Asmawi bin Ani (born August 25, 1981), better known as Mawi, is a Malaysian singer and winner of the Third Season of Malaysia’s popular reality show, Akademi Fantasia. With his trademark “World” Mawi has created a new phenomenon in the Malaysian music industry by becoming one of the best-selling and influential singers of the last few yea, his debut album sold more than 200,000 copies in Malaysia. Mawi is of Javanese descent
Apart from singing, he is currently testing his skills in acting and performing magic acts. He is also a budding businessman.
Akademi Fantasia 3
Mawi entered Akademi Fantasia, a reality television show where the contestants are put together in a secluded location for vocal, singing, dance, appearance training for about 3 months. Every week the contestants have to perform in front of a professional jury, a live audience and a live telecast to the people of Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and East Indonesia. Every week one contestant is voted out by audience votes which are sent in via Short Messaging Services (SMS), until the finale where the contestant with highest number of SMS votes is declared the winner.
Mawi came to the scene in an uneventful way. In the Prelude week, he sang a song of the Islamic music genre and was not selected by the professional jury. He was the first singer from the three previous Akademi Fantasia seasons who sung in this musical genre. However, due to overwhelming pressure from the public, he was re-selected in the first week concert with another contestant Marsha via a second round of selection.
Soon after, week after week he overtook all the other contestants in term of votes until the final concert when he was declared the champion as well as best performance and vocal. He had to sing songs from various musical genres along the way. His bald haircut has become a fad among his fans including skins.
Songs that he performed during Akademi Fantasia 3:
- Prelude: Intifada (Rabbani)
- Week 1: Kekasih Awal dan Akhir (Jamal Abdillah) (songsang)
- Week 2: Dari Kekasih Untuk Kekasih (Hattan)
- Week 3: Gadis Melayu (Jamal Abdillah)
- Week 4: Nou’r El Ain (Amr Diab)
- Week 5: Beautiful Maria (Los Lobos)
- Week 6: Memori Cinta Luka (Nassier Wahab)
- Week 7: Oh Fatimah (P.Ramlee)
- Week 8: Pupus (Dewa 19)
- Week 9: Pergi Tak Kembali (Rabbani)
- Week 10 (Final): Seroja (S.Effendi/Jamal Abdillah) & Aduh Saliha (new song composed for him by M. Nasir)
Note: Mawi only joined Akademi Fantasia after the end of week 1 when he was voted back in by the trainer of Akademi Fantasia along with Marsha, a Sabahan. His supporters almost submitted a petition in order to get him back into Akademi Fantasia.
Source – Wikipedia