Dikir barat has many singers, but who will master the art of ‘tukang karut’?

Dikir barat – the traditional Kelantanese performance art that combines singing, rhythmic chanting, music and spontaneous verse – is not short of singers.

What concerns actor, director and researcher Sabri Yunus is the dwindling number of performers capable of doing something considerably harder: inventing rhymes and verses in the heat of a performance.

The “tukang karut”, or lead improviser, occupies a distinctive place in the Kelantanese art form, responding to the moment with spontaneous pantun and wordplay while helping drive the energy of the performance.

Yet Sabri believes the pool of highly accomplished performers has already shrunk to only six or seven persons.

“Four or five years ago, I discussed with friends the possibility that dikir barat would face a crisis due to a shortage of tukang karut,” he said during a recent cultural forum at the National Museum.

“What we expected to happen in 10 years has already happened in just three.”

Sabri said younger performers appeared more inclined to pursue singing, which can offer a clearer route into the wider entertainment industry, rather than spending years mastering the demanding skills of a tukang karut.

“We have many dikir barat singers, and we are not blaming them. But why are we not producing more tukang karut?”

For Sabri, whose work has long drawn on Kelantanese language and culture, spontaneous command of pantun and rhyme is one of dikir barat’s defining strengths.

Currently pursuing a master’s degree in Malay literature education, he has also taken an academic interest in the language and traditions surrounding dikir barat.

He believes singers and tukang karut should learn one another’s skills, rather than treating the two roles as entirely separate, giving younger performers a broader foundation from which to keep the art form alive.

The concern carries particular weight following the death on Nov 10 of veteran performer Mohd Zain Ismail, better known as Jen Endoro, who had been part of the dikir barat scene since the 1970s and was known both as a singer and tukang karut.

More than a catchy tune

Keeping dikir barat alive, however, is not simply a matter of finding performers. Kelantan songwriter and practitioner Fadil Turbo, whose real name is Mohd Fadil Noor, said writing for dikir barat demands a command of storytelling, poetry, melody and, crucially, rhyme.

While younger songwriters are showing interest, he said some have yet to master the intricate rhyming patterns traditionally used within and at the ends of verses.

“Some songs have good storylines but fail to make an impact because insufficient attention is given to the arrangement of rhymes and melodies,” he said.

Another concern is language itself. Asrulfaizal Kamaruzaman of Universiti Malaya’s Cultural Centre said some newer lyricists were altering standard Malay words to make them sound Kelantanese without understanding their actual meanings.

He cited the example of changing “pandang” to “pandey” simply to fit a rhyme, even though the words do not mean the same thing. Such shortcuts, he cautioned, risk weakening the authenticity of the lyrics while genuine older Kelantanese expressions gradually fall out of use.

For practitioners such as Sabri, Fadil and Asrulfaizal, that distinction matters because dikir barat has never been merely about putting a Kelantanese accent to a catchy melody.

Its character lies equally in language, timing, wit, and the ability to turn a thought into verse almost as quickly as it occurs.

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