TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Unrepentant 'leftist' MC makes a defiant comeback
(Courtesy of Grimloc Records)Itâs not fair that the release of the first solo record from one of the countryâs pioneers of hip hop has gotten almost zero coverage from the mainstream media
Change Size
(Courtesy of Grimloc Records)
It's not fair that the release of the first solo record from one of the country's pioneers of hip hop has gotten almost zero coverage from the mainstream media.
It is also a great disservice to the artist that his first proper LP after a seven-year hiatus barely got the recognition it deserves.
Then again, Bandung-based MC Herry 'Ucok' Sutresna, known by stage name Morgue Vanguard, formerly of the legendary underground hip-hop collective Homicide, has never been a fan of the mainstream media.
Media played no part in Ucok's rise to fame, which owed much to word-of-mouth.
Fans intelligent enough to find meaning from parsing through his hyper-literate rhymes, speak about him in hushed tones, treating him like a best-kept secret.
One of his most memorable lines was written for Homicide's last record, Illshurekshun, in 2007: 'Pada kontrak para merkantil yang menggadai Cepu pada Exxon Mobil [On all contracts signed by business suits to pawn the Cepu oil block to Exxon Mobile /Kami rakit ribuan prosa martil [We craft thousands of words of prose that drop like hammers] /bagi mesin lobi Rupert Murdoch yang menagih martir [to Rupert Murdoch's lobbying machine that kills all martyrs. Seven years after drawing the curtain closed on Homicide, Ucok remains as incendiary and incorruptible as he was in his younger days.
While many of his generation compromise their idealism to support political candidates or to fight for populist causes such as environmental protection, Ucok plants his feet deeply on the fringes of political activism, defending the interests and giving voice to those who have become victims to his two biggest nemeses: the state and capitalism.
Back in July, while the country was in the throes of the presidential election, his record label, Grimloc Records, released on election day, a compilation album of 11 songs that encouraged voters not to cast their ballots.
When he contributed a track to an anti-graft compilation produced by the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), one of the most memorable lines was 'persetan ICW, persetan KPK' or the ICW and the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) can go to hell.
Even democracy looks like a silly concept for him. Lately, he has been active in the mobilization of farmers in West Java to fight against land grabs by real estate developers.
Music and politics are inseparable for Ucok. Unlike other protest singers in the local scene who are informed mostly by vague environmentalism or shallow liberalism, Ucok is a student of radical Marxism and existentialism, which shapes his work.
''Fateh 'means conqueror, a synonym for Nietzsche's 'will to power'. I discuss two concepts of power there: Power a la Nietsczhe/Foucault and another according to Marx,' Ucok said on why he chose Fateh as the title of his new record.
With themes so complex, most of the record can be enjoyed for the power of its poetry and the ferocity of Ucok's 'musique concrète' approach. Early in the record, Ucok, with his trademark spitfire delivery, lays out a plan of action with a Nietzcshean call-to-arms: /Kami menyatu...dalam satuan sistem bahasa, yang dibenci surga dan ditinggalkan Neraka [We're united in one language system, scorned by the heaven and rejected by hell//Tak akan menyeberang ke dalam barisan menyanyikan lagu kebangsaan para bangsa [We will never join the march of those who sing the national anthem//
And after close to a decade shunning the limelight, Ucok remains unrepentantly Marxist.
For the first page of his record sleeve, Ucok quoted a passage from Marx's Capital on how 'primitive capital accumulation had impoverished Banyuwangi in East Java, reducing its population from 80,000 in 1750 to only 18,000 in 1811.
Not many musicians, let alone a local hip-hop MC, are well-versed in academic texts and we can consider ourselves lucky to find some of them read books at all.
In this context, Ucok's craft is all the more stunning effortless incorporation of Marx and Foucault into rhymes that are rousing and musically plausible.
In the hands of lesser musicians, such an enterprise would sound pretentious, or worse, an exercise in sloganeering that would turn off even some of his most devoted fans.
But judging from how quickly copies of Fateh that flew off the shelves upon its release, people dig the record. Grimloc Records is currently repressing the CD.
For majority of his fans, who are not well-read in political economy, the biggest draw is the ferocity of music in the album, which was composed by Ucok and the former DJ Still a.k.a. Hsi Chang Lin, formerly of the experimental hip- hop duo Dalek.
The abstract black noise'which brings to mind the apocalyptic sound traditionally composed by Canadian post rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor -- that envelops Ucok's rhymes in this record is mostly the work of Still, who piles analog turntable noise upon miles-deep guitar effects.
Just like his politics, making music is about shunning the most accessible option.
'Hip hop kids today prefers to have their sound fabricated by sampler. I grew up during the golden age of hip hop,' Ucok said. 'All my samplers have to be analog. That [expletive deleted] has to be raw.'
