Rhoma & Evy story...

Do you know?

that since the mid-1970s the funky dangdut style has dominated the Indonesian popular-music world. This hybrid genre, a combination of Indonesian and Malaysian urban and traditional forms, American rock and Indian film music, has been the voice of the poor masses of urban Indonesia for nearly three decades. Today the genre appears in many variations and regularly reinvents itself every five years or so, incorporating new far-flung inspirations. While certain artists, such as Rhoma Irama, the so-called "Dangdut King," have tended toward crafting lyrics concerned with Islamic moralizing and social criticism, the genre's original spirit lies in light flirtatious songs expressed through the playful dialogue between male and female singers. Since the 1970s Elvy Sukaesih, the Queen of Dangdut, has been its matriarch.

Born in Jakarta in 1951 as the daughter of a professional musician in popular Jakartan gambus ensembles, Sukaesih began performing on stage by the third grade. She wasn't trained specifically in any traditional form, so Sukaesih first began singing in several bands led by her father who introduced her to various Western popular forms as well as to the orkes melayu, the acoustic progenitor of the later, electrified, dangdut ensemble. As a child Sukaesih grew up watching Indian popular films shown in the public theater in front of her humble Jakarta home. Early on Sukaesih learned to imitate the musical and dance styles of Bollywood, later incorporating these styles within the dangdut form.

By her early teens Sukaesih was popular throughout Jakarta as a melayu singer for weddings, parties and other special occasions. But her father died soon after, so Sukaesih began performing nightly with numerous groups in order to help her mother make ends meet. Around then the musician, singer and producer Zeth Zaidun, who also managed the young Oma (Rhoma) Irama, met Sukaesih and began a personal and professional relationship, and at the age of 14, Sukaesih married the 23-year-old Zaidun. Between 1973–1976 Sukaesih regularly recorded and performed love duets with Irama, afterward launching a solo career when Irama departed from the playful dangdut style to forge a more serious form of Islamic influenced moralistic dangdut.

Sukaesih remains the godmother of the dangdut style, although her active recording and singing career has effectively ended. Since the early 1970s she has released more than 100 records and has appeared regularly in films and as a personality on local television. Sukaesih's vocal style defined the female dangdut sound for a generation; her perpetually girlish voice could sound at once Indian, Middle Eastern and American, all the while singing in Indonesian with distinctly Indonesian/melayu ornaments.

amazing.....