•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Electronic beats pulsed through the room as DJ Vanda, clad in pink from her leather jacket to her straw hat, worked the stage solo with her turntables. A haunting strain of traditional Javanese music flowed into the room.

Vanda started to mix in her beats, twisting the turntables in time with the ancestral notes hanging in the air. That’s when the crew spilled out, bounding onto the stage in their baseball caps, high-top sneakers, baggy pants and batik shirts worn over T-shirts.

And that’s how the Jogja Hip-Hop Foundation began its recent performance in New York City.

The group was in New York as part of the Asia Society’s “Creative Voices of Islam in Asia” project. The Asia Society is a nonprofit organization that encourages better understanding between Asia and the United States by exposing both sides to a diverse range of voices.

Yogyakarta, known colloquially as Jogja, is the birthplace and namesake of JHF, a community of hip-hop artists who rap primarily in the Javanese language.

The community’s three main crews — Jahanam, Rotra and Kill the DJ — are also known for integrating traditional Javanese traditional music into urban beats.

Marzuki “Zuki” Muhammad, a.k.a. Kill the DJ, said he founded JHF

eight years ago out of concern for the state of Indonesian hip-hop.

“When I returned from a trip to Paris in 2003, I felt that hip-hop had gone down a bit in terms of creativity and productivity,” Zuki said. That’s when he began to invite amateur and professional artists to band together into a small hip-hop community.

“It was all natural. Nothing was manufactured. I’ve always liked hip-hop in Javanese,” he said.

Indonesian artist and independent researcher Ugoran Prasad was in New York to help present the event. During his pre-performance lecture at the Asia Society, he explained that JHF members have a lot of questions about what Indonesia is and where it’s going, but they’re more comfortable voicing their opinions through music.

“JHF was a project intended to create a stronger sense of community and civic involvement. They use hip-hop as a mode of expression for their identities and as a space for emerging artists,” Ugoran said.

“Zuki kept saying it’s a project based on a simple idea. Hip-hop is already part of Indonesia’s music culture,” he said. “The first Jogja rapper, Anto [Yanu Prihaminanto, a.k.a. Gantazz], began performing in 1992. G-Tribe, the first hip-hop crew in Jogja, was established in 1994. So the history of hip-hop in Indonesia isn’t new.”

And for these Jogja natives, rapping in their mother tongue was the natural choice. Anto was inspired after hearing a rap battle on a local radio station between the DJ and a caller.

“The caller did it in Javanese. So I was hooked. It’s easier to relay the message in Javanese because it’s the language I speak every day,” Anto said.

Their distinctive sound is an amalgamation of various musical traditions — from gamelan and dangdut to shalawatan (Javanese Muslim prayer recital) and the trance rhythms of the Jathilan horse dance — with robust rhymes and techno beats mixed in. The appeal of JHF’s music is wide, with fans ranging from senior musicians such as Butet Kartaredjasa and Romo Sindhunata to high school kids.

“All of them can sing the lyrics to our songs,” Zuki said.

At the performance in New York, DJ Vanda played the group’s signature tunes, getting the room pulsating with energy. Audience members started to bob their heads to the lively beat.

For the group’s next number, Soimah Pancawati, a traditional Javanese sinden singer, floated onto the stage dressed in a regal red Javanese kebaya. She began to sensuously sing in Javanese while Zuki rapped alongside her. The hypnotic music cascaded through the room, as if the two performers were melting into one voice. In the background, Vanda weaved a lush hip-hop soundscape.

“I am very happy when I rap,” Zuki said. “The best thing for me is the storytelling. And I’ve found it doesn’t feel right unless I’m doing it in Javanese, because that’s my mother tongue. It is bahasa jujur [the language of truth]. When we sing, we can hide behind the tune. But when we’re speaking — we’re telling a story.”

JHF supports its activities through music sales. Group members have produced three albums so far, including “Poetry Battle 1 and 2,” which includes poetry from ancient Javanese literature, such as “Serat Centhini,” a text on Javanese cultural rituals and philosophy.

But using old verse is not the norm for the JHF crew. “We use ancient texts for the poetry battle events, but we usually create our own lyrics about day-to-day things. We make it funny — things about society, politics, love, life and being a laborer,” said Balance Perdana Putra, a.k.a. Ngila.

The topics can also be very political. According to Zuki, the Javanese normally make fun of themselves as a form of veiled critique — in actuality they are expressing their point-of-view as an individual who is suffering from corrupt politics, a person who is a victim to their circumstances.

“Jogjakartans see themselves as subjects of self-mockery and self-criticism,” Ugoran said. “We allow ourselves to mock God in his bedroom. JHF is trying to find a way, not only to address their Javanese existence, but also the significance of being Javanese in this world.”

The community’s third album is the soundtrack of “Hip Hop Diningrat: The Tales of Javanese Hip Hop,” a documentary film created by Zuki that explores Jogja’s hip-hop subculture.

“The reason we’ve managed to be consistent as a group is because we really love it,” Zuki said.

“And love is hard to explain. We’re not a product — as in, if you don’t sell records, you disband. We’re the real deal. So whether we’re well-known or not, we’ll still go on making music.”