Risking Their Lives for Their Music
Concert Review: Voice of Baceprot
The other day, I was in my car and turned on the radio to my default station, the local NPR affiliate. A Very Famous Interviewer was doing her thing, talking with a Grammy Nominated Singer. The conversation followed the same template that all these conversations follow.
Very Famous Interviewer asked how Grammy-Nominated Singer deals with some unspecified family trauma from her childhood (the implication was that we, the audience, are supposed to know the backstory because, well, who doesn’t?).
Grammy-nominated Singer blathered about how it took her a long time to “find her voice,” but now she channels that angst into her songwriting (let’s ignore for the moment that, when I researched it, I found that she doesn’t write her own songs. For more on the topic of ghost-writing in pop music, see this.)
Very Famous Interviewer then made an audible sound like “wow” and said, “Gosh, that must take so much courage!”
This script must be taped to the recording studio wall because it gets used an awful lot. I won’t get into the narcissism implied in this approach to explaining art or the pretentiousness of the artists who go along with this. I want to focus on the “courage” part.
Of course, artists often create to deal with good and bad personal experiences. I do not devalue that, but it is just part of being creative. I respect anyone with the confidence to put their work out for public consumption and judgment. But people who want to be heard are not making some terrible sacrifice to do so — if anything, they are driven to be heard; not being listened to is a punishment to them.
So, just how spoiled and self-absorbed do we have to be to think that channeling our own life experience into our art merits some award for courage? Again, isn’t that how art works?
Now, on the other hand, what if making music were something that could get you exiled or even killed?
I’ve written before about Voice of Baceprot, a heavy metal group of three young women from a conservative Muslim village in rural Indonesia. They are observant, even to the extent of wearing traditional hijab on stage. However, that hasn’t stopped them from playing rowdy music. “Baceprot” means “noisy” in their Sundanese dialect, and they are definitely loud.
They have upset conservatives in their society to the point that they receive death threats, have been stoned while trying to perform, and still get hostile press. They have received international recognition, which may have worsened the hostility. On the flip side, they have also upset some social justice warriors, who don’t understand why the group still wear hijab. You know, oppression and all that. Somehow, they manage to maintain remarkable equanimity.
That equanimity does not extend to their music. They play and sing protest music with an edge, written by them and their music teacher (he deserves his own monument). They take on topics like sexual violence, racism, climate change, war, economic injustice, etc. They don’t use metaphors or allusions — they get right to the point (“My body is not public property,” “We hate war”).
Their music is heavy, thumping, and skillfully delivered. They consider their primary influences bands like System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine, and Metallica. (The first metal song they ever heard was “Toxicity” by System of a Down, which inspired them to want to learn to play instruments in the first place.) They are conversant with many different rock and metal styles and intermix all these influences into their writing.
I saw them live with Steve Goldberg on 18 August in a small venue in Oakland, CA. The crowd was diverse, including a large group of Indonesian women, some couples on dates, and a bunch of grizzled metalheads. Metalheads are notorious for their snobbery about music, and this crowd clearly take VOB seriously.
The group performed most of the songs they have released, some 12 or so to date. I captured video of three of them and will post two of those here.
“Kawani”
This is an instrumental which gives off fusion vibes in places. Nice interplay among the instruments, especially bassist Widi’s duets with the guitar and the drums, and Marsya’s closing guitar solo.
“God Allow Me (Please) To Play Music”
The second clip is my capture of their most well-known song whose title is self-explanatory. They closed their set with this, before doing an encore.
(Lyrics:
Why today, many perceptions have become toxic?
Why today, many people wear religion to kill the music?
I feel like I am fallin’, washed down, swallowed by the crowd
I'm not the criminal
I'm not the enemy
I just wanna sing a song to show my soul
I'm not the corruptor
I'm not the enemy
I just wanna sing a song to show my soul
God, allow me please to play music
Why today, many perceptions have become toxic?
Why today, idealizations are abusing our mind?
I feel like I’m falling down, in thе deep hole of hatred
I'm not the criminal
I'm not thе enemy
I just wanna sing a song to show my soul
I'm not the corruptor
I'm not the enemy
I just wanna sing a song to show my soul
God, allow me please to play music)
It was a fun and interesting evening. We were right at the railing so we could see every nuance of the expressions on their faces, as well as their fingerwork on the instruments. They play to much bigger crowds in Europe, but hopefully they will at some point get the recognition they deserve here as well.
Sources:
“Voice of Baceprot: How Indonesian Muslim Trio Found Freedom in Heavy Metal”, Revolver, 2021 https://www.revolvermag.com/music/voice-baceprot-how-indonesian-muslim-trio-found-freedom-heavy-metal
“Voice Of Baceprot: “We get messages from girls saying we’ve given them the courage to start a band””, Kerrang, 2022 https://www.kerrang.com/voice-of-baceprot-interview-indonesia-all-female-metal-messages-from-girls-to-start-a-band-themselves
“‘Retas’ review: Rock music that truly matters”, NME, July 2023
https://www.nme.com/reviews/album/voice-of-baceprot-retas-debut-album-review-radar-3468808
Voice of Baceprot official website https://www.voiceofbaceprot.com/
Can't say enough about bands like this. I have shared their music and hope people realise what the band have had to sacrifice to be able to play the great music they play . Long may Baceprot be noisy. They are another great band who deserve so much more recognition.
Wow thanks for the intro to this band! I was mesmerized and awestruck by your videos from the concert and look forward to digging into their music