One could listen to Datuk Yasmin Yusuff talk all day.
After all, hers was that familiar voice most of us listened to when we were growing up. She hosted the morning show on Malaysian radio from the late 1980s to early 2000s.
As Yasmin is recalling to StarLifestyle the high points of her life – not only as a radio deejay, but also the winner of Miss Malaysia 1978, a well-known singer and actress, and the voice of LRT – Yasmin proves she still has that innate ability to captivate her audience with just her mellifluous voice.
According to her, she doesn’t do anything special to ensure her voice sound the same. She laughs and shares: “Just born that way.”
Nonetheless, this is how she describes herself on Instagram: “My voice is my lifeline, radio DJ, voiceover artiste, actress, singer, golfer, home chef.”
While touching on Miss Malaysia during this one-hour chat, she suddenly informs StarLifestyle: “I tell you what. I won Miss Malaysia and Nancie Foo, was my (first) runner-up. Till today, Nancie and I play golf three times a week.”
What Yasmin remembers best about the beauty pageant isn’t what happened when she was crowned but what happened prior to Miss Malaysia and later, when she represented the country at Miss Universe 1978 in Mexico City, Mexico.
At the time Yasmin took part in the competitions, she was a student in Britain who’d come back to Malaysia to complete her industrial year. She was working at Genting Highlands, doing sales and promotion.
She recalls: “One part of my job was accompanying VIPs to the casino. When people won, I would say, ‘Sponsorlah Miss Malaysia. $100. $200. And of course I did the rounds with all my father’s friends.
“And I raised 10,000 Malaysian dollars!
“Then I went to the only shopping mall at that time, Ampang Park, and went into each and every shop to ask them to sponsor me a pair of shoes, an evening dress for the event, etc.
“I also went into a shop selling Kelantan silver to partly sponsor me, and I bought 85 bunga raya brooches made of Kelantan silver.
“I gave them to each participant at Miss Universe... And during the pageant, I realised that they were all using the Malaysia bunga raya brooches (on their sashes).
“Too bad there were no social media then,” she adds with a laugh.
“So I think I was very creative, and very competitive. I wanted to make an impact and do the best.
“My takeaway from Miss Malaysia is that I worked very hard to bring up the title and awareness, and make it a very classy thing.”
Perhaps because of this, Yasmin – who only served as Miss Malaysia for three or four months as she had to get back to her university – remains one of the most memorable and recognised Miss Malaysia.
As for Miss Universe, Yasmin not only had unique Malaysian gifts for the other contestants but also all the VIPs.
She remembers how all of her clothes were also distinctively Malaysian that the other contestants came to her room, wanting a piece of them.
She elaborates: “At the end of the competition, they came and took all the Malaysian clothes I had brought. They loved it. All the batik, songket...”
Many of them, she says, are still in touch with each other. “I made some good friends from Miss Universe. And we are still friends until today.
“Miss Universe is memorable because people remember that I was the first Miss Malaysia to win a prize at Miss Universe.”
Yasmin was named the second runner-up for Best National Costume. And, she still holds that record; in the 41 years since Yasmin won in this category, no other Miss Malaysia has cracked into the top three.
While participating in beauty pageant was something that Yasmin cherishes, she confesses that she has a soft spot for radio.
“I’ve done so many things in my life. But I think at the end of the day, my favourite is probably radio. Singing probably comes a very close second.
“The creativity potential for radio, because it’s not visual, the opportunity for creativity is so vast. You can do anything and say anything, you know. And I really, really loved that.”
In total, Yasmin worked for 18 years on radio, first at RTM’s Radio 4 followed by a couple of private radio stations.
“When I was at Radio 4, there were no competitions. We were the only English radio station. My show had like the highest revenue we had ever had. Yeah, like, a million (ringgit) a month kind of thing.
“I think the best times then were my crossovers with (fellow deejay) Patrick Teoh. I was on from 6am to 9am and he was on from 9am to noon. So he would come early, and I would leave late.
“Everybody thought we had a show together. We’ve never had a show together, ever. We just hung out in each other’s shows. That was fun.
“And the competitions... the competitions were amazing. I had a competition called ‘What’s That Sound?’. And people have copied it. I won’t name names, but there’s a station doing it right now!”
But after her last gig on radio ended – and the radio in her car broke – Yasmin kind of stopped listening to local radio stations. She instead relied on CDs or her iPod.
“I have only just started listening to radio in my car about two months ago.
“I do listen at home sometimes,” she mentions. “I love listening to Malay radio. Malay radio has always been good. At the moment, Suria FM is my favourite station.”
As it happens, some of the deejays on the Malay stations such as Suria’s DJ Lin were trained by Yasmin when she worked as programme manager at RFM, which was then a bilingual station.
Having had such a busy life on radio, Yasmin says there was definitely a huge change in her lifestyle when she was off the air. Besides keeping up with golf, she does emceeing jobs. However, when the pandemic hit and all her emcee work got cancelled, there was another huge shift.
“I just turned to doing what everybody else did; cooking and planting vegetables. I organised some things here and there, and learned a few tricks for my social media skills.”Her time these days is also filled with the volunteer work she does with Caremongers Ampang, distributing essential goods to help the less fortunate.
During MCO and RMCO last year especially, Caremongers Ampang worked extra hard; Yasmin was in charge of vetting through hundreds of requests to determine who needed help most urgently.
“I was on my computer even till midnight, vetting, vetting...
“Because I didn’t want to go and distribute – I didn’t feel safe – I had the job of vetting, which is actually 20 times worse than distribution. You have to decide who gets it and who doesn’t. Who’s lying. Who’s cheating. Who’s genuine, you know?
“It was very tough. But I enjoyed it. I like helping people,” says Yasmin who also participates in Relay For Life Malaysia, a community-based fundraising event for cancer related institutions, societies and associations.
Having spent most of her life as an entertainer – Yasmin acted in the films Mekanik, Selubung, Ringgit Kassorga, Gol Dan Gincu, Susuk and Pisau Cukur, as well as a singer with two albums under her belt – she’s surely still known when she’s out and about.
Yasmin shares a story of her recent emceeing gig for a summit discussing the topic “Reviving Malaysia Tourism”.
“It was a virtual summit. Three people did not recognise me with my mask on, including the director general of tourism. I was chatting with him and decided to take my mask off, and he said, ‘Oh, it’s you.’ It was so funny.
“But a lot of people throughout my career recognised my voice.
“For the younger people, I am known as the voice of LRT... They will come up to me and imitate me.
“(LRT) changed the voice about three years ago. I was so upset. I don’t know why they didn’t call me back. I was so disappointed.
“It was my voice at the KLIA aerotrain as well. About a year before last, they changed it.”
A perfectionist, Yasmin admits bad criticism still gets to her even though she’s out of the public eye. But she knows well enough that she can’t make everyone happy.
“It’s good to have fun,” she surmises.
“People used to ask me what I want to be remembered for?
“I want to be remembered as someone who made people smile, laugh. I know people laughed when I was at radio.
“There were also people who wrote petitions to the station saying that I cackled very loudly so please take me off the air.
“That’s the 1980s version of haters, lah,” she says, with a cackle, naturally.
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