Religious Koplo Dangdut Music: Cultural Identity and Religious Expression

Abstract

Humans and culture are two things that are interrelated and cannot be separated from each
other. Religion and music are two things that have a relationship with culture. Religious
messages and da'wah are often displayed in the packaging of musical art and bring religious
music. The development of music in Indonesia in the past two decades gave rise to one of
the dangdut music sub-genres, known as Koplo dangdut, which in its performance also often
inserted religious messages and presented them in the religious Koplo dangdut format. This
article examines Koplo dangdut as the cultural identity and religious expression of coastal
communities, which is seen as a cultural reality, with an anthropological approach. The study
is conducted with an ethical perspective, where the writer only observes without being
directly involved in the object of observation. The main data in this study is the religious
koplo dangdut music video from YouTube. Koplo dangdut, which is famous for its vulgarity
and directness in the lyrics of the song, reflects the cultural conditions of the song performers
with a background in coastal Javanese society. However, the religious side of the Koplo dangdut
music genre still appears in the religious koplo dangdut sub-genre. Religious expressions that
appear in the stage of religious koplo dangdut are artistic expressions which include dimensions
of belief (ideology), experience (ahlak), and knowledge.