Become A Musician For Development, Start With A Gig Reaches 100th Edition And Will Continue

JAKARTA - Start With A Gig (SWAG), a weekly music event held at KALA In Kalijaga, Blok M, South Jakarta, held its 100th edition on Tuesday, February 25. This special edition presents eleven performers with various music colors.

The event started in the afternoon, featuring Kay Sebastene, Albert Tanabe, and Tasha Bouslama. After sunset, other performers appear one by one, ranging from Debrur, Arda Hatna, Ceremony, Wahyu Selow, Rocker Kasarunk, Nineball, Burning Impact, and Alvons Freedom.

Ryan Kampua as the Founder of SWAG said that this 100th edition proves that this event is still trusted by musicians to present their works.

"This event is intended for them, to experience directly dealing with music lovers, and dealing with people who are indeed in the music circle," Ryan said when met on the sidelines of the event.

"Therefore, the name of the show I made SWAG - Start With A Gig - all started from the stage, whose first edition started June 30, 2022," he continued

Although SWAG is aimed at musicians who are pioneering to introduce themselves and their work the presence of senior musicians in many editions also helps this event gain more trust.

"I'm grateful, the musicians who are already known to want to support this event, so that this SWAG event has a wider reach, so that musicians who were previously embarrassed to appear, they want to appear here to introduce their song material in person," Ryan said.

"In the end, we don't know who he is, we don't know where they come from, all we know is that they have released songs, and it's time to be introduced directly to music lovers and people in music circles."

Apart from the performers, this event also involved active roles of music journalists, artist manager associations, music labels, and music promoters.

Wahyu Selow, who first appeared, also expressed his good impression. He saw music events such as SWAG were important for musicians.

"This event is fun, exciting. This is a promo media for musicians who have just released songs, to introduce their new songs, and also a gathering for fellow musicians," said Wahyu.

Meanwhile, Albert Tanabe, who was pioneering his music road, said this event was important for him and also for music lovers, to see music even more broadly.

"For me, an event like this is very important for musicians to introduce their work and also for material tests. It's rare for a place like this to be like this, in my opinion, even though this platform is really good to help musicians develop," said Albert

According to me, with the current trend, there is very little forum like this. Many music listeners end up following the existing trends, even though there are a lot of music genres, right, as we see here," he added.

With the current achievements, SWAG is expected to continue to pave the way for musicians to develop. Not only for those in Jakarta and its surroundings, but also for other cities.

"We are already in Yogyakarta, the name is SWAG Event Jogja. And we hope that SWAG Events can also exist in Bandung, Surabaya, and other cities. We will open ourselves up to fellow musicians or music circles in the ecosystem, so that we can work with us to build a healthy music ecosystem," Ryan said.

SWAG is also planned to continue to develop as a forum for musicians, by presenting SWAG Festival and SWAG Tour.