RI pop music goes ethnic: A hope or just a trend?

RI pop music goes ethnic: A hope or just a trend?

By Achmad Nurhoeri

JAKARTA (JP): Trekking through Indonesia's developing popular
music sometimes prompts a hopeful smile. In the blizzard of the
Americanization of popular music, more Indonesian pop artists are
giving their work a touch of identity from the rich collection of
Indonesian culture and the thousands of ethnic groups that are
scattered around the archipelago. But there is fear that it is
just a trendy mirage that will fade in time. And this is where
the hopeful smile becomes a sad smirk.

It is obvious that Indonesian ethnic culture has become a well
of ideas for the pop music industry. The TV racks in one of
Jakarta's flourishing hip malls, showed top rock group Dewa 19
using a model in a Javanese wayang outfit to portray Srikandi,
the mythological female warrior, in the videoclip of their latest
hit Kirana.

Inside a neighboring fast-food restaurant, hums of gamelan
pentatonic sounds blended through the diatonic structure of a
song from hot singer Nugie, Tertipu (Cheated). Still in the mall,
another familiar traditional strain snuggled with jazz filled the
air of a nearby store. It was jazzy Karimata's hit Take Off to
Padang which has a dash of Saluang music from West Sumatra.

In the mall's parking lot a jeep with several teenyboppers in
full hip-hop fashion tuned into rap music at maximum volume. It
was not in English. The song was Batman Kasarung from the
Indonesian rapper, Iwa K. The heavy accent of Sudanese language
complimented the song.

And not only Iwa is doing it. In a student tabloid at the
University of Indonesia, communications student Yoga Adhitrisna
observed that new rap group G-Tribe from Yogyakarta used basa
walikan, a slang version of the Javanese language that alters the
structure of the words in the Hanacaraka characters, in their
debut hit Watch Out, Dab! (Watch Out, Man !). According to Yoga,
the band has modified the original American gangsta rap genre and
added an ethnic Javanese influence.

Maryati, manager of Indonesia's leading female trio AB Three,
confirmed that the group will continue to use more traditional
influences in the group's future performances. "We want to graze
our music with traditional grains," she said.

Exoticism

So, has the Western-oriented popular music world in Indonesia
realized that their own nation's ethnic culture is not prosaic
after all? Perhaps John Naisbitt's prediction that people would
increasingly treasure their own traditions as our outer world
grows more similar has come to light in the Indonesian pop music
scene. But according to ethno-musicologist Franki Raden, we are
not headed that way.

"Their (the music world) approaches are very shallow. They
only touch the surface of ethnic culture," he said.

"I think what they're doing is actually based on the
exoticism that is now going on in the West. So, what they're
doing is just pitifully copying the Western trend. They're using
exoticism just to add to their own benefits."

German philosopher Frans Magnis-Suseno, who has spent a large
part of his life in Indonesia, once wrote that Western people see
the traditional cultures of the East as merely exotic. In
reverse, the Western culture is considered the example to follow
by the East.

One example of Western exoticism which failed to adequately
regard the meaning of ethnic symbols can be found in March 1996
when U.S. rock band Saigon Kick used a Hindu temple in Bali as
the setting of one of their videoclips, The One.

After the clip reached local stations, the Balinese people
were flabbergasted when they saw the long-haired crew running
around and sitting on sacred altars. In the end, Saigon Kick were
forced to modify the clip.

The western enthusiasm of exotic music was also behind AB
Three's plan to use traditional music influences. Maryati
admitted that the traditional stints in AB Three's prospective
third album was the idea of western producers who will record the
trio's new album in Italy and distribute it throughout Europe.
"We will be under Virgin Records or BMG. And they want us to
bring along examples of traditional Indonesian music with us."

Another Western proponent that is now on a quest for exotic
sounds is MTV, the non-stop music TV channel that has been the
latest preacher of western thought in Asia and is worshiped by
youth all over the continent.

But MTV Asia frequently shows clips that depict ethnic symbols
without giving any consideration to the meaning. Regretfully, the
power of MTV's vision has inevitably made the youth think this is
right. "The viewers see them as a success and then try to follow
their footsteps," said Franki.

Franki told The Jakarta Post that the proper use of ethnic
culture in the popular scene requires a thorough and serious
understanding. "Understanding the ethnic culture takes time and
effort. Our potential ethnic culture could actually lead our
music world to new creations and even new genre."

Unfortunately, there are only a few serious pop artists that
try to dig the treasures within. Jazz groups Karimata and
Krakatau made a good start in their search of art from ethnic
groups in Indonesia several years ago but their popularity has
since dropped off.

"So, what we have here is music employing the ethnic culture.
They have not shown consistency, something if preserved could
lead to a new creation and make themselves trendsetters," said
Franki.

But currently even the West has good examples of the use of
ethnic culture in music. French group Deep Forest, for example,
in 1992 released their staggering first debut album Deep Forest
which was a mixture of sounds from the pygmies of Africa
interlaced with melodies and smooth syncopation. They studied the
root of the music to Burundi, Cameroon, Zaire and Chad. Although
it was first inspired by the sense of exoticism, the duo paid
heavy respect to their sources along the way.

In Asia, Japanese musician Osamu Kitajima has combined ambient
dance rhythms of the West with the fine wisdom of ancient
Japanese sounds creating a more visionary result from mere
exoticism.

Both were hits in the market, proving that the masses also
respect quality and hard effort.

Hopefully, Indonesian pop artists have started to realize that
a serious dip into Indonesia's own cultural identity is
imperative in the popular cultural world today that is engineered
more and more by the West. But it would be a pity if the beauty which
lies inside the ethnic cultures of Indonesia are exploited just
for the sake of short-lived exoticism and the profane search for
profit.

Those who find beautiful meaning in beautiful things are the
cultivated. For these people there is hope.