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Pop-rock legends meet rising star: Dewa 19 and Pamungkas collaborate
Dewa 19 collaborates with popular young musician Pamungkas.
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Coming together: Dewa 19 and Pamungkas (center) perform together in an online streaming event titled A Virtual Music Celebration. (Ahmad Dhani/Courtesy of Ahmad Dhani )
M
usic collaborations can be hit or a miss, but it makes for an interesting listen when two artists who seem like they have little in common do come together. This is the case with Dewa 19’s team up with Pamungkas, in which they cover each other’s songs in their own respective style. Roughly two decades apart career-wise, Dewa represents the 90s and early 2000s, when they sold millions of records, while the 28-year-old Pamungkas recently became Spotify Indonesia’s most played artist of 2020.
Dewa 19’s keyboardist, main songwriter and band-leader, Ahmad Dhani, told The Jakarta Post during a zoom interview on July 7, that “Pamungkas’ songs are fine and he is part of the younger generation of musicians that needs to be supported.”
Not only that, he went one step further and claimed that musically, Pamungkas has a stronger start to his career than Dewa 19. “His debut has been better than ours, hopefully he can surpass us in the future.”
It’s high praise coming from Ahmad Dhani, who is recognized as one of country’s most successful songwriters and has been a judge for popular singing talent competitions including Indonesian Idol and X Factor Indonesia. But for Pamungkas, what’s more important is the fact that he gets to work with his musical heroes.
We reached out to Pamungkas for direct comments but were informed by his representatives that the singer was currently focused on family matters.
Speaking to the music website Pophariini, Pamungkas said he grew up listening to Dewa 19 and considered himself a Baladewa (what fans of Dewa are called).
“If it wasn’t for [Dewa-19 guitarist] Andra Ramadhan, I probably wouldn’t have played guitar,” he said, “I also learned how to write songs by reading Ahmad Dhani’s lyrics.”
