Yussof is a Malaysian's folk singer-musician-composer. One of his earlier involvement in local scene being in the group, Ikhlas, a project of RAP, owned by famous composer, Mr. Roslan Aziz, which is also one of the three judge of Malaysian Idol judges.

Amir's musical journey started late in life. He was a math & science student attending the Peninsula Church of England School in Mt. Eliza, Frankston, a suburb in Melbourne, Australia. He took a year off for work experience and the returned to Melbourne to enroll at Monash University where he took up a degree in Economics, Economic Statistics, Accounting and Psychology. No one will ever know ( Amir doesn't know why himself) the reason why he made this choice but because of it, he eventually became a musician rather than a Veterinary Surgeon or a Naturalist.

During his first year as a university student, he got bored. To him, Economics was the only subject in the world less boring than Economic Statistics. He was also sure he would never be an Accountant. And so he stopped attending lectures and basically stopped studying. He failed all his final exams with the exception of Psychology. Psychology he found interesting and the fact that it was multiple choice may have contributed a little to the final outcome. He wasn't ready for University and University wasn't ready for him. It wasn't going to happen so, he dropped out. Somewhere in between the time he stopped studying and the time that he dropped out, he picked up a guitar and started listening to Bob Dylan. As Amir puts it, " Bob always seemed to sound like he was worse off than I was and listening to him cheered me up." Knowing a few basic chords that he had learnt from his older brother years ago, Amir set dedicated himself to learning to play the instrument. It was difficult. It didn't seem natural to force your hands to accommodate strange positions and frustration quickly set in. He gave it up. And then he met a girl.

Her name was Dorota, a polish girl whose parents had had migrated to Australia a few generations ago. It didn't last very long but Amir fell very much in like with her and their parting left him depressed and wallowing in self-pity. He needed an outlet for his grief and it seemed only natural to write down his feelings as a means of dealing with his emotions. But journals and diaries had never been his cup of tea and it only seemed natural to write…..songs. Here was a great idea. He could kill two birds with one stone. Learn to play an instrument and relieve his depressed state simultaneously. With nothing better to do, the choice was obvious. Amir wrote about 25 songs in those six months. Pathetic ballads in minor chords, lamenting his loss and heart ache. Without being aware of it, Amir had just made a quick right turn on the highway of life.

He returned home with the shattering news of his failure (or rather, his lack of effort) and reassured his parents that he would return to finish the degree in a couple of years if he didn't manage to survive without it. That bought him some time and he quickly set about looking for some way of generating some income. To earn a living he sold children's encyclopedias. Difficult and humiliating. Selling fire extinguishers had a higher success rate but was tiring and repetitive. Working in a storeroom was hot and sweaty and paid very little and he was beginning to sink into a quagmire of self-doubt and depression. And then one lonely night, he walked into a pub.

The Underground was a small, English style pub next to Hock Lee's mini market in Damansara Heights, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was 8:30 pm on a Friday night as he entered the bar, and the happy hour crowd was thinning. He grabbed a stool at the bar and ordered a cold one. At nine o'clock, the live music began and he decided to stay on and have a listen. It might take his mind off things for a while. The soloist on stage entertained the crowd with old favourites from Simon & Garfunkel, The Eagles, James Taylor and even bob Dylan. The audience were enjoying themselves tremendously and so was the musician. What a great occupation, he thought. Work looks like great fun and people appreciate your work. Little did he know at the time what a job it was going to be.

The next few months saw Amir spending his days locked away in his room learning guitar chords to familiar songs from famous songbooks like the Let it Be Me book. Once he had gathered 15 songs, it was time to take the plunge and look for a gig. It was a proud moment the night he set out to visit certain small live music establishments. He felt like a musician.

Finding a job would be more difficult than he thought. Experienced musicians had the market occupied and pub owners agreed to auditions only during happy hours. It provided free entertainment for their patrons as well as a bit of a laugh. Rejection after rejection was all he found. Everyone was better, more experienced, more talented. The idea of becoming a professional performer was becoming less appealing and less feasible.
The dream was fading and the harsh reality of the entertainment world began to dawn upon him.

One night, as he walked along the streets of Bangsar contemplating his future, he noticed a small dimly lit pub called Tattlers. Not one to give up easily, he found the courage to enter and inquire about a job. It just so happened that the owner was looking for musicians at the time and an audition was arranged for the following Friday afternoon. This was it. This was the last effort, the final countdown….

Friday came and he was nervous. But the audition went well thanks to the organ that was on stage. His shaking legs were hidden from the management and the right choice of songs earned him his first job as a professional musician. The job required three 45-minute sets a night on weekdays and 4 on weekends and paid RM500.00. Amir had 15 songs prepared, most of which he couldn't sing or play properly. It didn't matter. He had been hired…finally. A year passed and he became disillusioned with pub singing. The endless requests and verbal abuse were taking its toll. There must be more to it than this he thought and in a momentary lapse of reason, he packed his bags, withdrew all he had (RM1500) and headed for Europe.

Starting off in Switzerland, he basked and hitch hiked his way around Germany, France, England and Amsterdam until the winter months forced him to stop. Fortunately, a friend offered him a job as windsurfing instructor in a resort in the Maldives and thought he knew nothing about the sport; the islands seemed more appealing than the cold, sunless days of the European winter. The music went into hibernation for a year, as Amir became a longhaired, bronzed muscled beach bum.

A year passed and he got restless. The seed of music had been planted and a burning desire to return to the city and perform grew day by day. He returned to Kuala Lumpur and managed to get a job at the Bier Keller as a soloist. Determined, fit and with long half dreaded sun bleached hair, he moved from pub to pub for the next 7 years until one day he entered a competition. Carlsberg were holding their annual Top of the Pubs competition and it seemed like a good idea to enter. Win or not, the exposure would allow him to charge a little more for performing and it seemed like a step up in the right direction.

After a few rounds, he was tipped to be the winner and if not for an undisciplined performance at the final, he would have won. He settled for first runner up with a cash prize of RM3000. During the semi finals, one of the judges approached him during a break. His name was Roslan Aziz and he offered to meet with Amir to discuss music. The difference between Amir and the rest of the performers is that Amir sand a few originals and this is what Roslan was interested in. He was in the process of grooming Zainal Abidin and they needed songs. They would meet again at the British Council during a performance by songwriters and it was then that he offered Amir a performance with Zainal at a club called Scandals in Bukit Bintang. This was the beginning of Amir's career with Roslan Aziz Productions (R.A.P) and would span three years, concerts and touring, stardom and groupies but still, no album.

Eventually, Amir's contract came to an end and though he was asked to renew it, he wanted more. Not more money, but more in terms of recording his music. He had recorded two songs of his own on a compilation album called Ikhlas, and written numerous hits for Zainals album, Hijau but that wasn't enough. The press highlighted his departure from RAP and a small independent production house called Scat Records, owned by Michael Veerapen. They offered him a one album contract and creative control but no income. Amir returned to the pubs to earn a living, eventually opening his own called After Five. Within six months he released his debut album, Some of this is Real that went on to win Best English Album of the Year in 1996 at the AIM awards. Things were supposed to take off after this but lack of promotional funding saw him back in the pubs once the hype had died down.

But the bar was happening. The best of the best played at his venue and he moved out and opened a larger one called X'tacy. X'tacy live up to it's name and became the best live music bar in town.

Amir then produced another album Altered Native under his own independent label, Ragtime. Altered Native was distributed by Universal Music and managed to bag three nominations at the AIM awards but failed to clinch any awards. Once again, lack of funding and promotion forced Amir to continue the pub circuit supplemented by the occasional voiceover job from advertising agencies. The voice over work began to prove to be more lucrative and he enjoyed the work. The pub performances declined and he dedicated himself to it and hung up his songwriters hat for awhile. Disney offered him the role of Tarzan in the new Disney animated feature and he jumped for it. But the music still remained in the background.

Suddenly without warning, it surfaced in 2002 and he recorded Aquarius, his latest album that he released in September. Working together with Australian musician/songwriter and producer, Jamie Wilson, Aquarius has proved to be Amir's strongest piece of work to date.