Rhoma Irama

Raden Irama, most commonly known as Rhoma Irama, is an Indonesian dangdut musician and occasional actor. he's later known as Raja Dangdut (King of Dangdut) with his group Soneta. and considered as one of the greatest Indonesian musician of all time He was known as his stage name Oma Irama before he made a pilgrimage to Mecca and became a haji. He later took the name Rhoma Irama, which is an abbreviation of "Raden Haji Oma Irama" His career began in the late 1960s when he recorded solo records and with the group Orkes Melayu Purnama. He sang duets on several record LPs with Indonesian female vocal stars such as Inneke Kusumawati, Ellya Khadam, Lily Junaedhy, Vivi Sumanti, and the later to be crowned 'Queen of Dangdut', Elvy Sukaesih. Once Oma broke from recording with the Purnama Group, he eventually formed Orkes Melayu Soneta, the first so-called Dangdut group. In fact, Oma established the term "Dangdut" with a song by that name from the early 70's. He wrote the classics "Kareta Malam" and "Kuda Lumping" which were sung by Elvy Sukaesih. Once Soneta was established in the early 70's, Oma changed his name to Rhoma and went on a decade long run of successful hit records and films, all of which starred Rhoma playing himself while performing all of his hits. His 1974 album, Begadang, ranked #11 on Rolling Stone Indonesia's "150 Greatest Indonesian Albums of All Time" list. Furthermore, the main single "Begadang" reached at number 24 on the magazine's "150 Greatest Indonesian Songs of All Time" list. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.