SDGs 4: Quality Education
Culture is an inherent part of human daily life. The importance of culture in everyday life cannot be separated from its essence which plays an important role in determining the identity of a society. The formation of a community’s identity can be formed with characteristics consisting of a variety of cultural elements, including language, knowledge, and art. The element of art is the main concern in seeing the uniqueness of a culture, one of the components of art that attracts a lot of attention is the art of music.
Rafi Karninto is a 2020 Faculty of Cultural Sciences Anthropology UGM student who has produced several musical artworks that combine local cultural diversity. Rafi, his nickname, started his musical journey in 2017. Initially, he started his musical journey by covering regional songs such as the cover of the first song from Banjar, called Saputangan Babuncu Ampat in November 2017. After successfully covering his first song on the YouTube platform, Rafi started his cultural content videos on his YouTube platform by bringing cultural elements to gaming, vlogs, and dance creations.
In 2019, Rafi released his first original song titled “Pantun Tidayu”. Interestingly, this song combines three different languages: Ahe (Dayak Kanayatn), Pontianak Malay, and Mandarin. These three languages were also inspired by the origins of the three ethnic groups in West Kalimantan.
“From the beginning of creating the song, I enjoyed experimenting by blending music from different cultures into one piece,” Rafi said about the cultural musical work he has created.
Not only does Rafi sing songs in different languages, but he also arranges and orchestrates the arrangements of the songs he creates. Two of Rafi’s latest songs, titled “Pemuda” and “Jatinegara,” showcase his talent and ability in musical instruments. The song “Pemuda” was initially composed for a dance creation to commemorate Youth Pledge Day on October 28th while he was interning at the Youth Pledge Museum. In this song, he arranged the instrumentation to be adapted to the music of the 1920s era, while still incorporating ethnic elements from 7 regions that participated in the Second Youth Congress.
“As for the song ‘Jatinegara,’ the inspiration comes from my own neighborhood, Jatinegara District, which has a history from the colonial period and has interesting places to explore. The music uses Betawi gambang kromong with additional modern elements,” Rafi explained about the background of developing the song “Jatinegara,” which he created on March 9th, 2024.
From the various cultural works he has created and preserved, Rafi hopes to collaborate more with various artists and other cultural content creators in the future. He also hopes that his own works and those of cultural enthusiasts can continuously preserve local and Indonesian culture by having opportunities to showcase their works at various events.
To listen to more of Rafi’s music creations, readers can visit a dedicated page containing Rafi’s music works at this link.
