Indie mothers make moving music - 17th February 2023

Nasida Ria, an all-woman band in Indonesia, is a major hit with young festival audiences. Originally formed 47 years ago as a Qur'an-reading group, the band now blends Arabic and traditional 'dangdut' music.

Once seen as unsophisticated, dangdut and other local cultural music styles are gaining popularity and Nasida Ria mixes these with lyrics on serious themes like justice, human rights and Islam. However, they're typically dealt with in a humorous way. Men who treat women badly, for example, are made fun of.

Music specialist Shindu Alpito explains their appeal.

Shindu Alpito: "Talking about Islamic songs, Nasida Ria might be the only one that dares to use such witty lyrics. Islamic songs are usually serious with lyrics carefully quoting Islamic teachings. However, Nasida Ria can immerse into a broader society through a language style that is easy to understand and tickling."

This mixture of music styles and entertaining but powerful lyrics has captured a young, media-friendly audience, who refer to Nasida Ria as the 'Indie Mothers'.

Fathul Amin: "I think Nasida Ria is more than just cool. Why? Because all of the members are women who can play more than three musical instruments. And, now they have become mothers, they still consistently play music. Nothing has changed them. That's why I see them as super cool."

Nasida Ria are well-informed about popular media channels and aware of how to reach their fans.

At the comparatively young age of 27, Nazla Zain's the youngster of the group.

Nazla Zain: "Nasida Ria is keeping up with the trend by using Youtube and other music applications. We uploaded Nasida Ria's songs from all albums there. So, now youths with gadgets can listen to our songs. That might be a reason why the youths like Nasida Ria."

The group, whose front woman Rien Djamain is in her 60s, now have over half a million followers on YouTube and every month 38,000 people listen to their music digitally on Spotify. Djamain's hopeful that listening to their recordings will change young people's hearts for the better.