The Dangdut (pronounced as "dunk doot" in English) is typically Indonesian.This music is a derived from Orkes Melayu (=" Malay Orchestra"). From several hundred years ago,Indonesia was very famous for its spices (tea,coffee,pepper,etc) all around the world, so people from every continent went to Indonesia. That’s why an Indonesian culture is a mixture between many countries culture. The Orkes Melayu (O.M.) is a mixture between Indian,Arabic and Portuguese music.All this nation gave influence to our culture.

The first Portuguese song in Indonesia is "Nina Bobo", this song still very, very popular in our country.Almost everybody know this song . Until now when a father or mother try to make their baby sleep, they still singing this song. One of the famous Indonesian music derived from the Portuguese is keroncong music

The Dangdut music started in rural areas in lower Indonesian class.The lyrics –like the tango in Argentine- is usually talk about sadness, untrusted love, betrayed husbands/wifes, divorce and so on. The name of the dangdut is derived from the percussion sound ("tra-dunk-dunk") = DANG and the longer beat followed ("dooot") = DUT.

This is not a couple dancing,but individual dancing.The movement is slow, the dancers seldom took his feet from the floor,just a little bend on his knees, circular movement from his waist (without taking his feet from the floor) and the shoulder follow the rhytm in circular movement. The hand movement is like rowing in slow motion,or put above their heads. It looks that dangdut dancing is very very enjoyable, relaxing, without so many power or effort. They can dance anywhere, in every street side with music from small radio-cassette . So this is why dangdut is very popular in Indonesia. Everywhere in rather big cities you find Dangdut Music and Bar ,together with disco dancing.

Several years ago, dangdut was banned from elite dancing spot in Jakarta, but in the last few years some of the dance place also played dangdut music, and all the dancers enjoy this music so much.

In this page you can hear the beat from a song entitled "KOPI DANGDUT" (kopi= coffee).This song is very popular in Indonesian dancing place.Many of us believes that this song was derived from a latin song "Maria Elsa".Enjoy this music and shake your body,it's very lovely,isn't it?

Dangdut not only popular in Indonesia,but also popular in Japan. We hope that someday this kind of music could be standardized and spread all over the world. So when you visit Indonesia and go dancing,just ask the musician for Dangdut music.

http://www.oocities.org/Vienna/Choir/3811