Koesbini was born in Kemlagi, a village in Mojokerto, eastern Java, Dutch East Indies, on 1 January 1910, a Legi Friday.

[5] In his Ensiklopedi Musik Indonesia, Remy Sylado noted that Koesbini would often perform kroncong adaptations of popular Western songs such as Ballard MacDonald and Harry Carroll's "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" and Enrico Toselli's "Serenata", giving them Malay-language names.

[6] In 1941 Koesbini was contracted by Fred Young's Majestic Film Company as a music director; his troupe, the Krontjong Syncopaters, joined as well.

[2] Majestic's second and final film, Air Mata Iboe, featured eleven kroncong songs, many by Koesbini; the music director also took on the role of Bakar, a man too poor to support his mother-in-law (Fifi Young) after she is driven from her home.

Though Sukarno approved of the song's nationalist sentiments, he demanded that the final line be changed; Indonesia raya was thus replaced by jiwa raga kami ('our bodies and souls').

According to Hari Budiono, this change allowed Koesbini to escape censorship during the occupation, as the song had no explicit mention of Indonesia;[10] indeed, "Bagimu Negeri" was first broadcast on a Japanese-run radio station, sung by Ibu Sud.

[11] Towards the end of the occupation, Koesbini provided music for several pro-nationalist stage plays, including Lukisan Zaman (Portrait of the Times, by Armijn Pane).

On 27 May 1987 the state television network TVRI broadcast a biographical documentary on him as part of a series on Indonesian cultural figures.