Indo Reggae: Tony Q Rastafara

Born in Semarang, a little town located in Central Java, Indonesia, Tony Waluyo Sukmoasih came from an ordinary family. His talent and fascination for art especially in music and paintings could be detected easily since early childhood where he got most of the influence from his friends. He was and is, until now, fixated by rock music and blues. Having finished his education in Technical Intermediate School (STM), Tony decided to start his music career in his hometown as a street singer in 1980; and this made him closer to what it’s called the live of street singers in Semarang. In this city which he loves, Tony had the chance to produce a compilation album of street singers together with his friends and won several competitions on street singers’ festival.

Due to his eagerness in plunging himself into new challenges, he moved and tried his luck in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city. And because his in-depth experience with street singers, he visited the similar community in Jakarta. With the help from a friend who had firstly engaged in Jakarta’s street singers’ community, Tony braved himself to initiate his music career as a pengamen, an Indonesian word for street musician. He entertained and played his music from one place to other places in the street of Jakarta. Although country music was still unpopular back in the mid of 1984 among Indonesian people, upon a friend’s request, Tony agreed to try the new music genre as many musicians hadn’t yet dared to play it. One thing led to another and what happened next was Tony got new friends, expatriates living in Jakarta. It was because of his existence in performing country music that he was invited several times in an event organized by the United States Embassy, and thanks to his expatriate friends, he had the opportunity to come on stage in one of the biggest America’s country music festival, the Grand Old Opree which was sited in Tennessee, USA. Unfortunately, due to lack of financial support, the plan was not realized. Being too long experimenting with country music, Tony started to feel worn-out and felt that his music career was going nowhere, not developing until he decided to sign out from his band and began to search other kind of music that is more suitable with his soul.

In the early of 1989, Tony tried to learn more about reggae music which was coincided with his love and passion for the legend figure in reggae world, Bob Marley. Not only he was inspired by his music, but also the lyrics in each Bob Marley’s songs put Tony in a hypnotized state where it triggered his instinct in music. Thus, he felt certain and fix to choose the career path in reggae music, and launched his existence in it. Within the same year, he managed to establish his first reggae band which was named “Roots Rock Reggae”. This band had marked his career by performing in Jakarta’s pubs and cafes, delivering Bob Marley, Jimmy Clliff songs, and many others to audience ears with Tony as the lead vocal and lead guitar. Other than Roots Rock Reggae band, Tony set up other reggae bands such as “Exodus”, and then “Rastaman”; while in 1994, he pioneered the band that in later years made him famous in Indonesia’s reggae which was called “Rastafara”. Journeying with Rastafara, Tony’s music career was starting to take its peak as in that period of time there were scarcely found reggae musicians in Jakarta; that was why the band got its full support and fans from reggae music community. Rastafara was acknowledged as the pioneer in Indonesia’s reggae music because it was the only band that has the guts to present their own original songs, trying to break free from the shadow of Jamaican reggae, and interestingly, the majority of Rastafara’s songs were created by Tony.

In 1995, with a help from a friend, Rastafara managed to get an offer from a recording album, Warner Music Indonesia when finally in 1996, their debut album called “Rambut Gimbal” was released. The album received excellent feedback, and brought a new touch to Indonesia’s music industry which was then dominated by Alternative Rock. Almost all of the songs in the album were originally created by Tony, talking about social issues, humanity, love, and daily life routines. The “Rambut Gimbal” song was quite popular at the time where actually the song title taken from a term for Dreadlocks hair styles in foreign language and then borrowed into Bahasa Indonesia. The distinction between Rastafara and other reggae bands was because they had successfully combined and integrated elements of traditional music with Indonesia’s classic style into his own music, so reggae music ala Indonesia was created, free from the influence of Bob Marley, UB 40, or Jimmy Cliff.

(Read whole story at Tony Q Rastafara)

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