International Women's Week (2)
Refusing to be silenced
(This is an edited and expanded version of a post from last year)
I was listening to an interview on the radio two days ago. A Very Famous Interviewer was hosting an up-and-coming singer/songwriter who had recently had a song nominated for a Grammy. The questions went something like this:
“When did you realize that you have something that you need to say?”
“Was it scary to discover your voice? How old were you when you felt you started to find it?
“Your fans say they see themselves in your struggle. How does that make you feel?”
And on and on.
The thing is, almost every interview or press article about musicians these days is in the same vein. Music must be about emotional confession and picking at the scabs of one’s teenage traumas. People can’t just get up and sing, they have to have some sort of tortured rationale for doing so.
Most important, unless your audience can personally identify with your lyrics, you are not considered genuine.
We used to have a word for this: Narcissism. Only these days, it is not called that. It is considered courage. Even Bruce Springsteen has given interviews in which he caters to this sort of pandering. But there are parts of the world where people don’t have the luxury of indulging themselves this way.
Imagine a group of teenage girls in a conservative Muslim village in Indonesia starting a rock group in the face of opposition from their parents and death threats from the conservative cultural police. That, to me, is actual courage. That is Voice of Baceprot; you don’t have to imagine them.
They started as junior high schoolers, being tutored by a local music teacher to play rock instruments. When they first performed in public, they were doing covers of well-known western rock bands while starting to write original material. They are now releasing their own music, have gone viral on youtube, and have toured internationally.
Personnel:
Firdda Marsya Kurnia (vocals and guitar)
Widi Rahmawati (bass, vocals)
Euis Siti Aisyah (drums)
Other than their early coaching by their schoolteacher, they are largely self-taught. They have learned quickly, and Rahmawati in particular is emerging as a world-class bass player.
They consider themselves faithful Muslims and wear hijab on stage (with some enhancements, hence “the costumes”). They still get opposition and threats from various people angry that girls are playing rowdy music and speaking their minds, but they are not backing down. Even the name of the band is defiant: “Baceprot” means “noisy” or “loud” in their dialect.
I can think of no young musical act today that better captures the intent of International Women’s Week. While we are gazing at our navels in self-pity, these young women are playing music on behalf of girls the world over who face silencing and violence for having their own minds.
…….
“God Allow me (Please) to Play Music” is about people who use religion as an excuse to persecute artists:
“Not Public Property” is a song about self-ownership, which is still controversial even here in the good ol’ USA:
If you want to know more, check out the Voice of Baceprot website.