[csaa-forum] Research Seminar at UNSW: Tuesday 7th May, 4.30-5pm

[Collin Chua]

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SAM Seminar Series 2013
'Rappers, Rajas, and Borderless Spaces: Urban Musical Practices in the "Growth Triangle", Kepri, Indonesia'

The research for this paper stems from an ARC team project that documents the changing Malay musical identity of the province of the Riau Islands (Propinsi Kepulauan Riau, henceforth ‘Kepri’). The indigenous population of the Kepri province are Malays who are descendants of the Johor-Riau-Lingga kingdom (17th century to 1911); this provincial region has long been regarded as the centre of the modern Malay language and musical culture.

Kepri has also experienced a rapid influx of non-Malay migrants since the creation of the regional Sijori Growth Triangle in 1989 and since becoming part of a Special Economic Zone with Singapore in 2006. Kepri is now the fastest growing province in Indonesia. International popular music, emerging local Malay popular music, and music adapted from the Sea Nomads and the former royal Riau courts for official displays of culture, have become part of an increasingly multifaceted cultural landscape.

This paper illustrates the complex cultural identities of the region through an examination of an experiment in musical performance that has attempted to deliver to a mass audience the time-honored poetry of Kepri’s most esteemed son, Raja Ali Haji (1808-1873). This experiment, Gurindam Dua Belas, produced by the Jogya Hip Hop Foundation along with collaborator and Indonesian national pop celebrity, Soimah Pancawati, was designed to inculcate an awareness of Malayness amongst the youth of Kepri and the Malay world more generally. The paper examines how local popular music is created in a situation where entangled allegiances to global, national and local cultural identities are characteristic of the borderless space that is Kepri.

Manolete Mora is Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. His research interests include music in the Philippines, Bali and Ghana. He has published widely in ethnomusicological and anthropological journals, and has produced CDs for Rykodisc and UNESCO/Smithsonian Institute. His monograph on indigenous music in the Philippines received first place in the National Book Award for Folklore in 2006.

Tuesday, 7th May, 4.30-6pm
Robert Webster Building, Room 327
http://sam.arts.unsw.edu.au/seminars/

The School’s Research Seminars provide a showcase for local as well as international scholars, researchers, industry practitioners and creative artists to present their work. All are welcome to attend. Contact Collin Chua (C.Chua at unsw.edu.au<mailto:C.Chua at unsw.edu.au>) with any inquiries.

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