Kareem Soenharjo or better known through his moniker BAP., is a rapper and producer who had been active in the South Jakarta hip-hop scene since 2014 although under different names throughout the years. Last month, he had just released his debut album “monkshood” which he had been working on for a year and tells a story not only about him but mostly about things which people could relate to. Not only about the people, the album is also essentially about the city where it all began, Jakarta. With this in mind, we asked Kareem to list down 5 places in Jakarta that influenced “monkshood”.

Woodpecker Coffee

I made the whole ass album instrumentals at Woodpecker Coffee with Ableton, iPhone earphones and an unnecessary amount of iced coffee from 2 pm to 8 pm every single day. So shout out to Woodpecker.

Darryl’s house

This goes to my good friend Darryl (member of the Envy hip-hop group) for helping me record the vocals for the album at his house with some help from Erik Soto as well, lots of late nights with McD, YouTube and just generally having a good time.

Studio Oposisi

Although he gets on my nerve sometimes (jokes), no doubt that Wahono is an expert at what he does and his contribution as a sound engineer to the album is evident. His studio is basically like your cool uncle’s living room (which coincidentally is what he is minus the cool). So yeah, shout out to Wahono and Studio Oposisi for pushing the album to a whole other level.

Batagor Pangpol

Real talk, you can’t find another batagor joint that sells shit for only 10k, and there was a point in the whole process of making the album was me eating those, because of how little money I had. Even now I still hit the spot if I have the time (which I always do) because it’s right in front of Woodpecker.

Bedroom

A lot of nights spent on writing lyrics were made in the bedroom with nothing but my thoughts around. Home is where the heart is, and sure enough it’s where the pen is most heavy to write.