We Love YOu FUll MBah Surip

In the last days of his life, singer Mbah Surip said he was very tired and wanted to rest peacefully. He is now resting peacefully, but this time for eternity.

Mbah Surip, whose real name is Urip Ariyanto, died on Aug. 4, 2009, aged 60. He was taken to the Pusdikkes hospital in East Jakarta, but died at 10:30 a.m., not long after he arrived at the hospital.

Mbah Surip's friend, comedian Mamiek Prakoso, said the eccentric singer had come to his house the day before he died, saying he was tired.[...]

"Mbah Surip told me, *I'm very tired, I want to take a rest here at your home. It's peaceful here, not like other *places* where there are many reporters'," Mamiek said.

Mamiek said that, realizing just how tired Mbah Surip was, he advised his friend to seek medical help.

"But Mbah Surip refused to go to the hospital. He said: *I'm afraid reporters will come after me *at the hospital*'," Mamiek said.

"So I called the doctor to check him. Then Mbah Surip went to sleep and didn't wake up again."

Mamiek said there had been no official statement on Mbah Surip's cause of death, but he suggested it was probably a heart attack.

Mbah Surip is survived not only by family and friends, but also by his hundreds of thousands of loving fans.

Soon after news broke of his death, people began expressing their condolences on Facebook. Mbah Surip's fan page in Facebook, which has more than 291,000 members, has been flooded with words of prayers and goodbyes.

No one would deny that Mbah Surip, born May 5, 1949, in Mojo-kerto, East Java, was a true phenomenon in the local music scene over the past three months.

It took just one simple yet funny song to shoot Mbah Surip to instant fame. The song, "Tak Gendong" (I Carry You on My Back), had everyone who heard it humming, even without them knowing its real meaning. Although "Tak Gendong" is one of Mbah Surip's old songs, it started to catch on after a mobile provider company offered it as a ringback tone. The song recorded Rp 9 billion in ringback tone sales, of which Mbah Surip received half, or around Rp 4.5 billion.

Mbah Surip also attracted attention for his distinctive style. With his long dreadlocks and reggae-style outfits, Mbah Surip showed a person doesn't have to be young and good looking to be attractive and popular. His signature laugh and tagline "I love you full" are two of the things people remember about him best.

Yet these were things that hadn't been recognized earlier, when he started his singing career in the mid-1990s. He released his debut album Ijo Royo-Royo (The Green of the Green) in 1997, which was followed by another four records: Indonesia and Reformasi (Reform), both in 1998; Tak Gendong (I Carry You on My Back) in 2003 and Barang Baru (New Stuff) in 2004.

Before stepping into the music scene, Mbah Surip had tried a few professions. Claiming to have obtained an MBA, Mbah Surip studied at the University of Sunan Giri and Petra Christian University in Surabaya, East Java. From Petra, he obtained a degree in geology that led him to a career in mining, with jobs in Texas, the US, Canada and Jordan. Although he said he had a good career and promising life, Mbah Surip did not feel secure.

In 1996, he returned to Jakarta and joined several art communities, and began to sing in buses for a living. He later changed his name into Surip after learning the philosophy behind the letter "S".

Now, just as he was preparing for packed shows during Holy Ramadan, Mbah Surip has left his family, friends and new fans.

As so many of those fans wrote on the singer's wall in Facebook: "We love you full, Mbah Surip!"

kapanlagi.com