Malaysian singer-songwriter Cheong Jag-lung, who has long been absent from the spotlight, returns to the creative stage in a brand-new role. He releases a new book, “I Miss You So Much,” and adopts the concept of a romance novel with songs, blending text, music, and visual elements to extend the life of his songs while exploring more possibilities for his creativity.
At the launch talk for his new book, when discussing the casting of his novel’s lead female character “Fu Xueling,” Cheong Jag-lung laughed, saying that he’s always had certain standards when it comes to the female lead in his work. “I’ve always had this confidence, from the past until now.” He believes that since it’s his own creation, he hopes the female lead is beautiful and has the right vibe. “So beautiful, she doesn’t seem like the kind of heroine who could be degraded.” He also joked that he used to secretly mind if a woman was taller than himself, especially when standing next to someone with a burly build—he’d suddenly realize, “I’m actually quite short.”
Cheong Jag-lung revealed that the origin of this book came from his reflections on the changing formats of music. Now that CDs are no longer mainstream, he started thinking about how to combine books and music, which led to the conceptualization of a romance novel with songs—even incorporating the idea of a movie soundtrack, creating a dialogue between the text and the music.
With the rapid influx of AI into the creative field, Cheong Jag-lung admitted he initially felt shaken. He recalled a time when a friend showed him AI-generated works; his first thought was, “Can you please not do this?” Even now, when he releases new work, people sometimes ask, “Was this done by AI?” “AI really did hit my confidence, because some things weren’t written just for the sake of writing songs. In this era when creative methods are continuously evolving, creators need to learn how to find peace within themselves.”
However, Cheong Jag-lung has gradually learned to embrace AI. He believes it’s fine to accept the existence of digital beings, but AI can never replace his own emotions, life experience, and creative process. “It’s just that creation methods have changed—from songwriting to writing prose, and even experimenting with making AI-produced MVs.”