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.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Unfolding Stories
The post-pandemic era search for music's next superstar begins
Faced with a growing pool of prospective talents and a recovered music industry, Indonesian music labels start scrambling for what resonates with modern audiences as the pandemic fades away.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Set as preferred source
Fresh debuts: New artists such as Aruma (pictured), Meiska, Raissa Ramadhani and Awdella hint at a regeneration in the local music industry. (Courtesy of Screengrab from YouTube) (Archive/Courtesy of Aruma)
K
eke Kananta, head of artist and repertoire (A&R) at Sony Music Entertainment Indonesia, kicked off the year 2023 with a jolly start. One of his newer artists, the 19-year-old Aruma, managed to break through the upper echelon of Spotify’s Indonesia Top 50 chart with her debut single "Muak" (Fed Up). It was not just Aruma. The label's recent recruits, such as Meiska and Raissa Ramadhani, have also started gaining traction.
Keke later concluded that as the Indonesian music industry entered the post-pandemic era, music audiences started craving new voices. However, with the new generation and new pool of talents, he concurred that his most significant task was still yet to come.
"Now the [music industry] is content-driven, which translates to data-driven. As an A&R, I have to be able to examine the data. If I relied on my sense of music alone, I would fall behind," he told The Jakarta Post on Feb. 3.
Time for 'regeneration'
Keke equipped himself with a few insightful discoveries as he embarked on the new year. Case in point, he discerned how local music audiences had stopped "idolizing the idol" but instead started "idolizing the song." This shift, he found, resulted in audiences opening themselves up to the works of the more unfamiliar names.
"The emergence of these new artists, I think, painted a color that might lead to regeneration," he deduced.
More from The Weekender
Tinggal Meninggal: How Kristo Imanuel dares moviegoers to laugh at death
Kristo Imanuel didn’t expect this film to be made. But now that it is, it might be doing exactly what he hoped: Helping people laugh at things they’re too afraid to talk about.
Breaking down 'Sore Idaman': Loss and love, on loop
A romance turned sci-fi turned tragedy, Yandy Laurens' Sore: Istri dari Masa Depan isn’t just a tearjerker: It’s a meditation on choosing love, every single time. Note: This review may contain spoilers.
Jakarta: A ‘city of cinema’ in the making
Jakarta has the potential to become a City of Cinema. But it needs more than a vision; it needs a system.
