Musa is a Malaysian Malay. He was raised by his parents in a kampung called Sungai Nyior in Butterworth. Following his secondary education, he gained a scholarship to study quantity surveying at the University of Portsmouth from 1994. After graduation in 1997, his first job as a quantity surveyor was in Bournemouth, Southern England before relocating to Londonin 1999. In 2003 he moved to Manchester, where he continued to practice as a quantity surveyor. In 2006 he took a break as a quantity surveyor to plan, design and develop a restaurant with his partner at the time. The restaurant, Ning was located in the Northern Quarter and opened for trading in December 2006, focusing on Malaysian cuisine and Thai cuisine. Norman acted as Head Chef at the restaurant whilst also returning to his role as a quantity surveyor in 2007 once the restaurant was up and running. Once the restaurant business took off, he left his career in quantity surveying in 2009 to work full-time at Ning. A second Ning restaurant in York was open from 2012 to 2014. He has received the Hospitality Guild's Young Hall of Fame award at a parliamentary reception at the House of Commons and was awarded runner-up in the Asian & Oriental Chef of the Year at the Asian Curry Awards 2013. In November 2014, the Kuala Lumpur Mayor's office made a press release to announce Musa's appointment as the Kuala Lumpur Food Ambassador for the European market. In April 2016, Musa was shortlisted as one of the seven Malaysian cooks who made it abroad by the Malaysian Newspaper, The Star. In March 2017 Musa was handed a five-year disqualification for employing illegal workers at Ning. The disqualification follows an investigation by the Insolvency Service, which found that Musa failed to ensure the business completed relevant immigration checks on its employees, resulting in the employment of two illegal workers. In March 2018, Musa was offered to teach at Seasoned Cookery School Derbyshire which add up to the list of cookery schools in his profile. In May 2018, Musa was offered to run 5 day cooking demonstrations and masterclasses at one of the biggest Festival in Europe, the Tong Tong Fair ref https://tongtongfair.nl/food/ held in The Hague, The Netherlands. The festival was attended by more than 80,000 visitors and Musa was also commissioned to create a Malaysian inspired breakfast for the Mercure Hotel in The Hague to be served during the festival that runs for 12 days from 24 May until 3 June 2018. On 25 June 2018, Musa was offered to teach at the Foodworks Cookery School in Cheltenham On 4 July 2018 Musa released his open letter statement on his social media and website to his followers in regard to the illegal workers incident and the consequences. On 22 January 2019, Musa was officially appointed as the Executive Chef for Wah Nam Hong Restaurant in Leidsenhage, The Netherlands. Musa filmed his third cooking show 'East West Bake' in Cheshire, United Kingdom from 11 March 2019 until 17 March 2019. Musa co host the show with his mentor, Chef Brian Mellor. The show is for the Malaysian TV Channel 'Saluran Okey'. On 18 March, Musa was invited to run cooking demonstration to promote Malaysian fruits at the Unesco Headquarters in Paris. The event was launched by the Deputy Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato Sri Dr Wan Azizah. Musa invited the Deputy Prime Minister to cook along with him during the event. In March 2019, Musa was announced by Holland based Big Green Egg as one of the celebrity chefs to run cooking workshop at their annual Big Green Egg's Flavour Fair and this year taken place on Sunday, 16 June 2019 in Lisse, The Netherlands. Article of Musa and his recipes were featured in the Malaysian's Her World MagazineApril 2019 Issue.
