AS THE SUN sinks low in the sky, the fishermen draw in their nets and make their way home. On shore, they gather at the wakaf, a wooden pavilion found in villages throughout Kelantan. They reach for a set of musical instruments kept there as common property—rebana ibu, rebana anak, gong and canang. A few of them sit in a tight circle in the middle, then one of the fishermen starts singing. Soon, the wakaf is filled with melody and rhythm, call and response. They pause for the maghrib prayer, only to continue later, playing late into the night.
This is how dikir barat, a traditional art, is performed in a village setting in Kelantan. A dikir barat ensemble consists of the tok jogho (lead singer), tukang karut (spontaneous verse composer), awak-awak (chorus and clappers) and musicians. It starts with the bertabuh musical prelude, followed by singing led by the tok jogho. Each line sung by the tok jogho and tukang karut is repeated by the awak-awak chorus in a call-and-response pattern. The chorus animates the verses with hand movements, punctuated with clapping that follows the beat of the gong.
The history of dikir barat is obscure. There are multiple versions of how dikir barat first emerged in Kelantan. The most common story is that it originated in southern Thailand as an art form known as dikir, and was performed by Pattani Malays. It was Pak Leh Tapang, a legendary dikir barat tok jogho, who first introduced it in Kelantan and began to improvise the art form to his own musical taste. He added the pantun or karut part which has become a common feature of today’s dikir barat. The term barat was once used by Kelantanese to refer to the Pattani region of southern Thailand.
