LIFE’S not fair, it seems, for sexy and controversial Indonesian singer Inul Daratista. ’People look at Tina Toon and exclaim: ’How adorable! How cute!’ But for me, they say something else,’ she tells Life! in a slightly raised voice after her two-hour mini-concert on Sunday at Marine Parade Community Centre. Inul, 25, is referring to 10-year-old Tina Toon, who also performed at the concert. The Chinese-Indonesian girl can sing and shimmy just like her, and nearly stole the show. But it was Inul who drew the crowd of 700 to her debut concert here and went on to prove why she is the biggest entertainment phenomenon back in Indonesia. She sang. She danced. She teased. A perfectly-timed flick of the hips, raised eyebrow or shoulder shrug was enough to make the audience roar. From the ends of her henna-dyed hair to the tips of her toenails, she was sex personified, and she knew it. Occasionally, she invited people to come on stage to learn how to swivel their buttocks like her. ’Slower... lower... softer,’ she commanded an embarrassed looking French expatriate. The crowd loved it. It is no surprise then that, in an interview after the show, she hits back at her conservative critics back home for labelling her performances ’slutty’ and ’pornographic’.
’It’s unfair to compare me to pornographic artists when I don’t do pornography,’ she says in Bahasa Indonesia. ’There are porn VCDs being sold openly on the streets of my country, yet I’m the target of these vicious attacks.’ Inul has been dogged by controversy since she rose meteorically from a poor village in east Java to stardom just over a year ago. Much has been made of how she was an itinerant singer who performed dangdut - a catchy blend of Malay, Indian and Arab music - in villages since age 12, for as little as $1. In January last year, she became famous overnight when she was invited to sing and gyrate in Jakarta on national TV. The ratings shot through the roof and, by February, she had grabbed the headlines and graced the covers of every major magazine. Publications rated her as the biggest phenomenon of 2003 and a symbol of its economic recovery and growing confidence since the 1997 fiscal crisis.
The backlash, however, was swift and savage. Some Muslim clerics denounced her provocative bump-and-grind dancing and tight costumes as ’degenerate’ and ’pornographic’. Dangdut veterans criticised her voice as weak. But her fans in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, which by now are estimated to be in the millions, rallied behind her by buying her debut album, Goyang Inul (Inul’s Shake), and continuously thronging concert halls and venues. Her album has gone platinum since its release last June (2003).
Indonesian politicians, gearing up for the country’s elections this year, have been courting her support by asking her to sing at their rallies. She now performs 15 to 25 concerts a month, commanding between $60,000 and $70,000 per show. She also hosts her own weekly TV programme in which she sings and dances, too. Her success has not gone to her head for she reportedly makes generous donations to the poor. Still, people either hate her or love her.
At her Sunday concert, it became obvious to anyone watching her for the first time why she incites such extreme feelings. Her vocal range may be limited but her belly-dancing is a force of nature. During the fast numbers, she would writhe backward, forward, left and right repeatedly and rapidly like a human cyclone. In another signature move, she would hold her hands up as if she was clutching the handles of a motorcycle, then start to pump her hips titillatingly at breakneck speed. Defending her sexy image - she wore a figure-hugging red costume on Sunday - she said: ’To me, it’s just a performance. I wanted to put some sizzle back into the dangdut scene, which has been so boring and monotonous for so long.’
She has been married to her manager, Adam Suseno, 30, for five years. They have no children. Judging by the turnout in Marine Parade, her appeal crosses all socio-economic divides. Occupying the $100 seats in the front rows were distinguished-looking men in batik shirts and middle-aged women with bouffant hair and glittering jewellery. Standing at the back of the hall were ordinary people as well as small groups of Indonesian maids who screamed, gushed and sang the words to every song. Some even cleared a space at the back and sides of the hall to do their own bumping and grinding throughout the concert. Ms Suriani Gunamir, 24, a maid, said: ’I’ve been so homesick ever since I came here two years ago to work. Watching this concert has been the happiest day of my life in Singapore.’
After the show, as security guards escorted the star off the stage, some 30 fans surged forward and pushed themselves through the gaps between the guards, waving scraps of paper for autographs. Inul signed them and posed briefly for pictures, before exiting by a side door. ’I know there will always be critics of my sexy image but as long as I have supporters like those at the concert, I will be all right,’ she told Life! later.