Meditasi drummer Raja Azreen Raja Talib has died aged 56 after collapsing during the band’s set in Kuantan.
Raja Azreen Raja Talib, drummer with the Malaysian rock band Meditasi, has died at the age of 56. He collapsed over his kit during the band’s performance at the Teruntum Rock Festival in Kuantan, Pahang on Saturday 18 July, and was pronounced dead at Tengku Ampuan Afzan Hospital shortly before 11pm that night.
Meditasi were on the second song of a planned ten-song set when frontman Bakaruddin “Burn” Daud saw him slump forward. Bandmates carried him backstage and an ambulance reached the venue within minutes.
“I rushed towards him, but I could sense that he was already gone,” Daud told Berita Harian, in remarks translated from Malay. “I called out to him and tapped him, but there was no response. His body was already cold. The fans were quite alarmed when they saw what was happening.”
Daud said he was truly shocked and deeply saddened, and that the drummer had shown no sign of being unwell during rehearsals for the show. “He was really happy to meet up with friends. He didn’t appear sad or unwell.”
Before the performance, Raja Azreen had asked the band to dress head to toe in black.
His older brother, Raja Azman Raja Taib, told the same newspaper that heart complications were behind the collapse.
“He was given respiratory assistance, but he did not regain consciousness or respond after the collapse,” he said.
Raja Azman said his brother had been in hospital twice in June with heart problems and had recently been diagnosed with diabetes. “He was hospitalized twice; the first stay lasted two to three weeks before he was admitted again.”
He also raised the possibility that exhaustion had contributed, saying it was possible extreme fatigue had taken a toll. Raja Azreen had come to the festival directly from a BMX competition. He was a lifelong cyclist and ran a bicycle shop in his home village of Kampung Gali Hilir in Raub, Pahang.
Meditasi formed in the late 1980s, taking their name from the Malay word for meditation, and were part of the Malaysian rock scene that found a wide audience through the 1990s. The band reunited in 2015 and had been performing regularly since.
Daud said he and guitarist Rosli Ahmad have not yet worked out what happens next, but intend to carry on, believing that is what Raja Azreen would have wanted.
Tributes have come from across Malaysian music and from listeners who grew up with the band’s records. He is remembered as much for his devotion to his family as for his playing.
