Didi Kempot - Sewu Kuto (Thousand Cities)

Love for Campursari

Sewu Kuto is a song composed by Didi Prasetyo, an campursari artist from Solo, Center Java, Indonesia. Didi Prasetyo is well-known as Didi Kempot. He is a son of popular comedian from Solo, and also a brother of Srimulat comedian, Mamiek Prakoso. Didi Kempot started his career in music industry as a street singer in Jakarta. He then started to compose a lot of nice songs. As a street singer, he ever appeared in national TV, TVRI. Seeing good potential in Didi, his brother finally introduced him to a producer. Because of his nice and original songs, Didi Kempot was offered to record his songs. Since then, Didi Kempot had known as a popular campursari artist. He has made lot of popular and hit songs, such as Stasiun Balapan, Tanjung Mas Ninggal Janji and Perawan Kalimantan. Didi Kempot also popular in some foreign countries and he had been awarded by President of Suriname in 1996. Last year in 2014, Didi Kempot released an album called “Ketaman Asmoro” which is contained with some of his popular songs.

♬Sewu Kuto♬

Sewo kuto uwis tak liwati, sewu ati tak takoni 

I had passed thousand cities, I had asked thousand people 

Nanging kabeh podo ra ngerteni lungamu neng endi 

But nobody knows, where had you gone 

Pirang tahun aku nggoleki, 

I’ve been searching for you, for so many years 

Seprene durung biso nemoni 

I couldn’t found you until today 

Wis tak coba nglaliake jenengmu soko atiku 

I’ve tried to forget your name from my mind 

Sak tenane aku ora ngapusi isih tresno sliramu 

I’m still loving you, I’m not telling you a lie 

Umpamane kowe uwis mulyo 

If you have a really happy life right now 

Lilo aku lilo 

I will let you go 

Yo mung siji dadi panyuwunku 

But I have a last wish for you 

Aku pengin ketemu 

I just want to meet you 

Senajan sak kedeping moto 

Even just a glimpse of your shadow 

Kanggo tombo kangen jroning dodo 

So I won’t have to miss you anymore 

Sewu Kuto, for me, is a romantic song. This song has a simple yet touching lyric. The music is also easy listening and I like its nice melody. Sewu Kuto is a story about someone who has been searching for his girl for a long time. This man felt so desperate and he was wondering if his girl had forgotten him and now she’s living a happy life with another man. Even so, this man still loves her so bad that he only wants to see her –even for a second. As Javanese people somehow still hold a tradition to move from their current city to more modern and bigger city to get job, this song also tells us that maybe when this man come back after leave his city to work, his lover left him and never come back to him. The worst thing is this man never knew anything about his girl, whether she also moved to another city or already got married. This kind of uncertain condition makes him feels sadder. Maybe he is facing the hardship to decide whether he has to move on from this girl or he has to looking for her and continue their past love.

Sewu Kuto is one from dozens nice campursari songs. Campursari itself is known as a music genre which comes from Javanese. It seems that campursari is not that popular among younger generation, but I hope that one day campursari will also have a lot of listeners from youth. Campursari have some good and well-known artist such as Waljinah, Manthous and Endah Laras. Let’s spread this campursari fever more♥♥