Mayco A. Santaella is Professor at the Department of Film and Performing Arts and Dean for the School of Arts at Sunway University. He studied at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa as an East-West Center Fellow researching music and dance traditions of the extended Sulu Zone (east Malaysia, southern Philippines, and eastern Indonesia) and its links to the Nusantara region. He conducted research for his doctoral studies in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, as a Fulbright research grant recipient. His books include Made in Nusantara: Studies in Popular Music (Routledge, 2021), Popular Music in East and Southeast Asia: Sonic (under)Currents and Currencies (Sunway University Press, 2022), Performing Arts and the Royal Courts of Southeast Asia (Brill, 2023 & 2024), and The Sulu Zone: A Maritime Cultural Complex (Sunway University Press, 2024).