EMPAT

Merlimau, and the concert that took three years to agree on

The two oldest members of EMPAT come from the same house. Ziana Zain was born in Merlimau, Melaka on 2 May 1968; her younger brother Anuar Zain was born in the same town on 15 February 1970, the second of five siblings. Ernie Zakri, born in Kuala Lumpur on 23 June 1992, is their niece on her mother's side. Syamel — Syameel Aqmal bin Mohd Fodzly, born in Kuala Lumpur on 26 November 1993 — married Ernie in March 2021, which is how a bill of four singers turns out to be a bill of one family.

The grouping was announced on 30 April 2025, with a concert set for 18 October that year at Mega Star Arena in Kuala Lumpur, and planning that the artists said had been going on for two or three years before that. Anuar framed it plainly at the announcement: it was the first time the four of them, each with a separate body of work behind them, had collaborated on a concert. Speaking later about how it came together, he described it as something that happened naturally rather than a project mapped out years in advance, with the push coming from fans who kept asking for it. Ziana's pitch was simpler still — two generations of Malaysian pop in one room.

The commercial answer arrived fast. Tickets went on sale on 25 April 2025, and by the announcement five days later the Royal Twin, Gold, Silver and Bronze tiers were gone, leaving Diamond at RM688, Platinum at RM888 and VIP at RM1,088. It was not an untested audience: Ziana and Anuar had already played together in 2022, a show that sold out three days after going on sale.

Four catalogues, thirty-five years apart

Ziana's run began with 'Madah Berhelah' in 1991, which shifted around 40,000 copies. A self-titled album followed in 1993 at roughly 85,000, then 'Setia Ku Di Sini' in 1995 at about 180,000 — the record that won her Best Female Vocalist in an Album at the 1996 Anugerah Industri Muzik. 'Puncak Kasih' came in 1997, near 150,000 copies, with its title track taking Best Ballad at Anugerah Juara Lagu in 1998. She had been named Voice of Asia in Kazakhstan in 1995. After 'Aku Cintakan Mu' in 2001 and a four-year absence from 2005, she returned with the mini-album 'Dingin' in 2008, and gave birth to twins in July 2009.

Anuar has been performing since 1985 but made his albums slowly and deliberately: five studio records, all titled after himself, released in 1998, 2002, 2007, 2011 and 2016. He worked in film and television alongside them — 'Soal Hati' in 2000, 'Bintang Hati' in 2004, TV3's 'Puteri' in 2005 — and his 2021 single 'Sendiri' was written into the drama 'Single Terlalu Lama'. His ballads, 'Lelaki Ini' chief among them, are the songs the rest of the family's audience arrives already knowing.

Ernie came up through competition television, winning Bintang RTM in 2009 at seventeen, and released her debut album 'Sinaran' in 2011. She also took the academic route: a music degree from Universiti Teknologi MARA in Shah Alam, a master's from Universiti Malaya, and two years teaching voice at Bentley Music Academy. Astro's Duo Star paired her with Syamel, the two of them won it, and the duet 'Aku Cinta' took Best Vocals at Anugerah Juara Lagu 32 in 2018. 'Ku Bersuara' followed the same year; 'Gundah', released in 2020, won her Best Vocals again at AJL 35 in 2021.

Syamel's route was the least conventional of the four. He busked outside the Sogo store in Kuala Lumpur before finishing runner-up on Akademi Fantasia in 2015, where his debut single 'Hidup Dalam Mati' broke. Best New Artist at the 22nd Anugerah Industri Muzik followed in 2016, the year of 'Lebih Sempurna'; 'Biar Cinta' came in 2017, and at AF Megastar that September he reached the final and took the Ultimate Performer award.

18 October 2025: what the show turned out to be

The Kuala Lumpur concert went on at 8.45pm at Mega Star Arena in Plaza Sungai Wang in front of a reported 4,500 people. It was produced by Anuar Zain Network with Altus ProHouse, directed by Jennifer Thompson, with Lee Sze Wan as musical director. Edry Abdul Halim, Datuk Hattan, Noryn Aziz and Salamiah Hassan were among the performers in the audience.

The opening settled the format immediately: a four-way medley of 'Ku Bersuara', 'Lebih Sempurna', 'Madah Berhelah' and 'Keabadian Cinta', one song from each career stitched together. From there the night alternated solo stretches with pairings that crossed the generations — Ernie with Ziana, Anuar with Syamel, and Ziana and Anuar together on 'Menadah Gerimis', which drew the loudest recognition from the older part of the room. An up-tempo run through 'Kau Pun Sama', 'Sangkar Cinta', 'Kau Bunga Cintaku' and 'Boneka' got the arena out of its seats.

Reviewers singled out the unpolished moments as much as the clean ones. Syamel followed 'Hamba Cinta' with 'Beribu Tanda Tanya' and restarted the song mid-performance. Anuar closed his own set with 'Lelaki Ini'. All four then returned for 'Jangan Henti', a new song written for the occasion and premiered that night, which the Malaysian press read as the point of the whole exercise — an older pair handing something forward rather than a nostalgia bill. Ziana used her stage time to talk about family difficulty the four had come through; Anuar's remarks were about the audience that had stayed with them.

The eleven months since

The four went back to separate diaries almost at once. On 22 November 2025 Syamel played his first solo concert after a decade as a professional, 'Pertama — A New Journey Together With Me, Syamel', at the Nero Event Space in PJPAC, 1 Utama East in Petaling Jaya, with tickets at RM148 through Onetix from 3 November. He described it as a deliberately small, close-quarters night rather than a scaled-up version of anything.

Anuar opened 2026 on a much bigger stage, playing Healing Nite 2026 at Stadium Merdeka on 24 January alongside Ella, Dayang Nurfaizah and the Indonesian acts Kangen Band and Lyodra. That show also started at 8.45pm, with a 'Healing Tent' open near the stadium entrance from 1pm. Anuar's framing of it — music as a way of resetting after a hard year — is close to the language he used about EMPAT.

The group itself resurfaced on 13 May 2026, when FriedRice Entertainment announced EMPAT Live in Singapore 2026 for 26 September at The Star Theatre. Tickets went on general sale at 10am on 22 May through Ticketmaster.

One date, across the Causeway

The Singapore show is the only EMPAT date currently on sale, and the first outside Malaysia. It starts at 8pm on Saturday 26 September 2026 at The Star Theatre, the 5,000-seat hall inside The Star Vista in Buona Vista. Six price categories run from S$288 down to S$138, with a restricted-view tier at S$108; booking fees add S$6 to anything above S$50.

The billing is the four of them and nothing else, which is consistent with how Kuala Lumpur was staged. The promoter has named 'Lelaki Ini', 'Sedetik Lebih', 'Keabadian Cinta', 'Ku Bersuara', 'Madah Berhelah', 'Masing Masing', 'Aura', 'Kau Pun Sama' and 'Jangan Henti' as part of the set, which maps closely onto the Kuala Lumpur running order. In interviews before the date the four have described the arrangements as substantially rewritten to carry four voices rather than one, with each member's own material reworked rather than played straight.

Singapore is not new ground for the audience, only for the show: Ziana's and Anuar's records were sold across the Causeway through the 1990s and 2000s, and the pitch for this date has been aimed squarely at listeners who grew up with them and have not seen the four in a room together.