‘Wa lao eh’: Taylor Swift’s dancer nails Singlish at Singapore shows

American superstar Taylor Swift may be the one drawing 50,000-strong crowds to her six-night run of shows at the National Stadium from March 2 to 9, but her backup dancer Kameron Saunders is also winning the hearts of Swifties in Singapore.

The sassy 31-year-old has been tasked with dropping a spot of Singlish into Swift’s concerts here – her only stop in South-East Asia.

During one crowd-pleasing segment of her performance of We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, Swift typically passes the microphone over to Saunders after she says: “Like, we are never getting back together.”

Saunders usually adds “like ever”, but he got fans in Singapore screaming when he replaced it with “No lah” during the opening night on March 2.

On the second and third nights, he switched it up to “siao ah” and “wa lao eh” respectively – charming the crowd with his accurate Singlish accent. Clips of these segments have been going viral on social media.

In particular, his pronunciation of “wa lao eh” – used to express annoyance, frustration or disbelief – has been praised, with some fans even joking that he should get Singapore citizenship for how well he nailed it.

The song’s “like ever” response appears to have been localised for Swift’s international tour, with different native slang used in every concert

In Tokyo, Saunders replied with “arienai” – which means impossible in Japanese – and for the Australia leg, he broke out the Aussie accent with “like naur”.

Swifties have been hotly anticipating which Singlish slang Saunders will use in the March 7 to 9 shows, with TikTokers suggesting terms such as “win liao lor” and “tak boleh”, which means “cannot” in Malay

Saunders, who is a professional dancer and choreographer, has also been a backup dancer for American pop star Lizzo. He is one of the dancers involved in the musical period film The Color Purple (2023).

And he has an unexpected link to Swift beyond his day job. Saunders’ younger brother, American football player Khalen Saunders, was formerly from the Kansas City Chiefs – the same team that Swift’s beau Travis Kelce plays for.

Khalen Saunders and Kelce helped their team win the Super Bowl in 2019 and 2022. The former has since left the Chiefs, having signed with the New Orleans Saints in 2023.

When the Eras Tour was staged at the Chiefs’ home stadium, Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City in Missouri in 2023, Kameron Saunders made a post on Instagram while wearing his brother’s jersey to express his excitement at finally taking centre stage at the same venue.

He wrote: “I’ve been to games at this stadium way more times than I can count to support my brother, but never been on the field. Full circle.” – The Straits Times/Asia News Network