Voice of Baceprot: Indonesia's all-woman, hijab-wearing heavy metal band

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/05/31/metal-muslims.html

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if i were a concert promoter with sufficient resources, i would fly them anywhere even if only to play one song, just to get them in front of people - thank you, VoB - this is the unevenly distributed future world i want to live in

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West Java is in Indonesia - even your source link points out that they’re Indonesian. Indonesia and Malaysia are two separate countries.

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Argh, you’re totally right. Stupid jetlag is really kicking my ass today. Thanks for catching that so quickly!

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G.K. Chesterton once wrote that by becoming sons of the globe (he was critiquing Kipling) that we become so large that out footprint crosses too many borders. His point was that Kipling’s ideology left him too large to relate to local cultures and that despite his reach, he had little grasp.

This article actually incensed me. It show so little consideration for the religious and political ideologies that shape SEA women, while boldly declaring their emancipation at the hands of a youth rock group. Missing that the government that promotes and administers the theological guidelines is the biggest support and moderator of music culture in Malaysia. It misses that the oppressed people groups of Malaysia are not the Muslim women (primarily), but the indentured migrant workers necessary to support racial apartheid (and comprise more than half the population). They also miss that heavy metal and hard rock are main stream in Malaysia - not counter culture. But most importantly, this article misses that the band is NOT even from Malaysia!!

Please look at a map!

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Wouldn’t they have to (be allowed to) listen to other metal music in order to have a clue what they are doing? The door has to be open at least a little for that to happen, which could encourage other doors to open. Little by little, then all at once. Maybe.

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Wow…funky.

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Some may see ‘cultural appropriation’.

I see ‘cross-pollination’. Excellent!

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VoB has got nothing to do with Malaysia… they’re Indonesian

I was so hoping for her voice to come out like this:

Instead it was absolutely lovely.

More people need to see their group (and the bass is funkalicious!).

Indonesia’s current president is a known metalhead. I’m sure this helps the acceptance of this genre in Indonesia. Nice.

That said, Indonesia its really, really large and hosts a variety of cultures and opinions. Conservatives to outright religious extremists are, sadly, also very influential in public debate. (FTR: Directly after the bombing in Manchester, two assholes blew themselves up in Jakarta.)

(And Cory will likely correct the Malaysia reference soon. See above.)

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Fantastic! But someone needs to buy the guitar player a better distortion pedal. It is more noise rock than metal sounding.

They’re good. I’d rather see them live than a lot of random openers I actually see.

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