Ai Pia Jiak Eh Yia.

You'd definitely have heard this Hokkien ditty whenever you walked past the getai.

Or you could have heard it during the election period at The Workers' Party's rallies where it is sung with such gusto, it causes your chest to swell and your eyes to tear, even though you don't even know the words to the rest of the song.

Now, hear it in its jiak kan tang form (read: Anglicised form), with acoustic guitar and a cappella vocals.

Singapore's preeminent vocal-comedy group, Bundak Pantai, who by their own reckoning do not consider themselves to be an a cappella group, posted a video of their performance of the Hokkien song on Facebook on Sept. 16, 2014.

Well, if you've not heard of Bundak Pantai, this is how they describe themselves on Facebook:

Budak Pantai – NOT YOUR AVERAGE A CAPPELLA GROUP

For one, they don’t sing a cappella. Well, not that much anymore anyway. For over 10 years that they were doing a cappella, Danny didn’t know what to with his hands when on stage. So he brought along a guitar. Today, they’re stuck with this ensemble – 5 men and a guitar. It’s also hard to describe or categorise the kind of music they do. Saying it’s eclectic is putting it nicely. If there’s a musical equivalent of stand-up comic, Budak Pantai are it. Their voices were once described by a concert reviewer as “unremarkable”. But the same reviewer also said that they were “most entertaining”. To these 5 men, that was as good a compliment as any, because their only goal is to entertain. They are unabashedly irreverent with their music. They sing about why men have nipples; they turn ‘My Heart Will Go On’ into a square dance; they even sing the recipe for baking a cake! They have a break-up song and a retrenchment song. But it is precisely this irreverence that has endeared Budak Pantai to a huge following in Singapore, including company executives, prominent commercial and government organisations and (God help us) school kids. Whenever they perform, it’s usually standing room only. If you like music, you will like Budak’s clever interpretations. And if you enjoy comedy, you will certainly love this group.

Here is the video:

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