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Lata Mangeshkar, Bollywood and dangdut
While the passing of a legendary Bollywood singer may seem, at first glance, to have little to do with Indonesia, the "Nightingale of India" has left an indelible mark on the birth and evolution of one of the country's most popular musical genres: dangdut.
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Police personnel stand next to posters of Bollywood playback singer Lata Mangeshkar at Shivaji Park where her funeral was held, in Mumbai on February 7, 2022.
(AFP/Indranil Mukherjee)
News about the death of Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar has generated little response in Indonesia, if any.
The passing of a 92-year-old Bollywood playback singer will certainly not raise the curiosity of younger music fans who mostly lean toward Olivia Rodrigo or Taylor Swift.
And for older pop music fans, Mangeshkar was certainly not as familiar to them as her sister Asha Boshle, who was immortalized in the late-1990s’ “Brimful of Asha”, a Brit Award-winning hit by indie rock band Cornershop.
Among the small number of Indonesians who paid tribute to Mangeshkar last weekend was Rhoma Irama, the self-styled “king of dangdut” who posted a video on his YouTube channel, expressing his grief while also recounting the first time he heard Mangeshkar’s lilting vocals on the radio.
“My first exposure to an Indian song was through Lata Mangeshkar. Ever since I first heard it, I fell in love with Indian music,” Rhoma says in the video.
Ever since that first encounter with Indian music, Mangeshkar became Rhoma’s muse, the singer-songwriter incorporating elements of her Bollywood music into his brand of Malay music that later grew into the massively popular genre of dangdut.
Many who argue that dangdut is a musical genre indigenous to Indonesia would likely balk at the notion that foreign influences are part of its DNA.
