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What’s behind Indonesia’s heavy metal music boom

May 8, 2024, 10:54am EDT
curioSoutheast Asia
Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images
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The News

Indonesia is a booming hub for heavy metal music.

The country recently hosted Southeast Asia’s largest heavy metal music festival, Hammersonic, and its outgoing president is a Megadeth fan.

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While Indonesia attracts foreign performers like Lamb of God, a homegrown band called Voice of Baceprot — comprising three hijab-wearing women — is winning fans overseas with songs on female empowerment and environmental activism, The New York Times reported.

Heavy metal has been an “outlet to comment on society, politics and the environment,” one Indonesian metalhead told Voice of America.

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