Rhoma Irama - Career

Career

Oma Irama's first bands were known as Tornado and Gayhand, and covered Western rock and roll music of Paul Anka, Andy Williams, and The Beatles.

In the late 1960s Oma Irama, sang orkes Melayu and also some pop Indonesia. In 1968 he joined the group Orkes Melayu Purnama in 1968. This group pioneered elements of the dangdut style within orkes Melayu music - the drum was changed to double drum, the electric guitar's role was expanded, and the suling, or bamboo flute, adopted a style reminiscent of Bollywood music. He also recorded pop Indonesia music during this period with the Zaenal Combo and Galaksi, while the album 'Ingkar Janji' was recorded in 1969 with Orkes Melayu Chandraleka.

Once Oma broke from recording with the Purnama Group, he formed Orkes Melayu Soneta (named for the English word sonnet), which became the first dangdut group in 1970. The subtitle, 'the sound of Moslems' was added in 1973.

The group featured Oma Irama and Elvy Sukaesih as singers, both solo, and duets. Their first album, 'Volume 01', 'Begadang' ('Stay up all night'), released in 1973, featured 4 songs by Oma Irama, three by Elvy, and three duets. The song featured a topless Oma Irama wearing tight trousers and holding an electric guitar. His choice of pose showed the influence on his music of Western hard rock bands, influences which also found their way into his music - orkes Melayu was in his opinion was too soft, too acoustic, too polite, and unable to compete against the power and energy of rock music, and so the music was electrified, with keyboard, two electric guitars, electric bass, as well as the traditional suling and gendang. He has stated that he took his guitar style from Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple. In addition to Western and Malay influences, Hindi composers were credited for some of the band's songs.

The Begadang album ranked #11 on Rolling Stone Indonesia's "150 Greatest Indonesian Albums of All Time" list. Furthermore, the main single "Begadang" reached at number 24 on the magazine's "150 Greatest Indonesian Songs of All Time" list.

His 1973 hit "Terajana", one of the best-known dangdut songs of all time, was the first to use the newly coined, and arguably derogatory, term dangdut, distinguishing the Javanese orkes Melayu music, heavily influenced by Indian Bollywood records, henceforth dangdut, from the established orkes Melayu, associated with North Sumatran Malays.

Once Soneta was established in the early 1970s, Oma changed his name to Rhoma and went on a decade long run of successful hit records and films, all of which starred Rhoma playing himself while performing all of his hits. He wrote the classics "Kareta Malam" and "Kuda Lumping" which were sung by Elvy Sukaesih.

Performing live, he adopted many of the props of stadium rock, including large audiences, powerful soundsystems, complex sets, fireworks, flashing lights, and smoke machines.