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.