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Surviving the cutthroat music industry has been an uphill battle for Batik Tribe, a hip-hop group known for raising social and cultural issues through its music.

Pop and rock rule Indonesia’s radio charts, video countdowns and record sales. Hip-hop buffs usually seek out albums that are imported from the United States, the genre’s homeland.

Those who do listen to local hip-hop prefer tracks that have at least one foot in the mainstream, with catchy tunes, easy lyrics and simple messages.

When Batik Tribe released its debut album, “Melangkah” (“Stepping”), in 2008, the band members forked out their own money to produce and distribute 2,000 CDs and 1,000 cassettes, using the services of a medium-sized record label.

However, the group, comprised of Della MC, Cool B, Wizzow and DJ S’tea, was sorely disappointed when the albums weren’t distributed properly and many were kept in the storage.

The boys retracted the albums and took matters into their own hands.

They launched a word-of-mouth advertising blitz and hand-to-hand distribution, used the viral marketing power of Facebook and MySpace and even bundled the albums with their clothing line, Batik Gear, which specializes in batik hooded sweatshirts, or hoodies.

Despite these incentives, record sales have failed to take off for this quartet, which formed in 2007.

Batik Tribe knew that to achieve the dizzying heights of success in the industry, it would need to go mainstream — an idea vehemently rejected by a group that aspires to the likes of Common, Mos Def and Talib Kweli, some of the more alternative names in the American hip-hop scene.

“We’re not in this for the money and fame,” said DJ S’tea, the stage name for Sonu Tolani, the group’s turntable master. “We just want our music to be heard.”

“Melangkah” is filled with tracks that tackle pressing affairs of everyday life, ranging from “Metropolitan,” which talks about Jakarta’s long list of problems, including pollution, evictions of the poor and social inequality, to “Give Me Your Love,” which looks at global warming.

Inside the group’s headquarters in Pasar Baru, Central Jakarta, Wizzow, aka Wisnu Prastowo, said, “We’re hoping that through our songs, the younger generation will rise up and make changes.”

Batik Tribe’s first hit single, “Sabarlah” (“Be Patient”), is dedicated to children living on the street, with desolate lyrics such as, “Dreams of happiness are no more than a mirage.”

Della MC, the stage name for Mohammad Havizahisyam, based the song on a real-life experience. He was driving the streets of Jakarta in the early morning hours when he stopped at a traffic light in Grogol, West Jakarta. A young child knocked on the window of his car, begging for money.

“As I have a kid of my own, I was very concerned about the fate of these street kids,” said Della MC, who added that he was deeply moved by the incident.

“[The song] is our way of making sure that the street kids’ plight is heard by other people,” he said.

Sporting a baseball cap and a pair of funky sneakers, Della MC said that when Batik Tribe first entered the music scene, they knew that it wasn’t going to be a smooth ride because their songs were not typical of the mainstream market.

“The kind of music that thrives in the local music industry are the typical pop bands with their sappy songs and ballads,” Della MC said. “The other music, like reggae, jazz and hip-hop, is being pushed aside by the major record labels.”

Lanky rapper Wizzow added, “When they listen to local hip-hop, they only listen to the funny songs and those that talk about nothing important, about the glamorous things in life.”

Ferri Yuniardo, the founder of Hip Hop Indo, an online magazine, said he agreed with Batik Tribe’s opinion that local hip-hop artists only thrive in the market if they sing about “fun things.”

“We can’t deny it, society already has a lot of problems to face. It is difficult to offer them [listeners] complex songs that are full of criticism,” he said.

Ferri said that when it came to music, people preferred to spend their money on pure entertainment.

“When they have Rp 9,000 [95 cents], they prefer to buy the ringback tone of a song that they think is entertaining,” he said.

Ferri said, however, the competition between alternative and mainstream music wasn’t necessarily all bad, as it was a much-needed component of the hip-hop movement.

“Hip-hop is still a growing movement here [in Indonesia],” Ferri said. “It needs the mainstream media to gain more popularity.”

Songs with social messages are only one part of what defines Batik Tribe. The group also strongly identifies with traditional Indonesian culture, setting it apart from other hip-hop groups that emulate American artists.

The music for “Indo Yo Ey,” a song that talks about embracing Indonesian culture, mixes an electronically synthesized hip-hop beat with sounds produced by Gamelan Jawa, a traditional musical ensemble from Java, which is made up of instruments such as kolintang (xylophones), suling (bamboo flute) and bonang (small gongs).

“We mixed a Gamelan Jawa vinyl from the 1970s that we bought from the flea market on Jalan Surabaya for Rp 30,000,” said Wizzow, who’s also the producer of the group.

In their self-produced video clip for “Indo Yo Ey,” the hip-hoppers represent themselves in the form of a wayang golek (Sundanese wooden puppets), while displaying animations of Semar, a character from the Javanese wayang.

Boosted earlier this year by Unesco’s recognition of batik as part of Indonesia’s cultural heritage, the four-man troupe has been promoting batik in their live performances.

DJ S’tea frequently covers his turntables with a batik cloth, while the rapping boys wear batik on top of their hip-hop attire — a batik hoodie, the icon of hip-hop street wear, is their trademark.

“Indonesians have been protesting the fact that a lot of our culture has been stolen by neighboring countries,” Della MC said. “Through our music, we want to promote Indonesian culture.”

Hip Hop Indo’s Ferri said other groups around the country also had started to incorporate traditional elements like sinden, gamelan and batik into their hip-hop.

He said that “this shows how compatible hip-hop is with Indonesian culture,” and that blending in these traditional elements would bring more prominence to the genre.

Batik Tribe is currently working on its sophomore album, which it plans to release sometime next year. DJ S’tea said 80 percent of the tracks would use instruments such as angklung, suling and various gamelan ensembles — Balinese, Javanese and Sundanese — and that one song even infuses the chants from a Balinese dance, kecak .

Will they bend their principles and go mainstream for the sake of fame and fortune? The answer is an emphatic no.

Just like the first album, Wizzow said the second album would consist of songs that have a meaning beyond mere entertainment — a portrait of the social and cultural conditions in their everyday lives.

Batik Tribe is aware that it may never be on the same success level as its commercial counterparts. But, as Della MC puts it, “When it comes to music, it’s about our soul. What can we do?”