Heavy metal music has always been seen as a genre of aggression with their ‘screamos’, heavy drumming, and crazy guitar solos. With all these elements, you’d think the musicians would look scary or intimidating.
This isn’t the case for this particular heavy metal band. This group of Indonesian hijabi girls call themselves Voice of Baceprot (Noisy Voice) and they’re quite the popular bunch for their fans. The group has been introducing itself at music festivals all around the Muslim majority nation since forming the band in 2014.
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But this all-female band has a bigger problem at hand, which is winning over their parents. What they’re striving for is far off from their conservative hometown in West Java, where they were made to shrug off hostile reactions from neighbours and family members to pursue the passion they believed in.
“Because of metal music, I have the courage to speak my mind and the confidence to be different,” 19-year-old bassist Widi Rahmawati told AFP during a recent jam session. “When I’m on stage, I can express myself without worrying about the norms that people expect from me”.
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The ‘norms’ she was referring to was the three women having to get married right after high school.
“My parents told me that reading was useless, let alone playing music,” said the band’s singer and lead guitarist, 20-year-old Firda Marsya Kurnia. “They said that once I got married, my future husband wouldn’t tell me to read books, but to cook or clean the house instead.”
Eventually, their ‘stubborn’ determination against their skeptical parents paid off as they managed to move to Jakarta to pursue their passion.
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“Music is a place for us to gain happiness and share that with other people,” Kurnia said. “We’re just grateful if the audience gets something, like a message, from our music.”
It’s a tough journey when you choose to pursue something that others might feel is ‘different’. But these girls are living proof that working hard and believing in yourself pays off. Well done!
*Cover Image Credits: Press
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