Maryline

Lagu Iban literally means “Iban songs” and encompasses the vocal and instrumental music sung in the Iban language by the Iban (Dayak Iban) people of northern Borneo, especially Sarawak (Malaysia). It spans a spectrum from ritual and festival-associated singing to modern, studio-produced pop. Traditionally, Iban music includes ceremonial chant and poetic sung speech, and lively dance pieces for the Ngajat dance during the Gawai Dayak harvest season, accompanied by gendang (drums), tawak (large gong), and engkerumong (rack of small gongs). In the late 20th century it also came to include guitar-led pop, country ballads, rock, and reggae-tinged party songs, all delivered in Iban lyrics and often shaped by local poetic couplets and call-and-response. As a contemporary umbrella genre, lagu Iban is both a cultural expression of longhouse life and identity and a flexible, modern popular style that can sit comfortably alongside Malaysian and Indonesian pop on radio, cassettes, and streaming.