KUALA LUMPUR, February 13 - The 37th Anugerah Juara Lagu (AJL37) saw singer Aina Abdul being crowned champion through her song Terus Hidup.
Her performance on Sunday night at Axiata Arena, Bukit Jalil earned her two trophies and cash prizes of RM112,000.
She won best vocal performance and was crowned champion of AJL37.
But the singer known for her over-the-top costumes also splashed a whopping RM85,000 for her cloud-themed wardrobe and stage setup on Sunday night, as reported by portal MStar.
“Yes, I did spend quite a lot on wardrobes, performance sets and everything that you saw on stage last night.
“I’m at the point in my career where I want something worthwhile and I know that it needs a bit of investment.
“I brought 30 people with me to handle all the (performance) aspects. It was their spirit that I brought on stage with me and I’m grateful to have some extra earnings to spend and had no problem investing this time around,” she said.
The Terus Hidup song was written and dedicated to Aina’s late father who passed away when she was 15 years old.
She added that the reason she chose clouds as her main performance theme last night was because of her constant travelling last year where she had snapped a lot of cloud photos on her phone during her travels.
Aina also said that the ‘clouds’ that were falling during the end of her performance symbolises her strength and resilience after losing her father.
Meanwhile, singer Shiha Zikir who bagged the best performance trophy chose to combine neon lights, lasers as well as ‘glow in the dark’ outfits which was later fused with an energetic dance choreography.
Talking to portal Xtra, Shiha admitted that she spent over RM100,000 for it.
Although winning the majority of votes was unexpected to her, Shiha had strong faith in her performance thanks to her team who contributed ideas and performance concepts as well as in executing it.
“I’ve spent over RM100,000 and the most expensive element in my performance was the laser lighting. The cost was divided between my company, Shiha Zikir Empire and Todak Music as well as Alternate Records.
“Although some might say that the RM100,000 investment does not match the RM12,000 cash prize, I am satisfied with it because this is my passion,” she said.
Shiha also commended singer Naim Daniel for his performance of Mainan, who was also amongst the finalists for the category.
AJL37 also saw Malaysian rappers Joe Flizzow and SonaOne winning the runner up trophy along with a RM50,000 cash prize through their hit song ‘Satu Malam di Temasek’.
Third went goes to Alif Satar and The Locos through their performance of Anugerah Terindah- a song written by Aliff, Shah Shamshiri and Romeo, which saw them going home with a trophy and a RM30,000 cash prize.
