Dangdut star wants answers, show called off in JB

Indonesian dangdut sensation Inul Daratista is seeking an explanation from organiser IMS Prima Sdn Bhd over the cancellation of her concert which was scheduled to be held today at Stadium Tan Sri Haji Hassan Yunos in Larkin, Johor Baru.

Billed Konsert Inul Live in JB, the concert was called off after district officer Jaafar Awang refused to issue a permit to the organiser on July 10. A subsequent appeal by the organiser was also turned down.

IMS Prima has now slated the concert for July 27 at Stadium Putra in Bukit Jalil. But a visibly upset Inul, speaking at a press conference here yesterday, said she did not know if she could make the new date.

Journalists, covering the event, were taken by surprise when Inul nearly fainted while walking out. She had to be supported by several people.

Earlier, Inul said all she was asking for was to be given "clear justification" from the authorities on why the show in Johor Baru was cancelled.

"I've done nothing wrong and as far as media coverage is concerned, the local media members have been supportive," said a teary-eyed Inul, who was escorted by her publicity officer, Menasari Hassan.

"What's shocking is that I wasn't informed about the postponement until I reached Kuala Lumpur today.

"I'm uncertain if I'm able to perform on July 27 as I have to discuss it with my manager," Inul added.

Her manager-husband, Adam Suseno, who was not present in Kuala Lumpur had, however, confirmed her participation for the Bukit Jalil show after he was contacted during the press conference.

Inul arrived in Singapore with a 16-member entourage comprising musicians and publicity officers earlier yesterday before she was driven to Kuala Lumpur to attend the press conference.

IMS Prima director Nasir Abubakar said he was perplexed that the Johor Baru show was cancelled.

"I don't think it has anything to do with Inul's image. When my management queried about the matter, we didn't receive any explanation.

"I even had a private meeting with Jaafar on Wednesday but he was still adamant that the show couldn't go on," he said, adding that the company suffered a loss of RM300,000 due to the cancellation.

Inul, who is famous for her "killer gyration" or gelek gerudi is no stranger in Malaysia.

The singer, whose upbeat tune, Goyang Inul is popular here, enthralled local audiences in a series of concerts between 2005 and last year.

The Bukit Jalil concert will also feature several local bands, including the all-female outfit Candy and Abstrak Hingga Kebulan, as opening acts.

By : Hafidah Samat in www.asiaone.com

Dangdut Trendy

Is it techno? Is it traditional? No, it’s techno hybrid ethnic house music


The sign over the door reads: ‘Bar Dangdut.’ As you cross the crowded dance floor and approach the dimly lit DJ booth, you see two hundred or so cassettes lined up edge to edge around the perimeter. Cassettes generally do not have the same sonic presence at high volumes as compact disks or vinyl LPs, but the house sound system is impressively loud, clear, and punchy. The DJs, both young women, occasionally use a microphone to sing along with the music they play as they weave a seamless web of powerful sounds.

The male patrons on the dance floor dance in pairs, sometimes with one another sometimes with one of the dance hall hostesses or one of the ‘freelancers’ (the local name for non-employee women who befriend male patrons at dangdut clubs for money or for kicks) who frequent the establishment. The dancers, mostly middle-aged, some obviously intoxicated, appear to be enjoying themselves immensely as they joget (dance) to the latest dangdut hits by the likes of Meggi Z and Lilis Karlina.

Suddenly the soundtrack changes, and a strange, pulsating electronic rhythm takes over, a genre the patrons might recognize as house jaipong, a recently forged hybrid style that fuses electronic dance music with indigenous rhythms and melodies from West Java. It sounds like music from Mars. The alien sounds emanating from the club sound system quickly drive many away from the dance floor, while other pairs of dancers rush in with bold, aggressive moves that appear to be a cross between traditional Indonesian dance and the choreography from Saturday Night Fever.


Dangdut remix


Beginning in the early 1990s, Indonesia’s two major working-class-identified popular music styles, dangdut and regional pop (pop daerah), spawned new subgenres that combined their familiar melodies and musical textures with the sounds and production values of global electronic dance music. These subgenres acquired labels such as ‘dangdut trendy’, ‘dangdut remix’, ‘house Jawa’, ‘disco Minang’ and ‘house jaipong’.

These developments coincided with the diffusion of aspects of 1980s Jakarta club culture (once the exclusive domain of trendy, Westernised rich kids) into the leisure pursuits of the urban Indonesian lower middle and working classes. The new remixes and electronic dance music compositions were therefore ideally suited to the tastes of the clientele of downscale discos like Bar Dangdut, as well as for filling in the breaks between sets at nightclubs that still featured live dangdut performances.

The techno-hybrid grooves of ethnic house music and dangdut trendy are assembled from a bewildering array of musical genres: sampled snippets of African American slang, bits of Hollywood movie dialogue, rhythmic patterned shouts (senggak) reminiscent of West Javanese traditional music, and hip hop drum loops. Also added to the mix are sampled xylophones, barrel drums, kettle gongs, bamboo flutes, and other indigenous musical instruments representing various Indonesian ethnicities. These grooves prop up a wide repertoire of remixed or re-arranged dangdut and regional pop songs, as well as the occasional keroncong, folk, or classical (tembang) composition re-imagined as a dance floor anthem.

Since dangdut is itself a combination of Indian film song, Western hard rock, disco and Arabic pop (among other things) and regional pop is already a blend of Western pop and indigenous musical elements, the new dance music styles are essentially hybrids of hybrids. £hey represent a high-tech update for already complex urban identities through their often daring reconfigurations of global, national, and local Ôethnic’ sounds.


Sounds modern


In Indonesia, where the tendency to romanticise ‘traditional culture’ is strong among both national elites and Western observers, the techno-hybrid grooves of ethnic house music are a powerful antidote to the widespread notion that the rakyat kecil, the so-called ‘little people’, are somehow less ‘modern’ than those in the dominant class. Rather, the listeners dancing to this music in discos like Bar Dangdut find themselves in a close yet deeply troubled relationship with technology. In their day to day lives, these working class people encounter technology in a very different context — in the machinery in the factories where they work and the buses they drive. The music of the dangdutÅdisco offers a pragmatic, temporary escape from the drudgery of daily life. Technology, freed from the bounds of the workplace, returns as an intimate companion and source of sensual pleasure.


Jeremy W. Wallach (jeremyw@lognet. bgsu.edu) is an assistant professor in the Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University (U.S.A.).

Julia Perez " Belah Duren "

Julia Perez was born with the name of Yuli Rachmawati in Jakarta, July 15th1980. The Star which is chummy to be called Jupe start her career pass job training as an secretary in a private enterprise and have a time to continue the education in Dutch. The recognizing with man model Damien Perez ( Yusuf Perez), then become his husband, open early opportunity of herself come up as magazine model FHM and Maxim in French. At 2002-2003 the star frequently come up the section and start to be recognized in fatherland pass sinetron CINTA LOKASI, KOMEDI NAKAL, Coast guard and also LEPAS MALAM that get the nomination of 100 sexy woman of FHM and Maxim magazine version. Jupe, now fixed in Indonesia and staring many sinetron among others, MAAFKAN AKU, KEJAR MAYA, RAHASIA ILAHI, HIDAYAH, DOA, MIMPI MANIS, PEREMPUAN TERANIAYA and become the advertisement star a number of products.

http://fotocantik.com

http://profiles.friendster.com/juliaperezdamien