KUALA LUMPUR: Hip-hop singer Abdul Fashah Abdul Aziz a.k.a. Nico G has a confession to make.
He was once "so fed up" with the music world that he chose to work with "dead bodies who don't talk".
The 46-year-old founder member of the group Nico said in a news report yesterday that he became a hearse driver when Nico broke up in 1997.
“Back then I was very upset. All my hard work and savings went down the drain when the group I formed disbanded due to several unavoidable circumstances.
“So I figured I'd take a break and do something else, even if it wasn't music.
“And just then a friend invited me to drive dead bodies. I readily took up that job, even if it wasn't pleasant.
“I just wanted to get away from music," said Nico.
Nico added that he and a friend collected dead bodies from the National Heart Institute (IJN) in Jalan Tun Razak and the University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC).
“It was a very quiet job, just the two of us with dead people. We picked them up from mortuaries and drains, and some of them were killed. And we worked mostly at night.
“The pay wasn't good, sometimes the families of the dead couldn't pay what we wanted, but we took it anyway."
Among the memorable incidents Nico encountered in his six-month job was being disrupted by some 1,000 oxen crossing the road near Seremban and transporting a dead aristocrat from the hospital to his house.
“It was supposed to be a solemn occasion, but as soon as I brought his body home, some of his young relatives spotted me and began to mob me. My friend told me to get back into the van."
Nico quit his job on the advice of his father, who encouraged him to keep pursuing his dream of becoming a successful musician.
He reunited with his former bandmates in 2014 and they came up with an album Belia Perwira. Another album Dunia Alam Fana came in 2017. Nico released a new version of their song Inilah Nasibku for Showdown The Movie in 2016.
“I'm also an actor, and I'm currently filming a telemovie Misteri Chalet Ana directed by Opie Zami," he said.
Nico was formed in 1992 and its other members are Muzaffar Shah Baharin (Affa) and Shah Rosli (Dino). They released three albums Buatan Los Angeles (1993), Realiti (1995) and Alamak! (1996) before they disbanded.