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    Niki’s Early Music Makes Her Cringe. Her Emotional Pop Is Growing Up.

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    The musician, 25, has paired raw honesty with synth-pop and R&B. On her third album, “Buzz,” she moves toward West Coast folk-rock and explores fresh heartbreak.Niki — the Indonesian pop songwriter Nicole Zefanya — was 11 years old when she saw a Taylor Swift documentary that changed her life. “That memory is just a core memory of mine,” she said.Swift’s 2010 “E! True Hollywood Story” pointed Niki toward the kind of career she could have herself, one that now encompasses songs that have been streamed hundreds of millions of times and concerts that turn into fervent singalongs. Her third full-length album, “Buzz,” will be released Friday, followed by a world tour that comes to Central Park SummerStage on Sept. 13.“I’m from Jakarta and somehow I’ve made it all the way here,” Niki said via video from her Los Angeles apartment. “Sometimes it is just mind-boggling how this is the story I get to tell.”Niki, 25, casual in a pale-gray sweatshirt with blond streaks in her dark hair, was speaking from a room that held electric and acoustic guitars, ring lights for video shoots, a high-quality vocal microphone and a stolid upright piano. One of its creaky pedals is heard on “Paths,” a gracious, low-fi post-breakup song on “Buzz” that muses, “Though it didn’t last, I hope our paths cross again.”There’s now an entire songwriting generation of Swift disciples — among them Olivia Rodrigo, Clairo, Sabrina Carpenter and Gracie Abrams — who have learned to conjoin self-expression, craftsmanship, ambition and diligence while navigating studios, stages and social media. What these musical progeny have in common — even those from half a world away — are both an artistic spark and a firm work ethic.Many of the songs on “Buzz” are about turning endings into new beginnings.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Voice of Baceprot Wins Fans With Songs of Girl Power

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      Voice of Baceprot has electrified audiences and built a large following in Indonesia. Now the group is taking its music to the West.The drummer crashed her cymbals. The bass player clawed at her guitar. The crowd raised index and pinkie fingers in approval. The lead singer and guitarist stepped up to the mic and screamed: “Our body is not public property!” And dozens of fans threw themselves into a frenzy for the hijab-wearing heavy metal trio.“We have no place for the sexist mind,” the lead singer, Firda Kurnia, shrieked into the mic, singing the chorus of one of the band’s hit songs, “(Not) Public Property,” during a December performance in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital.Nearly a decade after first emerging, Voice of Baceprot (pronounced bachey-PROT, meaning “noise” in Sundanese, one of the main languages spoken in Indonesia) has earned a large domestic following with songs that focus on progressive themes like female empowerment, pacifism and environmental preservation.Now it is also winning fans overseas. It’s been praised by the likes of Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. In the past year, the band — whose lyrics mix English, Indonesian and Sundanese — has played in the United States, France and the Netherlands.At the Jakarta gig, Ms. Firda, 23, who goes by Marsya, told the crowd that the band was “a little sad and angry to hear that someone here was a victim of catcalling.”“Anyone who does something like that, catcall or touch other people’s bodies without consent, those are the worst forms of crime,” she said. “Therefore, we can’t wait to curse this person through the following song.” And then the band played “PMS,” whose chorus is in Indonesian:“Although I am not as virgin as Virgin Mary/I am not your rotten brain servant/Although I am not as virgin as Virgin Mary/I am free, completely free.” More

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      Taylor Swift’s Singapore Shows Stir Anger in Southeast Asia

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      The country is defending paying the pop star to play nowhere else in Southeast Asia. Thailand’s prime minister said the price was up to $3 million per show.Taylor Swift has descended on Southeast Asia, or one small part of it at least: All of her six sold-out shows are in Singapore, the region’s wealthiest nation.Many of her fans in this part of the world, which is home to more than 600 million people, are disappointed. But the Singapore leg of Ms. Swift’s wildly popular Eras Tour, which began last weekend and ends on Saturday, is a soft power coup and a boost for the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery.The shows — and the undisclosed price that Singapore paid to host them — have also generated diplomatic tension with two of its neighbors, Thailand and the Philippines.Last month, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin of Thailand said publicly that Singapore had paid Ms. Swift up to $3 million per show on the condition that she play nowhere else in Southeast Asia. A lawmaker in the Philippines later said that was not “what good neighbors do.”Singapore pushed back. First its culture minister said the actual value of the exclusivity deal — which he declined to name — was “nowhere as high.” The country’s former ambassador at large later called the criticism “sour grapes.” And on Tuesday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told reporters that he did not see the deal as diplomatically “unfriendly.”Fans in other Southeast Asian countries are disappointed Ms. Swift isn’t performing elsewhere in the region.How Hwee Young/EPA, via ShutterstockWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.A.E. Bans ‘Lightyear,’ Disney Film with Same-Sex Kiss

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      The United Arab Emirates banned the animated film, an offshoot of the “Toy Story” movies, from its cinemas. Censors in Indonesia and Malaysia are also considering restrictions.Disney’s new movie “Lightyear,” an offshoot of the “Toy Story” franchise, faces bans or restrictions in parts of Southeast Asia and the Middle East over a scene that features a kiss between two women. The animated film opens around the world this week.The United Arab Emirates has banned “Lightyear” from public screenings, and Malaysia has asked Disney to cut several scenes from the film before it can be shown in local cinemas, according to officials in the Muslim-majority countries.In Indonesia, the nation with the world’s largest Muslim population, the chairman of the Film Censorship Board told The New York Times on Wednesday that the kissing scene could potentially violate a law that prohibits movies that show “deviant sexual behavior.”“The Film Censorship Board doesn’t want to be drawn into the vortex of debate over pro L.G.B.T. versus anti-L.G.B.T.,” said the chairman, Rommy Fibri. “But that kissing scene is sensitive.”Disney did not respond to repeated requests for comment.The international backlash against “Lightyear” is a fresh public relations headache for Disney, whose growing willingness to publicly defend L.G.B.T.Q. people has made it a somewhat unlikely cultural lightning rod in the United States.Disney has described “Lightyear,” which was created by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Angus MacLane, as the “definitive origin story” of the character Buzz Lightyear, a space ranger who starred in the 1995 film “Toy Story” and several sequels.“Lightyear” focuses on the friendship between Buzz (voiced by Chris Evans) and another space ranger, Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba). Alisha marries a woman, and in one scene she greets her wife with a kiss.Disney’s chief executive, Bob Chapek, came under intense pressure earlier this year from many of the company’s employees to take a forceful stand against anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation that was moving through the legislature in Florida, which is home to the Disney World resort.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed the bill into law in late March, and Disney publicly condemned it. The Florida House later voted to revoke Disney World’s special tax designation, a privilege that the theme park near Orlando had held for more than a half century.The international backlash to “Lightyear” has generated far less public attention in the United States than Disney’s clash with Mr. DeSantis. But it’s a reminder for the company that cultural clashes over children’s content do not end at the U.S. border.In the United Arab Emirates, the government’s Media Regulatory Office said on Twitter this week that “Lightyear” was not licensed for screenings in domestic cinemas because it had violated the country’s “media content standards.” The agency did not elaborate or respond to a request for comment.In Malaysia, “Lightyear” can be screened in its current form on Netflix, but the Film Censorship Board has asked Disney to change several scenes, including a “romantic” one, before it can be shown in cinemas, said a spokesman for the Ministry of Home Affairs.In Indonesia, Mr. Rommy of the Film Censorship Board said officials there had flagged the kissing scene to Disney and were waiting for the company to send the completed film, with subtitles, for censorship review. “We aren’t saying that we reject the movie,” he said.A movie with a homosexual kissing scene would likely not pass a censorship review in Indonesia because of a 2019 law that prohibits movies with “vulgar sexual activity” or sexual content that is “deviant” or “unreasonable,” Mr. Rommy added.Openly gay, lesbian and transgender people face persecution across the Islamic world. In Malaysia, legislation targeting them is rooted in religious courts and British colonial-era prohibitions for Muslims and non-Muslims. In Indonesia, where nearly nine in 10 of the country’s 270 million people are Muslim, some politicians have tried to associate L.G.B.T.Q. people with immorality, disease and the subversion of Indonesian culture.Italia Film International, a company that distributes Disney films in the Middle East and has promoted “Lightyear” on its website, did not respond to requests for comment.It was unclear as of Wednesday how the movie would fare in other countries around the Middle East and Asia. The film censorship authorities in Saudi Arabia and China, a major market for Hollywood studios, did not respond to requests for comment.In Singapore, the Infocomm Media Development Authority said in a statement this week that viewers should be 16 or older to view “Lightyear.” It described the film as the “first commercial children’s animation to feature overt homosexual depictions,” and said that Disney had declined its suggestion of releasing two versions of the film, including an edited one for younger viewers.“While it is an excellent animated film set in the U.S. context, Singapore is a diverse society where we have multiple sensibilities and viewpoints,” Cheryl Ng, who chairs the agency’s film consultation panel, said in the statement.Muktita Suhartono More

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      ‘The East’ Review: Imperialist Blues

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      This thoroughly generic war movie explores the Netherlands’ colonial legacy in Indonesia.At the tail-end of World War II, an armed conflict broke out that is known today as the Indonesian War of Independence. The Dutch, after having lost their former colony to the Japanese in 1942, regrouped and deployed forces to reconquer the archipelago in 1946. Naturally, Indonesian nationalists were having none of it. And perhaps even more predictably, the Dutch Army responded with a violent campaign.“The East,” a bloated and thoroughly generic war movie by the Dutch filmmaker Jim Taihuttu, reckons with the Netherlands’ colonial legacy by spotlighting this overlooked moment in history. The details may be novel — even eye-opening for some — but this story of white guilt and brutality feels mighty old.For one thing, Johan (Martijn Lakemeier), a young, idealistic soldier, disillusioned by the impotence of Dutch efforts to fend off rebel forces, quickly acquires a taste for blood. A volunteer recruit hoping to make spiritual amends for the sins of his Nazi-collaborator father, he is initially the most polite and benevolent of his group of juvenile, sex-obsessed troopers. The good boy goes bad, however, when he meets Raymond “The Turk” (Marwan Kenzari), a mustachioed brute known for his merciless tactics. Cue the firing squad, terrorized villagers, and shame-fueled inner torment.The jumbled script straddles two timelines: the events in Indonesia and Johan’s return to the Netherlands after completing his service. It’s all bleakness and self-loathing without the momentum or punch. Neither a joyless, immersive thrill ride (“1917”) nor a cartoonish display of tough-guy patriotism (“Midway”), “The East” fits squarely into the tradition of Vietnam War movies like “Platoon,” whose depictions of imperial carnage and psychic derangement might have once been provocative. Today, a film like “The East” feels more like a numbing recapitulation.The EastNot rated. Running time: 2 hour 17 minutes. In Japanese, Dutch and Indonesian with subtitles. In theaters. More

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      Indonesia Submarine Crew Sang a Farewell Song, Weeks Before Sinking

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      A video of the sailors singing went viral on social media, prompting many to infer a hidden meaning in the pop song’s lyrics.Below deck on their submarine, Indonesian sailors crowded around a crewman with a guitar and crooned a pop song called “Till We Meet Again.”Weeks later, the same sailors vanished deep beneath the Pacific Ocean while descending for a torpedo drill, setting off a frantic international search. Indonesian military officials said on Sunday, four days after the vessel disappeared, that it had broken into three pieces hundreds of meters below the surface, leaving no survivors among the 53 crew members.Now, the video of the submariners singing is resonating across Indonesian social media, in a nation where many people are jaded by a steady stream of bad news: devastating earthquakes, erupting volcanoes and sinking ferries.“If land is not where you are destined to return to, there is a place for you in heaven,” members of the band Endank Soekamti, who composed the song, wrote on Instagram below a clip of the sailors’ performance.The clip went viral after the Indonesian Navy released it on Monday. Lt. Col. Djawara Whimbo, a spokesman for the Indonesian military, said in an interview on Tuesday that the video had been recorded last month to honor the outgoing commander of the navy’s submarine fleet.The video has hit a nerve online, in part because the song — which describes a reluctant goodbye — sounds especially poignant in the wake of the accident.Some social media users speculated that the sailors had a “hunch” about the looming accident and were singing about their own fate. Colonel Whimbo said that was a reflection of “cocoklogi,” an Indonesian phrase that describes looking back at people’s lives to find clues to explain seemingly random events.People in the Muslim-majority country, from remote villagers to senior politicians, often rely on faith and superstition to understand current events. A succession of Indonesian presidents have paid their respects to the spirit world, consulting with seers or collecting what they believed were magic tokens, for example.In the years after the 2004 tsunami that killed 230,000 people in Indonesia and elsewhere, many Indonesians blamed the disaster on then-President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, saying that he carried the shadow of cosmic misfortune.Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a former spokesman for Indonesia’s disaster management agency, told The New York Times in 2018 that he made a point of incorporating local wisdom and traditional beliefs while communicating the science of disasters.“The cultural approach works better than just science and technology,” Mr. Sutopo said. “If people think that it is punishment from God, it makes it easier for them to recover.”The latest diaster struck last week, when a 44-year-old submarine, the Nanggala, disappeared before dawn during training exercises north of the Indonesian island of Bali. Search crews from the United States, India, Malaysia, Australia and Singapore later helped the Indonesian Navy hunt for the vessel in the Bali Sea.For a few days, naval experts worried that the sub might run out of oxygen. Then the navy confirmed over the weekend that it had fractured and sank to a deep seabed.Among the items a remote-controlled submersible found at the crash site was a tattered orange escape suit.A tattered orange escape suit that was found in the waters near where the submarine sank. Fikri Yusuf/Antara Foto, via ReutersPresident Joko Widodo of Indonesia expressed his condolences to the families of the fallen sailors on Monday, calling them “the nation’s best sons” and noting that the government would pay for their children’s education through college.“May the spirits of the golden shark warriors get the best place at the side of Almighty God,” he said.The song the sailors sang last month, “Till We Meet Again,” happens to have a complex back story.The musician Erix Soekamti said that he and his bandmates wrote it about six years ago on a remote island east of Bali, as a tribute to the local people they had met over the course of a monthlong recording session.The song’s lyrics can be interpreted as fatalistic:Beginning will endRise will setUps will meet downsThe song was meant to convey optimism, Mr. Soekamti said, but it has slowly become associated with loss, misfortune and death.A few years ago, he said, the crowd at an Indonesian soccer game sang it after a goalie for one of the teams died during a previous match. “Then it became a loser song,” he said. “Now, when a team loses, that song will be sung.”“Till We Meet Again” has been covered by other musicians; a melancholic version by the Indonesian singer Tami Aulia has more than nine million page views on YouTube.But Mr. Soekamti said his band now avoids playing it and recently declined to include it on an upcoming live album.“I am sad,” he said, “and, in a way, afraid.” More

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      One Album Released by 44 Labels. Is This the New Global Jukebox?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOne Album Released by 44 Labels. Is This the New Global Jukebox?For a decade, Senyawa has helped redefine how Indonesian music sounded. Now, the duo wants to revolutionize how it gets heard.Wukir Suryadi and Rully Shabara at their studio in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Their group, Senyawa, is an international emissary of Indonesia’s experimental music scene.Credit…Ulet Ifansasti for The New York TimesFeb. 18, 2021Updated 2:02 p.m. ETWhen coronavirus lockdowns began to grow among Indonesia’s 900 inhabited islands late last March, Rully Shabara and Wukir Suryadi, like many artists worldwide, began to fret over their musical future.During the last decade, their duo, Senyawa, has emerged as one of the lone international emissaries of Indonesia’s rich experimental scene. They have hopscotched among the islands of Southeast Asia and flown abroad for prestigious festivals, earning 90 percent of their income on tour. Their tumultuous mix of heavy-metal aggression and free-jazz bedlam — bellowed in Shabara’s athletic baritone, backed with Suryadi’s elaborate homemade instruments — has dispelled notions that all Indonesian music chimes like gamelan or hypnotizes like one of its folk forms.“When Senyawa started, if someone knew about Indonesia, they knew gamelan, Bali; they think everybody is playing traditional music,” Shabara said, laughing during a recent video call from Yogyakarta. “If you wanted to go to the United States and scream, people expected you to play the flute. But people know Indonesian music now. That door was opened.”The pandemic threatened to slam it shut again, so Senyawa came up with an unconventional plan. Last September, while making its new album, “Alkisah,” the duo decided its music would no longer be issued through a single label. Instead, the group would make an open online call for any imprint willing to enlist in a global confederation, with each member selling small localized editions of the same record. This week, at least 44 labels scattered across four continents will offer unique versions of “Alkisah,” each with distinct artwork and, in many cases, bonus tracks. It is the most daring iteration yet of Senyawa’s new credo: “Decentralization should be the future.”“It’s not about Senyawa anymore. It’s not about our album,” Shabara said, jabbing his finger toward the screen as a cross-legged Suryadi perched behind him like a mantis, taking long drags from a cigarette. “We don’t want to dominate anybody. This can be anyone’s music.”Unless they’re self-released, most albums fall under the purview of a single label. Or perhaps one imprint handles a record in the Americas, while another takes the reins in Europe or Asia. At best, the stakeholders coordinate release dates or promotional strategies, with priority often given to the label with the biggest potential market share. They are unequal members on one loose team.Senyawa wondered what would happen if it not only grew the team to an unusually large size but also gave the players relative autonomy. After all, “Alkisah” is a dizzying eight-song suite about the revolution that’s possible when world powers collapse, built into a fun house of prog-rock, noise, metal and a little traditional chanting. Why not rethink, from every angle, the very system that delivers music to listeners?The duo doled out graphics and audio files, encouraging labels to make covers that might appeal to their audiences and to commission remixes that might warrant local excitement.“We want the labels to have ownership. Somebody in Beirut may have the Senyawa album, but it should feel like an album from Beirut, not Indonesia,” Shabara said. The Beirut cover glows in iridescent orange and pink, the band’s name scrawled across it in Arabic. One of four German editions is stark and striking, suggesting cool minimal electronics. Together, the assorted editions of “Alkisah” sport nearly 200 remixes.“We want the labels to have ownership,” Shabara said. “Somebody in Beirut may have the Senyawa album, but it should feel like an album from Beirut, not Indonesia.”Credit…Ulet Ifansasti for The New York TimesWhen James Vella first heard Senyawa’s plan last October, he was conceptually intrigued, if pragmatically uncertain. His boundless British label, Phantom Limb, had previously issued Shabara’s solo work, and he loved the pair’s adventurous ardor. But could his fringe upstart afford to divvy the audience for experimental Indonesian rock with more than 40 other imprints?“As fans, we wanted to say yes,” Vella said by phone from London. “But any tiny label is forever one release away from failure. If you invest time and resources in a record that doesn’t sell, it could be the death knell. That is slightly more complicated here.”Vella began to understand, though, that this plan would enhance the sort of resource sharing some labels already use. Phantom Limb, for instance, partnered with a Belgian imprint to market “Alkisah.” The 44 labels now commingle on the chat application Discord, swapping ideas and information.These private international companies have digitally merged into a de facto mutual-aid network, mirroring Senyawa’s ethos back home. With an instrument-building shop, studio, kitchen, sleeping quarters and even indoors beehives, their Yogyakarta compound recalls an artist loft from a bygone New York. The group licenses Senyawa-brand hot sauce, cigarettes and incense for community relief. During the pandemic, Shabara has drawn 200 portraits of strangers, each of whom agreed to feed one neighbor in exchange.For the labels, it’s not just altruism. Senyawa contracted Morphine Records in Berlin to oversee the production and distribution of 2,300 copies for a dozen imprints, driving costs far lower than if those businesses placed separate orders. One in Bali will get 50, another in Spain 200. The savings mean each transaction might net $10, giving these boutique brands a rare shot at a modest profit. Phantom Limb sold what Vella called a “healthy” chunk of its 300 copies before “Alkisah” was actually released.“There may only be 500 people who are interested in the record I am putting out, but I am trying to find all 500,” said Phil Freeman, whose Burning Ambulance is one of two tiny American imprints working with Senyawa. “Wherever they are in the world, great.”Shabara gushed when he discussed this scheme’s future feasibility, detailing organizational refinements he imagines. And Rabih Beaini, the owner of the German label handling manufacturing, suggested that bands big and small could increase their audience by recruiting a plethora of cooperative partners. “You could have 100 labels that reach obscure markets in countries where you might not normally sell your music,” Beaini said from Berlin. “It’s quite utopian.”But Stephen O’Malley — the co-founder of metal duo Sunn O))) and a label owner — warned against reducing Senyawa’s idea into a novel strategy for sales. Several years ago, O’Malley invited Senyawa to perform with him at Europalia, a biennial arts festival, each event devoted to a different country’s culture. He reveled in their openness and enthusiasm.“Senyawa are approaching this record as a way to connect with a lot of people, a way to collaborate,” O’Malley said from his home in Paris. “So why does it have to be sustainable as a business? Of course music is sustainable. It’s been around since the beginning of the species and transmitted the whole time.”But the added connectivity is already changing the way Senyawa functions. This weekend, the group is presenting Pasar Alkisah, a two-day virtual festival of performances, D.J. sets, cooking classes and interviews, a massive act of coordination between the band and their dozens of partners.In September, when Senyawa recorded “Alkisah,” it reconvened near Borobudur, the iconic Buddhist temple built on Java a millennium ago. Shabara and Suryadi isolated themselves in a friend’s sprawling home there, surrounded by a patch of jungle and a panorama of converging rivers and twin volcanoes. It was a postcard version of Indonesia — and a perfectly ironic place to capture a less stereotypical perspective on the world’s fourth most populous country.“We are normal musicians like anyone else in the world who experiments. We just happen to be Indonesian,” Shabara said, his words arriving in a torrent. “If we want Indonesian musicians to flourish and be as highly respected as musicians from the West, we have to think we’re part of the world, not the ‘Third World.’”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More