Voice of Baceprot: Hijab-Core Funk Rap Metal from Indonesia

Voice of Baceprot (also abbreviated as VoB, meaning “noisy” in Sundanese) is a metal / rap / funk band from Indonesia, often referred to as Hijab-Core because all three members are teenagers that wear Hijab head coverings. Their lyrics are mostly in Sundanese (their native language), with a few lines of English as well.

In addition to breaking all of those molds, the really amazing fact about this band is that they had not even heard of heavy metal music until their school teacher introduced it to them fairly recently. They loved it and started learning instruments.

As you can see from the video, they didn’t just learn their instruments… they dominated them. That is some serious power behind how they play all of their instruments. Lest you think this is just a gimmick or trick of the camera, they can also pull off their impressive skills live as well:

I don’t totally know what exactly they are singing / rapping about, but it appears to be they are talking about equality and social issues, which is a brave thing to do seeing they are children of farmers from conservative Muslim rural areas Indonesia.

But for those of that grew up on 80s heavy metal, which got a bit stale and repetitive every time a new sub-genre hit it big, bands like VoB are a breath of fresh air. Metal didn’t die here in the U.S., of course, but interesting to see it being kept alive (and totally shredding) by teenagers on the other side of the world. They have a Facebook page that seems to be the best place to keep up with their new music (they only have a few songs so far – looking forward to more).