Celebrity and Komunitas: The Rise and Fall of the Jogja Hip Hop Foundation

This research is a study of an Indonesian music group, the Jogja Hip Hop Foundation (JHF). The group is analysed as an example of an Indonesian social form for cultural production, komunitas. By researching the rise to celebrity of Mohammad Marzuki, the principal figure of the JHF, the research found that komunitas is incompatible with elements of commercialised media culture in Indonesia. In addition, the study explores how the Yogyakarta Sultanate obtains political legitimacy from cultural practice. The JHF’s hip hop versions of Javanese cultural forms stimulated public memory and approval of the Sultanate’s history and legitimacy.