Banyak musisi yang berlatar belakang
Indonesia-Australia yang mengeksplorasi
identitas budaya mereka melalui musik,
termasuk Komang Rosie Clyne. Ia
mendeskripsikan musiknya sebagai
alternatif R&B dengan elemen elektronik
yang dipadukan dengan unsur-unsur
tradisional Indonesia, termasuk gamelan.
Ia memiliki perjalanan unik dalam
menemukan suara musiknya yang berakar dari
keinginannya untuk mengenal lebih dalam
warisan budaya Bali dari sang ibu.
Bagaimana budaya Indonesia membentuk
musiknya? Apa cerita di balik lagu
pertamanya Dewi? Dan seperti apa rasanya
menjadi bagian dari komunitas diaspora
Indonesia di Australia? Berikut
perbincangan saya dengan Komang Rosie.
My name is Komang but you can also call me
Rosie. Someone hearing my music for the
first time, I would describe it to them as
alternative R&B which has electronic
elements but also is meeting and combining
with traditional Indonesian elements. So
gamelan instrumentation and sampling. So
what made me decide to blend the genres
together was while I was living in
Indonesia in Yogyakarta and I was learning
sindenan and I was also hearing a lot of
dangdut and a lot of gamelan as well and
it was really sparking my curiosity
because I listened to a lot of R&B and I
kept just thinking, "Wow, I would love to
hear what it would sound like if you know
you played a dangdut beat underneath an
R&B track or if you sampled gamelan into
an electronic song. What would that sound
like?" So I started playing around with
that while I was living in Indonesia and
that's kind of the process that began
creating my sound. I think they complement
each other really well. I think there's
lots of really exciting artists in
Indonesia doing like other similar things
in their own style but you know you can
take a gong for example and use it as a
bass note or use it in a similar way to an
808 or something or you can you know
sample something from like a kroncong song
and that feeds well into R&B. So there's
just a lot of playfulness and I think it
works really well.
Lahir dan besar di Brunei dari ibu asal
Bali dan ayah Anglo-Australia, Komang Rosie
pindah ke Melbourne pada usia enam belas
tahun. Di awal usia dua puluhan, ia
tinggal di Jakarta dan Bali untuk mengenal
kembali budaya dan belajar bahasa
-Indonesia.
-I was born and raised in Brunei. My mom is
Balinese and my dad is Anglo-Australian
and when I was sixteen I moved to
Melbourne and I have basically been based
in Melbourne since except when I was in my
early 20s I moved to Yogyakarta and to
Bali to reconnect with my family and my
-heritage and learn Indonesian.
-Saat kuliah teater, Komang Rosie menyadari
ia hanya mempelajari teater barat dan
ingin mengeksplorasi tradisi seni
pertunjukan dari budayanya sendiri yang
kemudian mendorongnya pindah ke Indonesia
-selama satu setengah tahun.
-When I was in uni actually I was studying
theater and I remember being in my second
year and going, "Hang on, I'm just
studying all of this Shakespeare and
Chekhov and all this like Western theater
makers but I want to learn more about my
heritage because you know we have like
wayang kulit and we have all of these
different traditional theater styles. So
what would that look like?" So and by then
I had already been craving learning
Indonesian and seeing my family more. So I
was like, "You know what? When I graduate
I'm gonna move to Indonesia and learn." I
lived there for about a year and a half.
I lived in Yogyakarta for about eight
months and in Bali for a few months and
then I moved to Jakarta actually and did a
residency in Jakarta.
Tinggal di Jakarta dan Bali membuka
matanya tentang keberagaman budaya
Indonesia bahwa masyarakat di setiap
daerah memiliki kebiasaan umum yang
-berbeda.
-What surprised me I think only ever having
been to Bali as a kid growing up and then
suddenly living in Yogyakarta I think
gave me a really a much more tangible
sense of how diverse Indonesia is and like
you know that's just from Jogja to Bali
right? Let alone all the other islands and
daerah of Indonesia. So it kind of just
opened my eyes and opened my perspective
to like the fact that Indonesia is a place
that has so many different cultures as
part of it. You know like being in Jogja
and everyone's like, "Santai aja," and
like all this like pelan-pelan but in Bali
it's not so much like that. So yeah it
was just like, "Oh every place is so
distinct," and that was really exciting to
-learn about.
-Lagu pertama Komang Rosie yang berjudul
Dewi terinspirasi dari sebuah mimpiLagu
ini mengangkat tema leluhur, keturunan,
dan siklus reinkarnasi dalam filosofi
Bali.
I've released one EP Mythologies, and
there's three singles, let's say, out of
that. And I am currently finishing my
first debut album as well, which will
hopefully be released by the end of this
year or sometime next year. Dewi is my
first ever single that I released. And
Dewi, it's a funny story actually. So in
my family, we have this thing where my mom
always says, you know, "If a family
member who's passed visits you in your
dream, you should, you know, say hi to
them and like let them tell you all the
stories they need to, and then like when
you wake up, tell me so that we can give
them like do a prayer for them," because
that was the thing that often happened in
our family. And then one day I had a dream
that I was swimming with this little kid,
and I knew that she was my daughter. So I
woke up and I was like, "Mom, someone
visited me in the dream last night, but it
was someone who hasn't been born yet. It
was my daughter." And she was like, "Oh my
gosh, that's amazing." So this song is
actually about this little kid that I
dreamed of because in Balinese philosophy,
we have reincarnation. So it's a song
about not only your ancestors, but like
your descendants and how the cycle of
-rebirth continues.
-Saat saya berjumpa dengan Komang Rosie, ia
tampil dalam festival yang diselenggarakan
oleh Diaspora Muda Indonesia di
Australia. Menurutnya, festival ini adalah
ruang kreatif dan menarik di mana budaya
Indonesia dirayakan dengan cara-cara baru
dengan musik kontemporer yang disajikan
-secara inovatif.
-So I did the music programming for
Nongkrong last year, and the year before
that I performed for it, and it was my
first time hearing about young Indonesian
diaspora here putting on a festival of
music that I really liked and food. I
mean, I love Indonesian food, but you
know, contemporary music with all this
food that I love, but also being
reimagined in interesting ways. And yeah,
it was just like, oh, these people are
doing something really creative and
interesting. So it's just really nice to
have a community of other young diaspora
people who are interested in celebrating
-our culture in new ways.
-Menurut Komang Rosie, tampil di acara
diaspora terasa lebih akrab dengan
penonton beragam usia, berbeda dengan
panggung musik di mana ia biasa tampil
yang cenderung dihadiri sesama musisi dan
-anak muda.
-When I'm playing other gigs, you know,
usually it's like it's your cohort, like
your friends and other people in the music
industry and people who like partying or
going out. But and then when you play at
something like Nongkrong, it's like, oh,
my cousin's here, and my parents are here,
and my tante, om, om are here. And it's
just like it's a much more family-friendly
but also like a, a diverse age range,
which is really nice because, yeah, you
have kids running around, and it really
feels like more holistic and just, yeah, a
completely different experience to, say,
performing at other festivals.
Komang Rosie berharap pendengarnya
merasakan koneksi dengan musiknya, entah
itu lewat menari atau merasakan sesuatu
secara emosional. Ia juga mengapresiasi
bahwa banyak penggemarnya yang bukan orang
Indonesia tetapi tetap menikmati
musiknya. Ia melihat tren positif di mana
semakin banyak artis yang membagikan
budaya mereka dengan bangga melalui musik
kontemporer.
I hope they'll feel some sort of
connection to it in whatever way they
find. You know, if it makes them dance, if
it makes them feel something. I've been
really fortunate to meet a lot of
non-Indonesian fans of my music who just
love it because they just enjoy the sound.
And I think with more artists doing this
sort of sharing their culture with pride
but combining it with contemporary music,
like, you know, Bad Bunny playing at the
Super Bowl, for example. Like, I think
people are really excited to be sharing
their cultures with each other, and I
think that's a beautiful thing.
