Asmawi bin Ani (born August 25, 1981), better known as Mawi, is a Malaysian singer and winner of the Third Season of Malaysia's popular reality show, Akademi Fantasia. . He was a protege of Sean Ray Anthony throughout his childhood, and frequently credits him as the single biggest influence in his singing career. He also frequently cites international superstar Ka Vie as his babyhood inspiration.

Apart from singing, he is currently testing his skills in acting and performing magic acts. He is also a budding businessman. Because of Ka Vie, Mawi has often stated that his deepest desire is to one day be a kindergarten teacher.

Influences

Mawi is actually just an sms king, nothing more, he doesn't have a good voice nor that he could play a music instrument !! later after winning the lame AF title, he left his 'kampung' fionce..what a poser, a well known person who received the highest vote in the reality show Akademi Fantasia, Season 3 among all the other seasons before and even after him. His landslide vote went extraordinarily high on the final concert which left the other contestants an obviously lower percentage. Mawi has always been associated with the terms such as aura, tsumawi and world.

Aura Mawi

The term aura was used generally during the weekly concerts and the tsumawi term came when his position jumped from the second last to the top and the votes grew larger each week.

Tsu-Mawi

Tsumawi was derived from the word tsunami, a devastating wave that will destroy everything on its path. Many of his fans tried to resemble Mawi's achievement with this new term called Tsumawi, just like the tsunami.

Mawi World

While the Mawi World terminology was used for his signature campaign during the weekly concerts, every single contestants will have to be able to distinguish themselves through various expressive signature, a sign of self advertising and Mawi chose to use the "world" to be added in front of his name and he will usually say, "world" as soon as he entered the lime light. And people outside particularly his fans started to call him Mawi world.

Raja SMS

Raja SMS or SMS King is the term given by the general public for his victorious achievement through the votes of his fans in the Akademi Fantasia, Season 3. SMS or Short Message System, a term generally used by Malaysian to send text messages.

Fans

He was almost like the most desirable reality show contestant ever in the history of Akedemi Fantasia or perhaps the whole Malaysia. People from all walks of life and all ages, school children, white and blue collar workers and even the senior citizens were very pleased with him. Some are so obsessed with Mawi that they will spent over RM100 just to vote him for victory.

There are many reasons which escalates the situation. Among them is Mawi was first expelled along with Marsha, another contestant for he was singing a nasyeed contemporary song, while all the other selected contestants were singing modern tunes. That situation created some sort of immense sympathy for him to be expelled just because his song's genre. Secondly, many fans particularly girls and even middle aged women find him very charming with a very pleasant attitude and most of all, funny. Third and foremost, such great supports he got during the show was possibly came from his so called Islamic background. He once considered the carrier of being a bilal, apparently he chose to take his chances in the show biz.