No composer, no singer, no studio – just AI behind Johor’s election campaign songs

JOHOR BAHRU – Clad in their red Pakatan Harapan (PH) jackets, content creator Adib Aiman and two others sat over glasses of teh ais at a mamak diner in the Taman Pelangi Indah suburb, furiously scrolling and tapping away at their smartphones.

At first glance, the trio seemed to be taking a break from the campaign trail merely 100m away. Instead, the members of the PH social media team were feeding prompts into AI apps – churning out campaign videos, social media posts and songs attacking political rivals.

“It’s really fast and doesn’t cost much. Most of the tools are even free,” said Adib, who goes by the account JustAttack on TikTok and has generated hundreds of songs using the AI music generator Suno.

“In the past, we’d carry laptops, cameras and look for power sockets to charge our equipment. Now we just use our phones.”

The Johor state election – where 2.7 million voters head to the polls on July 11 – is becoming Malaysia’s biggest test bed yet for the use of generative AI in political campaigning. It has been used by campaigners to generate content ranging from campaign anthems to candidate theme songs, and also to plan rallies and craft social media posts.

While its backers said the technology has levelled the playing field, industry players and political observers warned of the lack of authenticity and warmth in AI-generated content.

The election also comes at a time when generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini have become faster and more accessible to almost anyone – leading parties to embrace it to produce campaign content and streamline operations.

AI enters the campaign trail

On June 7, caretaker Menteri Besar Onn Hafiz Ghazi and Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders launched their campaign in Medini Educity, Iskandar Puteri. There, they unveiled a retro synth-pop anthem with rousing singalong lyrics, its video showing a montage of Johor’s development and BN lawmakers meeting residents.

The vocalist sounded similar to Malaysian singer-songwriter Faizal Tahir, particularly his uplifting vocals on the 2019 song Fire & Water – a theme song for a local animated film, with lyrics about perseverance and success.

Yet, a search on song-recognition app Shazam returned no results. The track later surfaced on YouTube under the title Lagu We Are Ready BN – PRN Johor 2026. It was uploaded by an unknown creator named Muhd Hadif Nordin, weeks after BN leaders had been using it in their social media posts without any attribution.

Three BN Youth members confirmed to The Straits Times that the song was indeed generated using AI.

Two other tracks widely used by BN candidates – a cover of Jom Mengundi and the anthem Barisan Nasional Johor, credited to an artiste named Zarif Zayn – also have little digital footprint. Searches found no information on the artiste, while the listed music agency, 10313652 Records DK, is an automatically generated placeholder created by music distributor DistroKid when users do not specify a record label.

One incumbent BN state executive councillor also has his own AI-generated campaign theme song.

BN is not the only coalition dabbling in AI.

Amirudin Ibrahim was another from the PH trio ST met on the Taman Pelangi Indah campaign trail. He said he regularly uses Suno to produce songs defending his party whenever contentious issues emerge during campaigning.

Showing ST the app on his phone, he demonstrated how a simple prompt – naming a political party and selecting a music genre such as rock or alt-pop – could generate a complete song with lyrics in seconds.

“You can easily produce three or four songs within an hour,” he said. “Previously, you’d have to ask friends or pay composers hundreds, if not thousands, to do the same.”

Amirudin shared one of his favourite AI-generated songs, a hip-hop tune calling for the “death” of UMNO, titled Abang Besar Pergi Mampus. He showcases over 200 AI-generated pro-PH songs under the TikTok account jejantasbiru, some of which have garnered hundreds or thousands of views.

New entrant Parti Bersama Malaysia, led by former economy minister Rafizi Ramli, has also embraced AI. Its campaign anthem, Rumah Kecil Kita, was similarly created using Suno.

Farhan Iqbal, Rafizi’s former press secretary who is now helping with Bersama’s campaign, said he wrote the lyrics while AI generated the melody and instrumentation. He also uses AI assistant Claude to help map campaign routes and identify suitable locations for rallies using the party’s campaign truck.

Concerns raised over AI’s real-world cost

Malaysia’s AI surge has raised concerns in the past year, especially among industry veterans. A report by The Sun citing cybersecurity firm TrendAI Malaysia found that over a fifth of web traffic in the country goes to AI services.

Singer-songwriter Yuna said in May she was unimpressed by songs generated by AI. She also warned that such tech may undermine livelihoods, and raised concerns over copyright and the environmental impact of AI data centres.

In May, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission issued a statutory demand to TikTok urging the platform to address AI-generated content targeting the King, Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar. The regulator said these posts included doctored images and false claims that prompted police investigations.

Onn Hafiz was also reported as expressing worry before the state election campaigning, saying a coalition may end up winning on the back of slander and misinformation on social media.

Segamat-based composer and music producer Irwan Hashim said he has already felt AI’s impact.

“My income used to be between RM20,000 (S$6,330) and RM30,000 a month because demand for jingles never stopped,” said Irwan, who has produced music for more than 50 brands.

A 30-second commercial jingle once cost between RM4,500 and RM9,000 to produce. Today, AI-generated songs can be commissioned for RM500 – or as little as RM99.

“I’ve been poor since two years ago. AI has really killed the market,” he said.

Lyricist Norkhayati Mohd Hashim, also known as Baiduri, has co-written songs for major Malaysian artistes including Siti Nurhaliza’s Aku Cinta Padamu. She told ST that while AI is fast and convenient, it “lacks creativity, emotion, experience and human touch”.

She added that Malaysian musicians are calling for stronger copyright laws to prevent the unauthorised use of local music to train AI models without compensation, arguing that “fully AI-generated works should not receive the same copyright protection as human-created works”.

Smaller parties, bigger reach

Bersama’s Farhan admitted that the party’s AI-generated anthem has attracted criticism from supporters. However, he argued that the technology now allows smaller parties with limited resources to compete with bigger parties that have better funding.

“A lot of people highlighted why we are using AI... and I was asked if any thought was given to compose the song, and I said, I did,” he said.

“Because it’s not a simple ‘I want a song’. There’s a thought process behind it about what kind of jingle, music style... so there was a lot of human touch to it when it comes to the lyrics and the prompting.

“It’s like I am still the one cooking but instead of buying meat and grinding it myself, I just use store-bought ground meat,” Farhan said.

Harris Zainul, research director at the Centre of Responsible Technology at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, said generative AI has become ubiquitous, with the barrier to producing convincing AI-generated political content having “essentially collapsed”.

“This is where political maturity becomes important,” he said. “Democracies have long relied on citizens being able to distinguish between satire and fact, and AI-generated political satire should be viewed through this same lens.”

Harris conceded that while AI may benefit smaller parties with limited resources, the overuse of AI, especially on campaign materials such as slogans, videos and music, may blow back on candidates.

“Because politics is as much about the heart as it is about the mind. In this regard, having something be computer-generated, however polished, will never match the appeal of content made by real people,” he said.

“My read is not many among the electorate would be aware of how AI models are trained... but for those who are more aware, they may be put off by the nature of how the content was generated.”

Back at the mamak diner, Adib, who once produced campaign songs himself, found himself torn over the dilemma of using AI. He said that while it has transformed political campaigning, it also blurred the line between authentic and manufactured messaging.

“In the past, we roughly knew who was behind anonymous political accounts from their writing style and the issues they championed,” he said.

“But now politics on social media is becoming faceless. We don’t know whether it’s a person or a machine telling us what to believe.”