Process: The Music of Mixed Rice Stall

Mojocat is such a joy to work with; they are a bunch that appreciate good humour. The whole Kan-Cheong: Kopitiam Saga game was inspired by colloquial mannerisms and local Singaporean behaviour. Listening to their stories gets us easily psyched to make each piece of music that brings out more of every character. One particular piece was the mixed rice stall, locally known as the “cai png” stall (literally translated to dishes and rice).

Mojocat wanted something that brought out the Hokkien “nang” character (a Chinese dialect group common in Singapore). We referenced it from a Taiwanese artiste named 陈雷. His songs were really famous in our parents’ time and that was exactly the nostalgic vibe we wanted to portray. Initially, we wanted to do the song without vocals but something was missing; it couldn’t bring out the full extent of humour we wanted.

We imagined the mixed rice stall owner “Patrick” as the main character and whenever the song was played, some 舞台歌 lady (Chinese backup singers) dressed in shimmery clothing would suddenly appear to serenade Patrick! Our vocalist happens to be our very own co-founder, Sharon! As she recorded herself singing the lyrics, it was naturally hard to take herself seriously but we’re glad the Mojocat team loved it and we hope you do too. Here is the final song with lyrics:

To hear it in-game, do download the GooglePlay and Appstore files on their main site here. Enjoy!