Speech by Minister for Law and Second Minister for Home Affairs Mr Edwin Tong SC at COMPASS Awards Presentation 2026
26 August 2026 Posted in Speeches
Professor Jeremy Monteiro, Chairman of COMPASS
Board of Directors of COMPASS
Dr Edmund Lam, CEO and Executive Director of COMPASS
All members of COMPASS
Distinguished guests
ladies and gentlemen
Introduction
1. Good evening, everyone. Thank you very much, Jeremy, for having me back here again. The last time I had agreed to come to a COMPASS event, I was called away at the last moment. Jeremy remembered that and has kindly invited me to come.
2. I am so glad to have the opportunity to be back here tonight. Not just to celebrate this very special occasion, and honour those who will be recognised tonight, but also to be able to come here to support the very important work of COMPASS – what you do in shaping, evolving and re-inventing local music, and ensuring that the best of our talents continue to produce music, and grow in stature.
3. I have attended enough dinners to know that the usual advice to speakers is to keep the speech short, because everyone is waiting for dinner. Tonight, the advice is keep the speech short, because everyone is waiting for the music performances on stage. Rightly so, because there are so many musicians, composers, artistes, songwriters here tonight. Everyone is looking forward to anything but the speech. So I promise that I will not take too long.
4. But I want to take a little bit of time tonight, because I think Singapore music – and the people who create it – really deserve that. I want to share from my perspective, my vantage point, some of the issues that we will be thinking about and will be consulting COMPASS on, to progress the music industry in the coming weeks.
Growing Up with Singapore Music
5. Those of you who know me know that music has always been a big part of my life. Long before I had anything to do with MCCY, NAC, MinLaw, or COMPASS, I was simply a music fan. Showing my age a little and my musical taste a little, I thought I would share my own journey with you.
6. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and like many Singaporeans in my generation, I listened to plenty of overseas music. But I listened to Singapore music as well. Some of that, of course, came from my father. At home, he used to play Anita Sarawak, Rahimah Rahim, Poon Sow Keng (SK Poon). He was a fan of Matthew and the Mandarins, and their song “Singapore Cowboy”, and on occasion I was brought by him to Hotel Negara.
7. But along the way, I developed my own favourites too. Some of my own favourites I listened to were Tokyo Square, Heritage, Zircon Lounge, Gingerbread, and a bit later on, The Oddfellows, and Humpback Oak.
8. Some of you may know that I went to school at SJI. The old SJI was located down Bras Basah Road, and along Bras Basah Road was a street that was lined full of cassette shops. I would save my money, stinge on my recess, just so I could buy the latest albums from the cassette shops. I would also buy the latest copy of Smash Hits that showcased the best of the UK top 20, and the Singapore-equivalent in those days was the BigO, by Philip and Michael Cheah. These were magazines that gave you a bit of information because there was no internet in those days.
9. Today, another new generation of Singaporean artists and bands are quickly emerging. I think it is important that we continue to do what we can, working as COMPASS, and also working with the Government, to build on that progress, to allow the musicians of this generation to flourish.
10. But of course, strong music is more than just what we see of the artistes on stage. There is also an extraordinary amount of talent behind the music – the songwriters, composers, producers, arrangers, music directors.
11. I think tonight’s awards capture that breadth and depth of Singapore’s musical talent really well.
Celebrating Singapore Talent
12. If you look around the room, we have musicians working across jazz, pop, R&B, classical, electronic and experimental. We have singers and instrumentalists, songwriters and composers, producers and music directors. We have Singaporeans whose work has travelled well beyond our shores, done really well on the world stage – in fact, some of the world’s biggest international stages – from the Grammys, to the Oscars to the Golden Horse Awards. And we have people who have spent decades building our musical institutions, nurturing and mentoring the next generation.
13. I think that is a remarkable range – across generations, and across genres and roles. It is a good reminder of just how deep and diverse Singapore’s musical talent is.
14. Let me not say more about tonight’s award winners – I do not want to spoil the surprise. But my warmest congratulations for those who will be recognised shortly tonight.
Why Singapore Music Matters
15. We are naturally proud when Singapore musicians do well. I think we all are, and we want to see them do well on the international stage.
16. But for me, Singapore music matters for another reason too. It matters because it helps us tell our own stories, gives us something that is distinctly our own, and every society needs our own voices – its own books, its films, its art, and of course, its songs.
17. The song ‘Home’ is a great example. Nearly three decades after Dick Lee wrote it, ‘Home’ remains almost ever present at National Day celebrations. But not just at National Day celebrations, but on any occasion when we feel proud to be Singaporean, when we feel a sense of identity that resonates, like at a football stadium for example recently, ‘Home’ would break out automatically. I think that is a sign of the quality of music and the ability of music to bind Singaporeans, bring people together, and foster a strong sense of identity.
18. Dick recently spoke about the importance of continuing to build Singapore’s own “song bank”. Jeremy too talked about the catalogue of Singapore music as an inheritance that is still growing.[1]
19. I like that idea. Because an inheritance cannot just consist of songs that we already know. Every generation – new musicians, new Singaporeans – must build on it, and add to it. For that to happen, Singaporeans must continue to believe that creating music here, in Singapore, is worth doing.
Helping Musicians Build Careers
20. I had the privilege, as I said, of being a fan buying records, starting with cassettes, then LPs, and then CDs. First as a fan, but later as the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, looking at how we could support our artists better and grow the sector. And today, in my role as the Minister for Law, overseeing IP and IPOS, to look at how we can protect the value of what creators make – by musicians like all of you.
21. Across these roles, my objective has remained the same: We want our local musicians to continue to thrive. And the Government’s role is to help create the right conditions for that to happen.
22. We support musicians to create and record original music, develop their skills and build their careers. And we have been strengthening that support.
23. But creating music is not enough in itself. There must be an audience. That is why we have also been helping Singapore music reach a wider audience. In 2023, we launched the ‘I Play SG Music’ as one example, and last year, we launched the SG Culture Pass – to bring more of the Singapore audience present, so that Singapore artists can continue to build a pipeline, and strengthen the link between performing artists and the audiences. These may be different initiatives across a different time span, but the aim is the same – to help more people discover, enjoy and support Singapore music.
24. Because our domestic market is small, we must also help our musicians to go beyond Singapore – to tour internationally, to perform at festivals, to collaborate with overseas artists, and to build networks and audiences in other markets as well.
25. The aim is not simply to fund individual projects, because this can be stop-start, ad-hoc; it is to give talent the best possible chance to build a sustainable career – by helping our musicians create good work, build a strong audience base here in Singapore, as well as reach new audiences overseas.
Making Music Pay
26. This, I believe, is where COMPASS will play an important role. We often, as the audience, hear three or four minutes of music, but behind those few minutes may be months, or even years, of writing, rewriting, arranging, rehearsing, recording and then producing. And behind all of that is also someone’s livelihood.
27. For nearly four decades, COMPASS has worked to ensure that when music is used, the people who created it will receive something in return. That mission is becoming more important, not less, in today’s technology age.
28. Streaming has of course transformed the industry. Today, a musician sitting in Singapore can potentially reach audiences anywhere in the world. In fact, many of the bands that I spoke about – the Singapore bands – are today found on Spotify, to reach a wider audience. That is good. It is an extraordinary opportunity.
29. But that reach does not itself necessarily translate into income and recognition. Jeremy has spoken very candidly about what he sees as the devaluation of music in the streaming age. I must say that Jeremy has been a very good sounding board for me. Over many years, I have shared coffee with Jeremy, and he has shared his latest ideas and his concerns with me, and it has been very helpful in my role at MCCY. I thank Jeremy for the generosity. Today, in my role at MinLaw, we want to tap into the same well of knowledge and work out what we can do. For example, Jeremy has pointed out that some musicians are being offered rates for live gigs today, not very different from many decades ago.[2]
30. That has to change. The cost of almost everything else has not remained stagnant for decades, so why should the cost of having live gigs remain the same? So we will work with COMPASS, work with Jeremy and his team, to do something about this.
31. But at the same time, in the new technology and AI age, it is also important that creators are properly recognised and remunerated when their music is broadcast, performed, streamed, or reproduced in some way. It also means keeping our copyright and our licensing systems effective, even as technology and business models change and evolve.
AI and Music
32. There is of course one change on the horizon that is hard to ignore, and that is artificial intelligence (AI), or generative AI, which has been disrupting sector after sector, and the music industry is no different.
33. Much of the attention initially focused on knowledge-based work – what AI might mean for lawyers, accountants, programmers and other professionals. But I think that as the technology becomes more capable, it is increasingly clear that the creative industries will not be spared.
34. AI can already write, generate images and video, and it can increasingly make music. But does that make AI an artist? That is a question that we have to answer.
35. A couple of weeks ago, at IP Week, I spoke about just how quickly this is happening. At its peak in June this year, more than half of all new music uploaded to Deezer was fully AI-generated, and that is around 90,000 tracks in one day alone.[3] And it is getting harder to tell the difference. In a 2025 Deezer/Ipsos blind test involving 9,000 people, 97% of them could not distinguish fully AI-generated music from music made by humans.[4] I know many of you in the room will be in the 3%, but the question is, what does the market think of AI-generated music? Last year, an AI-generated country act, Breaking Rust, reached No. 1 on a Billboard chart.[5]
36. So we have to know that AI is upon us. It is generating music at a pace never seen before. So, we are past the question of whether AI can make music. It can, and people are listening. But is the music simply about what we hear?
37. I read the views of Dick Lee. He shared very candidly in his 2023 article.[6] He says that AI is not music. That is one view.
38. For those who make music for a living, the question is a very practical one – can creators continue to make a living from their work?
39. Edmund himself has said that this is not about resisting AI.[7] AI can be a powerful tool for creatives too. What we need to do, as Edmund says, is when we put music on streaming platforms, broadcasts and other legitimate channels, it does not automatically mean that composers and songwriters have consented to its use for training commercial AI models. We recognise that, and we will work with COMPASS to get more views around this, and to see how we can strengthen this proposition.
40. Edmund also made that point that creators also need transparency. They should be able to know when their own copyrighted works has been used for AI training, by whom, and for what purpose. We were in the non-digital, analogue age. You used to listen to a music track on the radio. You might get some ideas, and you form the ideas into the next project. That is perfectly fine, as long as you do not copy copyright. I think we need to find a balance between that approach and the current approach, where almost everything becomes available for training.
41. Where copyrighted works are used, there should be the appropriate licensing mechanisms and fair remuneration – a topic that will help us sustain the music industry. We will again work with COMPASS and other stakeholders to design a framework around this. Because I see that the challenge is really to harness the potential of AI, whilst ensuring that human creativity remains valued and fairly rewarded.
42. And so, my Ministry and IPOS recently launched a public consultation to get ideas, to get feedback on this, and to understand, from each of your perspectives, how we can strengthen this framework in a way which allows us to progress with innovation, but at the same time, fairly remunerate our creatives in the music industry.
43. We want Singapore to be a place where creatives feel valued. When they come here to create music, they will be protected. This then creates a self-enriching environment, which allows for more creatives to be present in Singapore. Now, I am not going to turn tonight’s dinner into a public consultation, but we will work closely with COMPASS and the team, and other stakeholders, to ensure that all of your views are reflected.
Conclusion
44. Let me now conclude with one important point. That is when we move forward, we will never be able to fully understand how AI will evolve, or what the future will look like. But if we develop a system that places value and the ethos of music making, and creativity and recognition of the value, at the centre of that framework, then I think we will have a framework that will survive any iteration of AI that we will see. Because that becomes the framework that we understand how creatives will operate within, and will always be fairly remunerated.
45. I end with a quote from a Greek philosopher, Plato. He said, “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.”
46. Tonight, what I want us to all take away is that we want that music to continue to be the life of everything we see in Singapore. So, if we can continue building on what we have done, I can say safely that we have world-class musicians and we have a world-class music industry. What we now need is a framework that protects all of you and allows you a platform to showcase your talent – not just here, but as far as possible, we push you overseas, and build a stronger international reputation for Singapore music.
47. On that note, thank you once again for having me here at the COMPASS Awards Presentation. Enjoy the evening.
[1] ‘Harder to sing’: Music industry veterans Dick Lee and Jeremy Monteiro weigh in on NDP 2026 songs debate - CNA Lifestyle
[2] Jazz pianist Jeremy Monteiro laments stagnant $150 a gig wage for musicians in Singapore - The Straits Times
[3] AI Music Tops 50% of Daily Uploads on Deezer
[4] Deezer and Ipsos study: AI fools 97% of listeners
[5] Breaking Rust: AI artist tops US chart for first time as study reveals alarming recognition stats - Euronews
[6] AI isn’t art, and certainly not music - The Straits Times
[7] https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/forum/forum-ai-innovation-must-respect-the-rights-of-music-creators
Last updated on 13 September 2026