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1.1  General

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is one of the tools that humans use to convey ideas, ideas, and thoughts into
oral and written forms. In other words, language is a tool in communicating
with others. Language usage reflects one’s character to others. This is because
in the language, each person has the freedom to use the choice of words or
diction that contains certain meanings so that the purpose of the use of
language is conveyed to others.

as a system has potential creativity (Traugot and Prat, 1980 in Sudjiman, p. 11)
(Sudjiman, 1993, p. 11). Since there are so
many potential creativities that exists in the language, thus the ability of a
person to exploit its potential will be better if he/she mastering the

line with the above statement, it is not surprising that literary works born
from famous writers sometimes become more difficult to be interpreted. This is
due to the many features of language that cannot be easily understood by the
reader or listener.

the other hand, the analysis of language in literary works is very interesting
to be done. It is because there are many uniqueness and creativity that
appears, for instance in a song lyric. Music as a product of culture has become
a part of human life.

that flourished in the community is very diverse, including Rock, R & B
(Rhtym and blues), Pop, Jazz, Soul, Punk, Hip Hop, Reagee, and many other types
of music. One of the highlights is Hip Hop music. Hip Hop music is an art of
urban blacks in which the lyrics are likened to the combined sound of previously
recorded songs (Pihel, 1996, p. 249).

Indonesia, Hip Hop music is very popular especially in recent times. It is
because there is an emergence of Javanese Hip Hop in which hip hop as a western
music is modified with Javanese lyric. Some hip hop musician such as, Jogja Hip
Hop Foundation, Rotra, Jahanam and NDX A.K.A. Familia gain their popularity by
singing Javanese hip hop. In my opinion, they become famous because their lyric
is acceptable by the society since most of them are come from Central Java and
Special Region of Yogyakarta which have Javanese speakers’ majority.

I am interested to analyze the power of Javanese hip hop in maintaining
Javanese language and identity. This paper will explore whether Javanese hip
hop plays significant role in maintaining Javanese language in this modern era.
By knowing the language style in Javanese hip hop song, the Javanese perception
towards Javanese hip hop and the contribution of Javanese hip hop in shaping
young Javanese identity, these will answer the role of Javanese hip hop song in
maintaining Javanese language.

1.2  Previous

Devita Rina Prabowo (2014) through her research
entitled “Analysis of Language Styles within Javanese Hip Hop Song’s Lyric”
observe that there are several rhetoric language style which are used to form
beautiful rhyme and to exaggerate social critic. In addition, there are also
some figure of speech language style.

Dror Cohen (2008) in his final project entitled “The
Role of Rap/Hip Hop Music in the Meaning and Maintenance of Identity in South
African Youth” found that the nature of Hip Hop culture in South Africa appears
to provide youth with the meand to remix past and present, old and new, global
and local, self and other. It emphasizes on self-expression, individuation and
critical social awareness with many of the traditional psychological
developmental theories of youth identity.

it is necessary to scrutinize further is there any significant role of hip hop
song to maintaining local language after being modified through local language.
Both researches have not found it yet. 

1.3  Research

on the background above, the problems that come up to this study are formulated
as follows :

1.      What
language styles are used in Javanese hip hop?

2.      What
is the perception of Javanese towards Javanese hip hop by age?

3.      What
contribution does Javanese hip hop in shaping young Javanese young identity?



2.1  Hip

Hop is one of the musical genres that originated from City of Bronx in New York
and continues to grow rapidly throughout the world. Hip Hop music is only
filled with music from Disk Jockey by making variations of disc rounds to
produce unique sounds. Rapping becomes the main element in filling the vocals
of the sounds, while for the choreography of the music is then filled a dance
known as breakdance.

element of hip hop is mc-ing or
better known as rapping. People who
do rapping called rapper. The rapper
is someone who sings the lyrics quickly and its contents about confusion,
referring to violence and sexuality (Ortiz, 2002, p. 232). The lyrics are filled
with contradictive tone that give a new spirit in creating the creativity for

Hop originating from western culture can be modified with local culture in this
case Javanese culture in the form of Javanese hip hop. Javanese hip hop is a
hip hop music that uses Javanese in its lyrics. This makes hip hop music
characterized by Javanese culture. Since hip hop is a medium for young people
to develop their creativity, so most Javanese hip hop fans and hip hop
musicians are young people in this case teenagers with Javanese as their first

music is one of alternative in viewing the emergence of Javanese hip hop, because
it is a new adaptation of musical genre, even become one of the first in the
world. One of the actors is the group named NDX A.K.A Familia, a hip hop group
of originated from Bantul, Yogyakarta. The music they play seems very prevalent
in the ears of the Indonesian people with simple lyrics (Putradarma, 2017, p. 6). Most of the lyrics
are about the conflict and confusion of young people toward love. But if we
examine further we will actually find meaningful lyrics in a hiphop-style with
rap popped in it. Therefore, they claim their group as hiphop-dangdut genre.

2.2  Language
Style (Stylistic)

as a science is frequently used to analyze the language used in literary work. Broadly
speaking, stylists can be seen as the interpretation of literary works using
linguistic approaches. This may seem a bit strange because many people assume
that literature and linguistics are two completely different things. However,
in reality both cannot be separated from the language. Therefore, stylistic
analysis in a literary work is something that can be understood and done by the
researchers of literary works.

stylistic method emphasizes to the analysis of language style in interpreting
the literary works, so that the results of the interpretation are objective.
Stylistic plays a role in showing the function of language in a text. Leech
(1981) explains that stylistic have a purpose to explain the relationship
between language and artistic function (p. 13). Furthermore, Leech asserts that
stylistic is not easy to understand simply, so that the interpretation of
literary texts also depends on the creativity of its readers.

relation to the interpretation of literary works, stylistics often clash with
literary criticism because the method of literary criticism is considered
capable of assessing the quality of a literary work (Thornborrow & Wareing, 1998, p. 5). Assessment in
literary criticism is considered by stylisticians as a very subjective method
because it is based on personal judgement of the literary works. Stylistic,
therefore, intend to provide more objective assessments in assessing or
understanding the literary work. It is also called a more intuitive and less
personal method of analysis.

           The following are some language style devices taken from
Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson (2002) in his book “Sound and Sense, An
Introduction to Poetry” (Arp & Johnson, 2002, pp. 70-72) .

a.       Simile

b.      Metaphor

c.       Synecdoche

d.      Metonymy

e.       Personification


g.      Symbol

h.      Allegory



k.      Alliteration


m.    Consonance

n.      Rhythm

The use of the figurative languages mentioned above,
according to Arp and Johnson (ibid, p. 75-76) is an effective medium to reveal
the meaning. The analysis of the song lyric cannot be separated from the
meaning of the words contained in the lyrics of the song. It is because the
formation of the song meaning as a whole originated from the interconnected
meaning in the lyric.

Song lyrics are part of the poem. The
addition of musical elements is the only thing distinguish the song lyric with
the poem. According to Arp and Johnson, poetry can be interpreted as “a
kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than does ordinary
language,” (Arp & Johnson, 2002, p. 3). It shows that poetry
is a short literary work that tells something in the style of figurative
language. Similar to poetry, song lyrics also contain typical words written by
musicians to convey their meaning, both implicitly or explicitly. Repetition of
these distinctive words also sometimes occurs in a lyric that is in a section
called reffrain or chorus. The writing of song lyrics is
very subjective because it comes from the author’s thought, as well as poetry
and other literary works. Thus, by applying the stylistic theory in this paper,
it can be revealed the meaning as well as the language style appeared in
Javanese hip hop songs

2.3  Identity

is simply seen as a thing inherent in a person which distinguishes one from
others. Weeks in Baker (2008) notes that identity is a matter of similarity and
difference about the personal and social aspects, one’s equality with a number
of people and what distinguishes someone from others (Barker, 2003, p. 175).

is a sign (sign) that distinguishes a person with others. Identity is a
signified essence with signs of taste, belief, attitude and lifestyle (Barker,
2003, p. 218).
Identity is also defined as the creation of boundaries where there is a particular
label in it. One’s identity is inseparable from a process that includes life
experience, family background, environment and so on.

in Samovar (2015) describes three categories to classify identity, namely human
identity, social identity, and personal identity (Samovar, Porter, McDaniel, & Roy, 2015, p. 185). Human identity is a
view that connects a person with all human beings and separates a person from
another life form. Social identity is representative of the group in which a
person belongs, such as race, ethnicity, occupation, age, hometown, and so on.
Social identity is a product of the differences between members of a particular
social group and not a member of another social group. Personal identity arises
from the things that distinguish someone from others and signifies a person as
a special and unique person.




3.1  The
type of the research

The type of the research is
descriptive qualitative method. According to Moleong (2011), descriptive
qualitative is a technique where books and other writing materials are used to
support the research question (Moleong, 2008, p. 7). As a descriptive
research, the researcher looked for, collected, and then analyzed data to make
conclusion. Qualitative method tends to emphasize meaning and contains more
than specific finding in the form of facts or particular elements of knowledge.

3.2  Source
of data and data

The source of data in the research
is song lyrics from NDX A.K.A. Familia entitled “Sayang”. The research was done in Surabaya. The subject of the
research is the fans of NDX A.K.A. Familia which consist of 3 people. The
writer selected the data that was found and arranged them as necessary.

3.3  Technique
of collecting data

According to Burns
(Burns, 1999, p. 9), there are two broad groupings of
observational and non-observational methods, they are:

a.    Observational

1)   Observation

2)   Photographs

b.    Non-observational

1)   Interviews

2)   Questionnaires

3)   Documents 

4)   Test

techniques suited in conducting classroom action research for collecting the
data. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the data after collecting the data.
The techniques of analyzing data are mentioned below:

a.  Get to Know the Data

This step requires the writer to consider the data by the quality
and precedes it.

b. Focus the Analysis

1)   Focus by question or topic, time or event

It is important to analyze at how all individuals or groups
responded to each question, topic, or for a given event.

2)   Focus by case, individual or group

Organizing the data, individual or group, and analyze it as a

c.  Categorize Information

This step referred by some people as coding the data or indexing the

d. Identify Patterns, Connections within and between Categories

Assessing the relative importance or different themes in order to
make the next step, interpretation of the data, comes easier.

e.  Interpretation

Attaching meaning and
significance to the analysis.

           (Taylor & Reiner, 2003, pp. 5-6)



the first song in this album, “Sayang” , we are presented with the theme of a
typical love problem of youth today. At the first line in the first stanza of
this song “Sayang, opo kowe krungu jerite atiku?
mengharap engkau kembali” translated
into “Darling,
are you listening? The cry of my heart, expecting you come back to me?”
are hyperbola words that the ear is asked to listen to one’s thought. That’s an
exaggeration. The lyrics represent a great hope amidst of the inner stress. As
he unable to express his heart, he can only scream in his heart and hope that
his love expression can be listened by his lover.

the second row the lyrics of this song “Sayang, nganti memutih rambutku, ra bakal
luntur tresnaku” translated into “Honey, until I grow older, my love to
you will not be faded” shows the love for his lovers even until he
grows older, he will always be awaited. This lyric contains a hyperbolic style
of language because it shows this an impossible act and exaggerated impression.

which means exaggerating the expression is the language style chosen by the
songwriter in making this phenomenal song. The use of hyperboles generally relays feelings or emotions
from the speaker to reveal the speaker’s feeling. Hyperbole can be used to
create a humorous, sad, angry, or convincing impression (Arp & Johnson, 2002, p. 71). In this song,
hyperbole is used as the rhetoric to create a sad impression.

Following is the original lyric of the song “Sayang”
by NDX A.K.A. Familia :

A.K.A. – Sayang

sayang opo
kowe krungu jerite atiku
mengharap engkau kembali
sayang nganti memutih rambutku
ra bakal luntur tresnaku

wis tak
coba ngelaleke jenengmu soko atiku
sak tenane ra ngapusi isih tresno sliramu
do pepuja neng ati nanging koe ra reti
koe sing tak wanti-wanti

malah jebul
saiki koe mblenjani janji
jare sehidup semati nanging opo bukti
koe medot tresnoku demi lanangan liyo
yo wes ora popo, insyaallah aku iso lilo

meh sambat
kalih sinten
yen sampun mekaten, merana uripku
aku welasno ningmas, aku mesakno aku
aku nangis nganti metu eluh getih putih

sayang opo
kowe krungu jerite atiku
mengharap engkau kembali
sayang nganti memutih rambutku
ra bakal luntur tresnaku

hari demi
hari uwis tak lewati
yen pancen dalane kudu kuat ati
ibaratke sego uwis dadi bubur
nanging tresno iki ora bakal luntur

sak tenane
aku iki pancen tresno awakmu
ora ono liane sing iso dadi penggantimu
wis tanggung awakmu sik coc-k neng atiku
nganti atiku njerit atimu ra bakal krungu

meh sambat
kalih sinten
yen sampun mekaten, merana uripku
aku welasno kangmas, aku mesakno aku
aku nangis nganti metu eluh getih putih

sayang opo
kowe krungu jerite atiku
mengharap engkau kembali
sayang nganti memutih rambutku
ra bakal luntur tresnaku

sayang opo
krungu tangise atiku
mengharap koe bali neng jero ati iki
nganti rambutku putih, nangis eluh dadi getih
mbok yo gek ndang bali ngelakoni tresno suci

aku marang
sliramu do ragu ning atiku
aku ra iso ngapusi sak tenane neng ati
mung kanggo sliramu cintaku tetap abadi
selamanya sampai akhir hayat ini

meh sambat
kalih sinten
yen sampun mekaten, merana uripku
aku welasno ningmas, aku mesakno aku
aku nangis nganti metu eluh getih putih

sayang opo
kowe krungu jerite atiku
mengharap engkau kembali
sayang nganti memutih rambutku
ra bakal luntur tresnaku

percoyo opo
cintaku tetap abadi


One thing that can be noticed in this song by the
reader is the language of this lyric, especially in its repetition. In this lyric,
the repetition is occurred several times in each lines and cause of intended
meaning. In this lyric, the singer often uses these two sentences “Sayang,
opo kowe krungu jerite atiku, mengharap engkau kembali”. Those two
sentences are related to the singer’s feeling. In linguistic field, an intended
meaning can be analyzed by somebody and it is called pragmatic. Those two
sentences are the guidance to understand the singer’s feeling in this song. In
this song, the singer also uses many phrases that have a hard meaning such as “opo
kowe krungu”, “jerite atiku”, “memutih rambutku” and so on. Pragmatically, the singer
wants to share his feeling when his love must be gone in this lyric. His love
is go with someone else.

Talking about language style in the literary work, we
can see this through the lens of stylistic. In this lyric, the writer uses
literary review in analyze stylistic NDX A.K.A.’s song “Sayang”. The writer try
to analyze based on the rhyme of this lyric. Rhyme is the matching of final
vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words. Rhyme is also words sound alike
because they share the same ending vowel and consonant sounds.

consists of fourteen stanzas that range from four to two lines each. The song
uses repetition and rhyme to create the qualities of unity and euphony, or a
pleasing musicality. The repeated use of the end rhymes “krungu,” “atiku,” “rambutku,”
and “tresnaku” offer a link from stanza to stanza throughout the lyric. The
name “Sayang” appears at least once in every stanza and the phrase “opo kowe
krungu” also appears frequently, adding to the unified structure. Repetition of
key words within lines gives the lyric its pleasing sound while at the same
time emphasizing main ideas. For example, in line 2, “mengharap engkau kembali”
establishes the fact that the singer place a big hope about his lover, an
important fact to recognize if the reader is to understand the extent of the
speaker’s desire.

The lyric’s rhyme scheme begins simply with an a b a a pattern
but gets more complicated as the lyric progresses, repeating rhymes within a
line – known as internal rhyme – and ending with the pattern a b a a x a
in the last stanza. The lines increase in length and in number in this last
stanza. These devices – the increasingly complex rhyme scheme and lengthening
of lines – allow the lyric to intensify in dramatic pitch.

Here I can conclude that the language styles used in this
Javanese hip hop is hyperbole and with the simple rhyme scheme a b a a . The language styles appeared in this lyric is easily understood by
the youth.

Talking about the existence of Javanese hip hop, it
cannot be separated from the public perception toward its existence. This can
be seen from the public interest towards the presence of Javanese hip hop. I
have done some unstructured interviews to know public perception toward the
existence of Javanese hip hop. Patton (2002) in Zhang and Wildemuth (2009)
described unstructured interviews as a natural extension of participant
observation, because they so often occur as part of ongoing participant
observation fieldwork (Zhang & Wildemuth, 2009, pp.

I classify my respondents by age, there are 18-20
years old, 21-24 years old, age 30-37 years old. I get respondents named Gilang
aged 18 years, Bima 22 years and Agus 34 years. As for the question at the
interview is “how do you think about the existence of hip hop music of
Java language?”.

After doing the interview, I get answers from each
respondent and I classify by age. Gilang 18 years stated that hip hop music
Java language is very popular among his friends. He assumed that the simple
lyrics helped him to keep singing Javanese hip hop. Then the 22-year-old Bima
said listening to Javanese hip hop music with the lost story theme makes it
like entering the time machine by remembering the times of his relationship
when in high school. In addition, with the lyrics of Javanese language, it makes
the sense of belonging to song is increasing. Lastly, Agus 34 years thought
that Javanese hip hop is another alternative to musical genre that can be heard
by the public. He also added that as a person who speaks Javanese as the first
language, will be feel proud of the increasingly Javanese music group who
popularized Javanese language through music. He also hopes that there will be
more Javanese people who speaks Javanese as their first language do not leave
their identity. From here, I can conclude that the existence of Javanese hip
hop gets a positive response from the society, especially those who speaks
Javanese as the first language.

Then whether hip hop music Java language can maintain
the identity of the people of Java in the midst of globalization era. Identity
is closely related to symbols. A symbol or sign is a sign used to give special
features to something or someone. Symbols used by someone or something that can
support and form a certain identity. Symbols are communicated with other human
beings through social interaction. Humans have the ability to interact with
other parties through sharing of certain symbols. Humans who are relational
beings need symbols to interact with each other. Symbols such as language,
writing or others are dynamic and unique. The interaction of these symbols produces
a particular meaning in communication.

Symbol used by NDX A.K.A. to show its identity one of
them using Java language in their song lyrics. This symbol is used to show
their identity because of their musical flow that carries the flow of Hip Hop
music Java automatically then the language used in the lyrics is also dominated
by the Java language. The Java language used in their lyrics is a daily
Javanese language that is easy to understand. From this point, I can conclude
that Javanese people will be connected to their identity as Javanese when
singing Javanese hip hop song.



as one of the media can be a determinant to preserve a language. In this paper,
the lyrics in “Sayang” song have one main theme of romance experienced by
teenagers. Through the stylistic approach, it can be found the style of
language in the lyrics of Javanese hip hop.

on the analysis and findings that have been done in the previous chapter, this
author concludes that the lyrics in the song darling have a style of language
to express the meaning of the lyrics. The author also concludes that by
understanding his language style, we can understand the meaning of a lyric.
Understanding this meaning will guide us to know the thoughts or messages that
the lyricist wants to convey to the listener or reader.

In addition, based
on the result of the interview, it also can be found that Javanese hip hop gets
a positive response from the community, especially those who speaks Javanese as
the first language. Thus, the Javanese people will be connected to their
identity as Javanese when singing Javanese hip hop song.

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