One Pound Fish,” which he performed on the streets during a visit to Kuala Lumpur.
Buskers across Malaysia’s capital city should look beyond the regular tropes of popular Malay jiwang or romantic ballads or pop songs and incorporate more classical music and instruments such as ghazal singing and the gamelan “to help tourists learn about Malaysian traditional music”, said Zaliha Mustafa, minister in charge of federal territories.