Dangdut Soul: Who are 'the People' In Indonesian Popular Music?

Khairunnisa Rahinaningtyas – 397035

Dangdut is a genre of mass-mediated popular music that developed in the Indonesian capital city
of Jakarta during the early 1970s. Indonesia's most popular music is arguably its most hybrid, blending
Melayu, Arabic, and Indian musical elements with American, Latin, and European popular forms. The
basic instrumentation consists of guitar, bass, drums, electronic keyboard, Mandolin, tambourine,
gendang (a set of two drums similar to a north Indian tabla) and suling (transverse flute). Dangdut's
popularity, and the articulation of dangdut with the rakyat, is based on its: (1) roots in the melodies,
rhythms, and vocal style of Melayu popular music (orkes me/nyu); (2) Indonesian-language lyrics; (3)
relatively simple style of dance (joget and goyang); (4) straightforward and easily comprehensible lyrics;
and (5) texts which deal with everyday realities of ordinary people.
1979 was considered as the year of dangdut as dangdut began to rise popularity, and it also made
few pop singers to cross over to dangdut to capitalize on its market success. In newspaper and magazine
articles of the 1970s there were stories about dangdut singers, concerts, and fans that never read the
articles. It was read by middle and elite class. The fans of dangdut were generally imagined in a negative
light as uneducated, ignorant, and irrational. In the pages of print media, dangdut became a social text for
assigning all sorts of meanings-kampungan, for example-through which elites could register their own
class position. Despite the fact that elites were not the target audience of the music, dangdut became both
a sign and a target of essentialist elite constructions of Indonesian identity.
Popular print media emphasized distancing between readers and dangdut audiences to create
distinctions between social classes. Dangdut fans, synonymous with the masses, were discursively
produced in popular print media according to middle class and elite notions of the rakyat as explosive and
uncontrolled. But through censorship, the hickish and uninformed could be transformed into national
subjects. During the early 1980s, dangdut became a symbol of resistance against the New Order military
regime (Barraud, 2003). There was a great deal of cultural politics around the lyrics, which reflected on
poverty, unemployment, loss, and despair. Dangdut was especially vulnerable to these charges as its
settings and themes emerge out of people's everyday lives.
The discourse about dangdut in popular print media changed in the early 1990s. As the country
moved toward its 50th anniversary, dangdut was promoted as the music for all Indonesians. In 1991,
Tempo proclaimed that dangdut had quietly risen in social status and was no longer simply the music of
the lower class. In the early 1990s, through the commercial stations, dangdut became a commodity that
could be sold to sponsors. The music was also being co-opted for the purposes of attracting the people's
support, especially during election times.
In the April 1991 issue of the tabloid Nova, 'Kopi Dangdut' was celebrated as the fourth most
popular album in Japan. The campaign to 'go international' was not only a way to strengthen dangdut's
reputation as Indonesia's national music, but it could be used to dispel its image as kampungan: 'It cannot
be considered "kampungan" anymore because it has already gone international' ('Dangdut menggoyang
duni", 1999, p. 5). Dangdut was for everyone, from those at the bottom of !he political system, to those at
the top. Better yet, dangdut could even function as 'aspirin' (obat pusing) to cure the country's social ills.
What does it mean to say that dangdut is the music of 'the people'? 'The people' are imagined as
embodying certain living spaces, interests, and behaviors. In stories about dangdut, they have been
denigrated as backward within elite narratives about economic development and progress. In contrast,
liberal intellectuals have used them to mount critiques of modernity. Via dangdut, 'the people' could be
harnessed for their sheer numbers in imagining a national culture. And they could be recognized through
dangdut as voters during political campaigns. They could also be called into being through commercial
television as consumers.