Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop – Rolling Stone Magazine article for ‘Voice of the Streets’ event

This was my event review in Rolling Stone Magazine ME of the “Voice of the Streets” show on November 4. The event was shutdown by the Egyptian Interior Ministry only to be revived at an art space *Darb 17 18* in Old Cairo that same night! Stay tuned for the long format version of this piece on World Hip Hop Market that will be re-posted here.  There’s more of the story that needs to be told!

Photo Credit: Shadi Rahimi — Members of the Egypt mega-crew Arabian Knightz. Rush (left), E-Money, Sphinx (w/the Keffiyeh), and MC Amin (far right)

Live: Voice of the Streets

By Jackson Allers
November 05, 2011

CAIRO – Last month, 12 of the re­gion’s best-known Arab rappers were set to per­form together at a public youth center in the swanky central Cairo district of Zamalek. Or­ganizers billed the Voice of the Streets event as a concert to re­mind people about the contin­ued struggle for freedom of ex­pression in the wake of the Arab uprisings. But the event was prematurely shut down by the Interior Ministry, who ordered organizers to shut the gates of the municipal youth club where it was set to take place.

Hundreds of b-boys and b-girls, col­lege students, activists and others were wait­ing to be let in, many having been lured to the venue by impromp­tu guerrilla rap perfor­mances in the streets of Cairo two days prior to the event.

One organizer from the Jordan-based arts and entertainment company Immortal Entertainment said he had in­vited protestors injured during the revolution to the event, but when they showed up, the Inte­rior Ministry said the event was no longer a hip-hop event and new permits were required. The event was officially canceled.

What happened next will go down as a defining moment for the Arab hip-hop movement, as frantic calls went out to re­suscitate Voice of the Streets. A local arts and culture center, Darb 17 18, assumed responsi­bility and word went out online and by phone. After a hercule­an effort to get the sound and space ready for an ad-hoc con­cert that had taken two months of planning, the MC’s played to a crowd of some 300 to 400 people who faithfully migrated to Old Cairo.

MC Amin opened the show with his street anthems “Rap 5aleni Abuqueda,” “Madinat al Khataya (Sin City)” and “The Arabs are the Roots Part 3,” showing why he is widely re­garded as the future of Egyp­tian rap with his direct connec­tions to the Egyptian street – his philosophical turns of slang punctuating condemnations of the government.

Lebanon’s Malikah then took the stage and joined Amin on an unnamed collaboration track. Malikah continued her solo set – lyrical guns blazing – proving to the audience that there are female MCs living in the Arab world who can hold it down in a sea of male energy.

And in perhaps the most fun collaboration of the evening, Malikah was joined on the stage by Edd and MC Amin for the tentatively titled song “Hip-Hop” that included a rousing crowd-pleasing call-and-re­sponse of “Cairo City.”

After the trio left the stage it was Beirut-based MC Edd’s turn to show just how good the Lebanese hip-hop scene is. His flow, laid-back but vibrant, was perhaps the most unique vocal style of the evening. In a nod to the Egyptian revolu­tion, he performed “Alam­na Marfou3” – a track that had burned up internet airwaves with Arab hip-hop fans – with Egyptian MC, Mohammed El Deeb, a.k.a. Deeb, formerly of the Egyptian crew Asfalt.

“When the people in Egypt heard it, they got the sense that all Arabs were fac­ing the same problems – un­employment, corruption, lack of social and cultural aware­ness – and were in a constant battle to remember a past be­fore Mubarak” Deeb explained.

The Egyptian rapper’s song “Masrah Deeb” (Deeb’s Stage) was a crowd favorite, not least because of the B.B. King guitar sample that frames the backing tracks. Recorded in the weeks before the January 25th call to protest, the track prophetical­ly talked about the need for peo­ple to wake up to the situation in Egypt.

The Jordanian rap contingent proved why they were on the bill, with MC’s Khotta B and Tarek Abu Kwaik (a.k.a. El Far3i) cut­ting through a gruff, hard-hit­ting set of political tracks from their up-coming solo albums that are sure to put Jordan on the Arab hip-hop map.

The most polished perfor­mance of the night came from Boikutt, representing Ramal­lah. Having played the Shatil­la Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut a month earlier, Boi­kutt’s set was also political­ly charged. The liquid clari­ty of his mic control set the bar for the night as the slight-of-frame Palestinian proved a master at getting his lyrical content through to the audi­ence with a sound system that was pushed to its max through­out the night.

Rounding out the night were local crowd favorites, and Arab hip-hop legends, Arabi­an Knightz. A crew that rolls around 15-deep at its periphery had all three of its core mem­bers on stage – Rush, E-Money and Sphinx, recently back from his stint with U.S. Immigration Services in California justify­ing his life as a rapper in Egypt.

Their songs “Rebel” with Palestinian singer and rap­per Shadia Mansour and “Not Your Prisoner” were the hip-hop soundtrack of the Egyptian revolution. Preparing for the release of their debut LP Un­knighted State of Arabia, they performed to a sadly thinned-out, but still hyped, crowd at around two in the morning.

The Arab hip-hop movement has often seemed more hypoth­esis than cultural fact. In Cairo last month, Voice of the Streets made it tangible.

Egyptian MC Mohammed el Deeb aka Deeb (right) flowin' for the Shebab in the swanky district of Zamalek - Laith Majali (Immortal Entertainment) on the lens in the background alongside the DJ for the event Sotusura (Photo: Edouard Abbas)

Another Arab Revolution Arabic Graffiti Reclamation of a Canvas

Beats and Breath talked to legendary German graffiti writer and publisher Don Karl aka STONE, fresh off the release of his newly published book Arabic Graffiti authored by Lebanese typographer Pascal Zoghbi, with essays from a host of calligraphers, graffiti artists, designers, photographers and academics.

Original Print version of this article

BEIRUT – There’s little to compare Arabic Graffiti too in the publishing world. A joint effort of author and typographer Pascal Zoghbi (Lebanon) and Don Karl, the German graffiti writer and publisher known as Stone, Arabic Graffiti chronicles the relationship between past traditions of Arabic calligraphy, modern Arabic typography, “professional” graphic design and the modern interpretations of urban Arabic street writing, specifically graffiti.

While the title is totally unoriginal, it is nonetheless the most researched, well- written, and stunningly photographed book on the subject to date. It is more reminiscent of the previous tomes on the subject of street art like Banksy’s Wall and Piece or Francois Chastanet’s amazing book on graffiti in Brazil – Pixacao: Sao Paulo Signature.

Two other books are solid attempts at providing insight into the evolution of the Lebanese graffiti scene. Saudi graphic designer and academic Tala F. Saleh’s book, Marking Beirut and Tarek Chemaly’s book Archewallogy/Les Murs Murs de Ville both manages to convey intent and thoughtfulness albeit with the street art of Lebanon alone.

Saleh’s book is according to her “a visual reading of the city of Beirut through the stencils on her walls, an outsider’s view of an internal struggle.” Like Arabic Graffiti it also takes a somewhat academic approach, but also includes an interactive element – with 8 sheets of stencils which readers can practice with. Chemaly’s book is, however, more of an internal reflection on the bandito nature of street art that has only in the last decade taken on some acceptance in the more storied art circles – arguably even less considered in the rarified world of art in Lebanon and the Middle-East. Still Chemaly’s book is thorough.

Other predecessors to Arabic Graffiti like Beirut Street Art by the Art Lounge, and Rhea Karam’s Breathing Walls are specific to Lebanon’s street art scene as well, but both of these books feel extremely rushed in their output, and are but ripples in a pond next to Arabic Graffiti.

According to Zoghbi, “The aim of the book is to document the Arabic graffiti scene and to help develop a stronger connection with the local artists, as well as an awareness of the Arabic calligraphic side of the art, which will lead to a mature Oriental graffiti scene.

In this statement is the implication that young graffiti writers in the Arab world have yet to fully embrace their roots and the traditions that will come to determine the future aesthetic of the burgeoning Arabic graffiti scene. It’s an accurate assessment that in some ways mimics the evolution of the Arabic hip-hop scene that has also developed from the English and French-laced rhymes of Arabic rappers in the mid-1990s to the rhymes of the current Arab rap scene which are predominantly in Arabic.

Graffiti by Native & Zen Two

Of course, it is the sensibilities of Karl that really tie this book together. Having conducted a graffiti workshop called “Bombing Beirut” in 2008, Karl met with Zoghbi and most of the Lebanese graff scene, planting the seeds to what ultimately fomented into Arabic Graffiti.

Karl’s own writing and publishing past date back to the mid 1980′s, and it his knowledge of graffiti history that contextualized the narrative of this current book because he recognized that early graffiti writers in America and Europe had no “millennia-old” paths of tradition like Arabic calligraphers had when devising the rules of artistic engagement – something that young Arabic graffiti writers living in the Arab world have at least limited access to. This is perhaps the biggest revelation of Arabic Graffiti.

“My thesis that style writing is a perfect host for Arabic calligraphy wasn’t wrong,” Karl writes, “And by doing some research, I found more and more artists in different places around the world who were already way ahead with their idea of Arabic graffiti and had completed the convergence.”

Karl uses the example of Japanese graffiti culture to describe the transformation that inevitably comes when graf writers realize that their art must speak to their own population, and not to the prying eyes of the West. In the least that’s where their own public validation lies.

Japanese writers went from decrying a rich tradition of Japanese calligraphy to embracing it as an inspiration. “Calligraphy? That’s for old men!” came the refrain from early Japanese bombers. But as Karl writes in the preface, “Today, less than twenty years later (from meeting them), they have been proven wrong. Japan is rich with beautiful graffiti writings and large scale murals that make elaborate use of the Japanese script.”

Hest1 & eL Seed

Keeping these ancient forms of writing in mind, both in the Arab world and elsewhere, it is fitting that Arabic Graffiti’s opening chapter is titled Arabic Script & Calligraphy. It covers ground from the basic Arabic alphabet to a questionable explanation of the visual aspect of the Arabic script being originally conceived to represent the holy scriptures of the Koran (Huda Smithshuijzen AbiFares) to the connection of Arabic calligraphy and graffiti as being “two daughters of the same parents” – an interpretation written by the Iraqi calligrapher Hassan massoudy who painted a mural with the French graffiti writer Marko 93.

“I discovered the fluidity of the spray can, which suddenly allowed me to do a continuous gesture of five meters before stopping a stroke,” Massoudy writes.

The second chapter, Public Art and Graffiti in the Middle-East, moves from the calligraphic messages in Bahrain, experiencing some of the Arab world’s most ruthless repression at the moment, to the calligraphic writing on shop signs in the Arab world, a section written by Zoghbi, to the ever-present and highly ubiquitous tradition of calligraphy on the bodies of trucks.

As anthropologue and photographer Houda Kassatly writes, the messages serve “aesthetic and decorative, practical and cultural purposes”, as well as assertions of identity.

“Conduct is art, savoir vivre and courtesty.”

“Don’t drive fast, death will go faster.”

“You want to see the stars in broad daylight? Follow me.”

“May God damage those who damage.”

“She is a beautiful coquette and arrogant.”

The second chapter moves on to more resistance oriented forms of graffiti in the Palestinian territories. Zoghbi and Karl point to the use of classic symbolism – the Al Alqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the Al Kaaba in Mecca – as the earliest forms of street throw-ups. Stencils of religious writings, and the well-known cartoon figure of Hanzala created by the Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al Ali, are lauded as rich indicators of the street art traditions in Palestine that Zoghbi and Karl contend are not inspired by Western graffiti. “We can say that the Palestinian graffiti is a true Arabic urban art intervention.”

Of course this chapter moves effortlessly into forms of street art as resistance and the influence played by outsiders, like Swoon, Banksy, Askar, Blu, and literally dozens of other artists who all had their hands in marking up The Wall that weaves in and out of some 770 kilometers of Palestinian territory.

Banksy's Dove Soldier

William Parry, a London-based freelance journalist and photographer for The Guardian that published the book Against the Wall: the Art of Resistance in Palestine about the the protest art on on the West Bank Barrier, concludes in the end that even if local Palestinians misunderstand the purpose of the art on the wall, graffiti writers have never done things to necessarily please people – resigning themselves to artistic forms of dissent as a way of providing their commentary on the world.

The book of course moves on to other places in the Arab world like Lebanon. Saudi academic Saleh writes about the manifestations of street art that emerged as a result of the devastating 1975-1990 Civil War – street art traditions whose influence is felt strongly today. Political stencil art, calligraphic slogans, etc. are “technical and artistic,” theorizing that the “difference between street art and the stencil graffiti in Beirut is that street art is not divided, it is patriotic, localized, colloquial and most importantly found and drawn in Arabic letterforms and typography, something very specific in Lebanon.”

Graffiti in Lebanon, however, was a mark of territory during the Civil War, as it has been in many places around the world that experience forms of urban destruction, dilapidation, neglect and or encroachment from outsiders. According to Saleh, “Beirut’s graffiti (during the Civil War) told the story of division, war and social struggles; it spoke of history in a way that Lebanon’s history books could not.”

In the post-war period in Lebanon, Zoghbi contends graffiti “voiced the pain of people,” and in the late 90s, as the political street writing was going unnoticed new forms of graffiti emerged, in large part because of the underground hip-hop movement that was taking root in Lebanon (and the Arab world).

Their mediums were the multitude of “hidden walls and and surfaces in old, neglected houses or factories and empty parking lots…that were the practice grounds for experimentation” writes Zoghbi in the section Beirut’s Graffiti Writing & Street Art. With notions of private property and public property being vastly different in post-Civil War Lebanon when compared to the West, Arabic Graffiti correctly illustrates that graffiti writers managed to avoid the stigmas as criminals, vandals and misfits assigned to graffiti writers in the West.

But most of the graffiti featured during this initial period were pieces done in latin letters. It wasn’t until the 2006 Summer war with Israel that the first signs of Arabic graffiti began to show up on the walls of Beirut. “Beirut was empty, gray and desperate,” writes filmmaker and graffiti artist, Siska, in the section Beirut Never Dies.

A member of the old-school Lebanese hip-hop crew Keta3 Beirut and original graffiti crew member of the REK (Red Eyed Kamikazes) crew- the first generation of Lebanese graffiti writers- his collaborations with French graffiti artist Prime of the TG crew were the first pieces in Lebanon to be done in stylized Arabic lettering, with messages that centered around the word “Beirut.”

From the book Arabic Graffiti

“Beyrout Ma Btmoot (Beirut Never Dies),” and “Beyrout in Hakat (if Beirut Could Speak),” which is lifted from Said Akl’s book title If Beirut Could Speak, became brave new entries into the pantheon of Arabic artistic and cultural expression, using a basic Arabic typography to transmit these messages. Zoghbi and Karl are clear to their writers that this is a message they want to convey.

Siska writes, “I wanted to find the font of our city and carefully place the messages in the right spots around the city, which has suffered a long history of being marked by different groups and interests.”

The idea of finding a font to suit the possibilities of Arabic graffiti are aptly suggested with chapters about amazing artists working outside of the Arab world. Writers such as Paris-born el Seed and Hest 1, and Zepha, also born in France, who typify the potential of Arabic graffiti and it’s relation to past forms of Arabic calligraphy – styles that have yet to take such elaborate shape and form with any significant proliferation within the Arab-speaking countries.

That is not to say it is NOT happening through efforts like the Blouzaat collective of Ahmad Sabbagh, a Jordanian graphic designer and typographer, German street artist and graphic designer Michael Schinkothe, and German graffiti writer from the Maclaim graffiti and Herakut crews.

The book finishes with Zoghbi showcasing his own art and use of typography alongside other artist interpretations of Arabic calligraphy, and these are truly impressive uses of Arabic script with modern urban styles. In the end, Arabic Graffiti manages to effectively convey the idea that there is an implied voice and aesthetic that Arab graffiti writers and street artists need to engage in that will draw on the storied traditions of the past in order to reinvent occidental influences and make the act of graffiti something fresh.

For Arab graffiti writers, this is a must have item for their bookshelves.

Page 2 from the Printed Article

Live from Beirut….Lazzy Lung the Arab alt-rock Olympians!

The 4-piece Lebanese alternative rock outfit Lazzy Lung released their debut album in late 2010, and by all accounts they’re the hardest working crew in the Arab alternative rock scene looking to win their fans over – one listener at a time. Beats and Breath sat down with the band’s co-founder and frontman – Allan Chaaraoui to find out more about Lazzy Lung and their future plans. Note: in the time since the article was published, Lazzy Lung has gone on to win the Rolling Stone Magazine’s ME ‘Battle of the Bands’ contest in February 2011, and is scheduled to complete their Rolling Stone Mag recording session in Dubai in the next two months. As well Lazzy Lung is busy working on a video for their track “On Standby” from their debut album “Strange Places.”

Print layout. Photography by Tanya Traboulsi

BEIRUT – I always have to ask the same question when I interview members of the burgeoning indie rock scene coming from Lebanon. Is it possible to actually succeed playing rock-n-roll in the Arab world?

Answers vary, but there’s always hope that at least in Lebanon, there’s some amount of space to grow and challenge conventions. Certainly with the proliferation of corporate, English-language radio stations in the Arab world like Spin FM, Radio 1, Nrg, Urban FM, etc, there is a growing Arab youth audience that is being fed a diet of mainstream rock, R&B, hip-hop and bubble-gum Arabic and Western pop – enough so to expect that someday local Arabic alternative rock acts might just get a shot at the big time.

Clearly, young listeners are increasingly turning away from the staples of Arabic-music past and relying heavier on occidental sounds in their I-pods to get them through their days. Of course, throughout the world, in the Middle East as well, techno and electronic music are already staples of the youth music menu. But rock-n-roll from within – indigenous rock-n-roll as it were, well that’s a problem for anyone trying to forge ahead and gain audience share in the Arab world.

There have been precedents. Zeid Hamdan and Yasmine Hamdan’s group Soap Kills, though not a rock outfit, certainly redefined the way Arab youth relate to sounds coming from their own peers. More recently there have been the vanguard attempts of the post-punk crew Scrambled Eggs and the indie rock sounds of The New Government, another Zeid Hamdan project. Then there’s the glam-pop sound of Lumi that had some success touring regionally in Amman, and Dubai.

One has to mention the 7-piece band Mashrou3 Leila, another Lebanese act represented by indie Arab music label Eka3 Records. Theirs is a music that might not have the Western crossover appeal, but they are certainly one look at the future of the Arab indie music scene with a sound that blends acoustic rock with oriental musical influences (Arabic soul/T’arab, Armenian, Spanish/Andalusian). But they’re not pure rock-n-roll.

There is a rock-n-roll act emanating from the Lebanese shores going by the name of Lazzy Lung that has continued to gain notoriety in the last year – at least in Lebanon. Their debut album, Strange Places, was released in October, and has been getting solid reviews by local critics. The 4-piece band has, as one critic put it, “created an homage to the true spirit and grit of those incredibly sweet bands that emerged from the height of alternative rock music in the mid to late 90s.”

To hear frontman Allan Chaaraoui speak about their sound, you’d be more apt to find references to his Canadian background and groups like Ohbijou, Caribou, Best Coast and Winter Gloves rather than Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden or the Foo Fighters. Chaaraoui is from Ottawa and is half-Lebanese. Although he doesn’t like to speak about identity politics, in Chaaraoui’s own words Strange Places is an existential exercise in identity and firmly rooted in the aforementioned alt-rock traditions.

“Strange Places is basically autobiographical – covering a chronological story of about 10 years of my life. Life experiences – lost relationships, unfulfilled relationships, rowdy behavior, moving on – that I wrote down into lyrics, and all 11 tracks, although highly personal, still have a very universal message to them,” Chaaraoui explains.

Indeed, the other 3 members of the band – Patrick Hanna on lead guitar, Hady Oueini on drums, and Imad Jawad on bass – have all professed that the tracks speak to a sort of life arc that they can relate to. I daresay anyone that has been through love and loss can relate to the brutally honest lyrics of songs like “Moving On” which is about – well, moving on from past love:

“I live it every day, from the moment that I wake
Today is another day, to forget
To forget the times that we shared
Place myself in a place that I can focus.”

As for the question of whether he thinks that forming an alternative rock act in the Arab world is such a good idea, Chaaraoui waxes poetic with something he and the band like to tell people: “We know it’s tough trying to do this here. We know it doesn’t make sense. We know that the Middle East is filled with strange places.”

BEATS AND BREATH sat down with Chaaraoui a few weeks after their highly successful album release concert, which drew a packed house of some 400 people to Beirut’s Masrah al Medina (City Theater) to find out about the evolution of Lazzy Lung and the what’s next for the band.

Lazzy Lung's old line up from left to right: Hadi Oueini, Imad A Jawad, Allan Chaaraoui and Patrick Hanna. Photo by Tanya Traboulsi

INTERVIEW

BEATS AND BREATH:  Is Lazzy Lung your first band experience?

ALLAN: Actually, I was in a punk band before for about 7 years. A very political band actually named Sunday Riot. This was the end of high school, and into college when I was 17 or 18.

BEATS AND BREATH: What happened to the band?

ALLAN:  Funny story – I entered the band in a Battle of the Bands, and we won it. And we got free recording time in a studio and a photo shoot and more. As soon as we won that, the band was like, “Fuck it!”

BEATS AND BREATH: In the true punk sense of things (laughing).

ALLAN:  (laughing) Exactly. We were getting to…I mean people started liking us so it wasn’t cool.

BEATS AND BREATH: Tell me a little bit of your evolution playing here.

ALLAN: I started out Lazzy Lung as an instrumental project. That’s why it’s called Lazzy Lung. I was writing some of my personal experiences and using it as an outlet for what was going on in my life.

BEATS AND BREATH: And Lazzy Lung? I mean is it tough being an Arab alt-rock band here?

ALLAN: What’s for sure is that the music we play is definitely Canadian influenced or it’s western music. And this is definitely one of the setbacks or challenges in what we’re dealing with here in the Middle East. One of the things we say is, “We know it’s tough. We know it doesn’t make sense. We know that the Middle East is filled with strange places.”
As I’ve said to journalists before – It’s kind of like we want to be the Olympians of our genre in the Middle East. The Olympians of alternative rock and have everybody say that Lazzy Lung is the tops for this kind of music.

BEATS AND BREATH: So that’s the ultimate goal?

ALLAN: Yeah, the band and I feel that’s the ultimate goal there.

BEATS AND BREATH: There aren’t that many successful models of independent, western-influenced music in the Arab world. You can go into Lebanese independent rock past – there were some bands in the early to mid 1970s (The Cedars comes to mind), and there was Zeid Hamdan’s project Soap Kills that had a big impact on the local music scene. Then recently there’s The New Government, LUMI, and Scrambled Eggs.

ALLAN: Well you see. The New Government is like edgy punk-influenced rock – indie rock. Scrambled Eggs are also more post-punk leaning towards punk and they do those experimental sound configurations of their band paired with other musicians. That’s the whole boxing us in thing – placing us into a genre or giving us an identity. There’s more of a crafted sound and identity to the New Government than we have. We have our sound, but they fit a lot more with a lot of other bands I find.

BEATS AND BREATH: With such a small market, do you look at things competitively?

ALLAN: Actually, I don’t see much of the competition you’re talking about. It doesn’t feel like a competition other than us trying to treat the process like a sport – like I said earlier. You know practicing the Lazzy Lung and competing in Lazzy Lung Olympics of the world – (laughing)

For example, I asked Scrambled Eggs to play a show with us last year. And they were like, “Who the eff are you? And why would we play with you?” But now that we have released an album and gotten a following they’ve actually said to us, “You’re good. You guys are good at what you do.”

Whether or not they want to share a stage with us is another thing.

But on the whole, when it comes to rock music in Lebanon – it takes a steep bend into HEAVY shit. Like heavy – death metal, doom metal types. With that growling four piece band kind of thing – and when four guys from Lebanon get together to play in a band then they tend to play some pretty heavy sounding music.

“We know it’s tough trying to do this here. We know it doesn’t make sense. We know that the Middle East is filled with strange places.”

BEATS AND BREATH: The evolution of the album and the actual composing of the songs now – walk us through the process.

ALLAN: All of the songs had been written and composed by me, but then I would arrange the songs with the guys. So I would come up with a bass-line or whatever drum concept I was trying to go for and they would purify into what it is now. And the producing was the work of Karim Sinno at Mixdown Studios in Beirut. He was co-producer, and was a total fan of our stuff and had heard my instrumentals and wanted to record the work.

But let’s breakdown a song: I will come up with a song that I’ll produce on the computer on my loop station. I’ll let it play and then pick a subject that I want to talk about. And just flow to that. The stories – I pick little parts of what happens to me and put them down in lyrics – as the music is playing.

BEATS AND BREATH: So the music is inspiring different aspects of the musical flow?

ALLAN: That’s right.

BEATS AND BREATH: Did you have percussive elements to the raw musical versions that are changed by the band?

ALLAN: Yeah Hadi (the drummer) had to customize it his own way (laughing). He would say, “That’s good but…”

BEATS AND BREATH; Right. Because there’s a sort of drummer pride there (laughing) [Imitating Hadi]. “You were a drummer then Allan (with Sunday Riot), but I’m a drummer now.”

ALLAN: That’s right (laughing).

BEATS AND BREATH: Do you find the guys generally supportive of the process? They’re younger and very hungry.

ALLAN: Yes. But that’s the part I’ve said before. Whenever it comes to songwriting it always helps for a songwriter to really know where he’s coming from. It’s like ordering a pizza with a group of 7 people. You have to accommodate everyone.

That’s the first album. The second album they are definitely having a more active role in writing the songs. Which takes a lot of pressure off of me.

BEATS AND BREATH: What about distribution? What is your plan?

ALLAN: We have only one point of distribution in Beirut right now. Having it at one location is actually kind of nice because it’s cross marketing. We’re helping each other out. But I want to mostly sell albums at shows. Every time we’ve played a show in the past, people wanted to buy an album. Now, it’s different.  I mean even if we play shows for free, it’s ok because we know we’ll sell some albums.

BEATS AND BREATH: The old fashioned method of marketing. It’s the most beautiful direct link to your fans.

ALLAN: I know there’s this whole digital means of getting the album out there.

BEATS AND BREATH: But you’re hip to that?

ALLAN: I am aware but I’m not yet taking part in the process. We’re still too young as a band and haven’t really been seasoned yet. We just released the album and we’re trying to be careful with what we do. And do it in the most effective way possible.

BEATS AND BREATH; You want to tour in the Middle East presumably?

ALLAN: Touring in the Middle East is a bit of a fantasy still. But if there were to be a festival here or a festival there that meets everybody’s life schedule, then so be it. But I don’t want touring to cost us anything as a band. That’s not the point, but we’re not looking to make a living out of this realistically. We’re all students or working at the moment. And I don’t try to convince myself that it could be something to sustain me.

BEATS AND BREATH:  Is that limiting?

ALLAN: If I were to dedicate more of my time solely into marketing and networking and pushing this thing on to people – well I’m sort of afraid of that. Because as soon as you push something on to people – they question it.

It’s been a natural growth. But at the same time what else can you do? One thing I want to do is to communicate to colleges and radio stations all over. Start with the students and the people that are keen to what we’re doing.

Print layout cont…Photography by Tanya Traboulsi

Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B: These are the breaks – Jazzie B’s sermon in Beirut

Trevor Beresfor Romeo aka Jazzie B, the legendary DJ, music producer and founding member of the musical collective Soul II Soul was in Beirut in March for a musical workshop with 44 musicians and producers from around the Arab world. BEATS AND BREATH sat down with Jazzie B to discuss music, his life philosophies and future collaborations in the Middle East.

Jazzie B on the decks

BEIRUT – For someone growing up and listening to hip-hop in the 1980′s, the mention of the name Jazzie B has definite resonance. High school memories flood back; the vocals of UK-singer Caron Wheeler on Soul II Soul’s top-charting song “Back to Reality (However do you want me)” transport anyone over 30 to those sweaty house-party scenes that flourished throughout the world in 1989 –including my suburban outpost in Houston, Texas.

After meeting Jazzie B in Beirut last month, I felt I was tapping into some deep-rooted part of myself – like meeting a musical big brother whose unassuming demeanor belied that of someone who had produced and remixed tracks for a long list of my musical idols such as Public Enemy, Nas, Isaac Hayes, James Brown, Sinead O’Connor, Maxi Priest, Suzanne Vega, and a host of others from the mainstream to the underground like The Fine Young Cannibals, Destiny’s Child, Ziggy Marley, Neneh Cherry and the list goes on.

B was in Beirut as an honored guest of the Red Bull Music Academy’s Bass Camp that brought 44-musicians and producers from around the Arab world together for one weekend to produce music and receive lectures from the likes of Jazzie, as well as Dr. Peter Zinovieff -the inventor of the VCS3 synthesizer that Pink Floyd and Kraftwerk popularized, and Zeid Hamdan, founder of the Lebanese group Soap Kills and the Middle East’s leading independent musical figure.

BEATS AND BREATH caught up with Jazzie B the night before his two-city DJ tour of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

FACTOID: Jazzie B is in fact the only sound man in British history (his family is from Antigua) to have ever received the Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services rendered the Commonwealth.

INTERVIEW

BEATS AND BREATH: You’ve had quite an eye-opening experience here in Beirut with all of these musicians from the region gathering to make music together. Tell me about that.

JAZZIE B: This has been – without being too emotional – such a liberating thing for me to do under these circumstances. One of the most amazing things about last night…

B&B: We’re speaking about the showcase performance of the regional musicians last night at club EM Chill in Beirut?

JAZZIE B: That’s the one. I mean last night was no pop-idol thing going on. I mean as far as music goes, when I go to other places in the world it feels so contrived. And that’s not bad because everyone is a victim of his or her circumstances, whether it’s Beirut or not.

But I came to Lebanon 12 years ago in 1999 – I know that the two times I’ve been to Lebanon are most definitely authentic experiences.

I can say that through adversity comes a form of expression and in that expression is where history is made. I’ve been in it. I saw it in Beirut – last night and this weekend.

We say, “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.” So, I was feeling that last night. I was in the back of the venue just soaking it in.

It was lovely I felt like I was sixteen!

B&B: The things you’ve been able to accomplish as a producer, which are massive, contrasted with what you said this weekend – that you haven’t learned as much from your mistakes as you could have – how then are you defining your success these days?

JAZZIE B: I haven’t really drifted into that area yet because as far as I’m concerned I’m still out there doing it. So the fact is that I’m still on the journey. So I haven’t even bothered to look back yet. I’m still moving forward – still got my ‘Eyes on the Prize’ as it were.

Jazzie B traces his own evolution as a world-renowned producer to his time back in the late 1970′s and early 1980′s with the transformation from the sound system Jah Rico – with original musical partner Phillip “Daddae” Harvey – to the soundsystem we know as Soul II Soul –formed after Jazzie met the great Nellee Hooper.

B&B: You come from the time-honored tradition of the “sound system” in the Caribbean. I mean, you were your own music industry, party, and promotional engine all wrapped up in to one package. Given that there is no real music industry to support local artists here in the Arab world, is the sound system model something that could be duplicated?

JAZZIE B: I think so. Because from a sound system’s point of view, for the music that they (music industry reps) were going to hire and license, the people running the sound systems –like myself- started making the music themselves. From making the music themselves, then these were where the new superstars were being formed – coming out of these sound system set-ups.

B&B: Control the means of production and set up the sound system events for distribution and interest?

JAZZIE B: Yeah exactly. That’s part of the evolution of the whole music business. THAT part is where I see myself being involved. That’s my duty. That’s what I’m going out for. That’s what I’m studying, you know what I mean?

What comes from that is what’s made me today. I guess I have the kind of mentality that allows for me to go through the thorns and bushes because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Beirut Groove Collective's Ernesto Chahoud (left) talks shope with Jazzie B at Beirut's infamous club BO18 (Lens: Hani)

B&B: Do you see yourself as a mentor in some way?

JAZZIE B: Yeah, definitely. And it’s a tradition I have taken part in. Really that’s my inspiration. That’s part and parcel for all the ideas of how I make music. I use people like Curtis Mayfield and Donny Hathaway. Those guys were encyclopedias.

I’ve been blessed to work with James Brown – who took me under his wing. I worked with Isaac Hayes and Barry White. So many iconic people who inspired a whole generation, and I had the opportunity to sit in with them and hang with them.

I had the most incredible experience with Fela Kuti who allowed me to hang out and it was just amazing. So I feel it’s my duty to be in a position today where it starts being in that embryonic stage and suckle the child as it were.

As the child grows and I’m able to make suggestions about what particular routes that they take – and you know everybody needs a little TLC (tender love and care) – so I can help an artist in Beirut and all the other little guys coming up.

What’s a trip is that these young artists I’m spending time with now are like two generations away from me. Many of them weren’t even alive when I was doing my shit.

The fact that these young artists and I can meet each other now, on the level, and they’re mentioning songs that inspired them and they don’t even know where they came from. It’s so cool.

B&B: That’s the truth. And there’s not really a textbook for passing on history like this in these ways.

JAZZY B: This is what’s interesting. You know, when somebody posed the question to me in Beirut this weekend – “Can artists get past the whole idea that they’re giving music away in the Middle East?” (Implying they were losing both money and market-share.) We had a really cool conversation about it.

As I was saying to the musicians, when I first came out as an artist, we sold sheet music.

B&B: In the early 90s?

JAZZIE B: In 1988, when our music (Soul II Soul) first came out, I have royalty statements for sheet music.

B&B: For the longest time, that’s how artists have made their money. You owned the publishing right?

JAZZIE B: Exactly. And when I was speaking to the musicians in Beirut during my lecture, I gave a little snapshot of that. Again, everyone wants to understand how they can make this that or the other.

In today’s day and age, now, it’s revolved all the way back to when people were performing – a time when you would go to the theater and you would watch the musicians and then go home and try to emulate them.

Then came technology – the gramaphone, turntable, etc – the radio then started to perpetuate that stuff. When radio first came in – it was about the message. There was no music. It was about information. Then music became the thing that kept it going. I wouldn’t say the fuel, but it was the subculture of radio. When video came along…

JAZZIE B and JACKSON simultaneously: “Video killed the radio star!”

JAZZIE B: Exactly. And then it became MTV. But as you watch MTV these days there ain’t NO music! (laughing hysterically)

Look. All I wanted to do back in the day homey, was have the biggest sound system in the world.

Money? It weren’t about money. I had money because we were hustling.

I had my shops. I had my whole thing going on, and even when I got my first record deal, I didn’t make it like some artists that were in their garage bangin’ away for 20 years. I was playing my sound system and that again was another evolutionary step of the industry.

I took what they were doing when the musicians weren’t getting paid for it, and through the sound system set-up, I was getting paid for it. That was the weirdest thing. My first million that I made, it wasn’t like I had to use it because I was in a tornado of things with my sound system. I was hammering down the hatches.

Then another deal came along – and I was like ok, I’ll buy some more land (in Antigua where his family is from). That’s how the whole thing kind of evolved for me.

It would be the same thing where a musician gets a record deal – they buy a better guitar – they buy a studio…so on and so forth. That’s like the textbook thing to go wrong. That’s not what happened to me.

Our business is the fastest to make the money, and doubly fast to lose the money.

B&B: Back to the concept of mentorship and of opening the doors to younger musicians. The things that characterized the classic community relationship between the elders and the youth of a community – now it’s more global because the borders have opened up and so the identities that exist within these communities have become more spread out now. I think the way you’re describing the possibility of helping some of the cats here in Beirut – this is exactly what we hope when artists of your stature come through. When local artists are able to show you their music and say – “Look at this wonderful thing” and also say, “We need your help in this process to see it through” That’s the best thing that could happen.

JAZZIE B: Absolutely. I couldn’t have put it any better myself. I have my agenda, which is the music of life and let it play on. So I just move like that and it does end up becoming some sort of cliché. But like I’ve said:

“A happy face. A thumpin’ bass. For lovin’ race.

And those are the breaks!”

HBO New York International Latino Film Festival official entry: Beats and Breath’s short documentary ‘Life from the BBC’

BEATS AND BREATH is proud to announce that our documentary “Life from the BBC” is an official selection of the HBO New York International Latino Film Festival and will screen TODAY, Sunday, AUGUST 21st @ the AMC EMPIRE 14 in Manhattan.

FOR ANYONE IN NEW YORK CITY TODAY – TELL YOUR FRIENDS!

WHEN: August 21st, SUNDAY today
WHERE: AMC EMPIRE 14
234 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036-7215

LIFE FROM THE BBC
By: Jackson Allers
Co-director/DOP: Siska
Editor: Wissam Charaf

Run time: 16 min. | Palestine/Lebanon

This documentary follows two MC’s, Yaseen (20) and TNT (19) of the Palestinian rap group I-Voice (Invincible Voice) from the Bourj al Barajneh Refugee Camp (BBC) in south Beirut, facing constant electricity cuts in their small camp recording studio.

Yaseen and TNT write lyrics by the lights of their cell phones and produce beats to a growing fan base – wracking up an impressive catalogue of music that has earned them a remarkable reputation within the local and international Arab hip-hop scenes. The film follows them as they break out of the confines of refugee life, it is a story about their search for power.

This film is also playing with these other SPECTRUM: SHORT FILMS 

screens with…

• SPECTRUM: SHORT FILMS
• YEAR ZERO | Richard Cunningham III
• THE DANCER | Joshua Jouppi , Seth Stark
• ROOM #11 | Mansee Kong
• HOMAGE TO BELA | Randy Wilkins
• CHANGE | Jeff McCutcheon, Melissa Osborne
• A BOY, A WALL AND A DONKEY | Hani Abu Assad

 

 

Middle East’s Lyrical Bomber: Author, Actor, Husband, MC – The Narcicyst on Beats and Breath

Beats and Breath continues to look at the Arab uprisings and the rise of Arab hip-hop, releasing uncensored interviews with key members of the Arab hip-hop massive -much of the material archived during the production of the 30-min Beats and Breath/Free Speech Radio News radio documentary Rhymes and Revolution that aired on July 4.

In this post, we’re proud to feature an interview with writer/actor/rapper, Iraqi-Canadian MC The Narcicyst – fresh off the release of his book Diatribes of a Dying Tribe (with writing by Suheir Hammad, Omar Offendum, Ragtop & Excentrik and exclusive Interviews with Cilvaringz, Malikah, Eslaam Jawaad, Members of AK, DAM and Soul Purpose). Narcy discusses the popularity of his co-creation, the song/video #jan25, the state of Arab hip-hop and provides Beats and Breath with a no-holds-barred appraisal of personal identity as an Arab artist living and working in the West. As with most of what Beats and Breath publishes on this site, this is a unique opportunity to view the true intersection of culture and politics that is helping to redefine how youth are interpreting their own phenomenal surroundings.

Mad respect to Narcy for contributing to this process.

The Narcicyst in a portrait from the video 'Humdulillah' (lens by Ridwam Adhami)

HOUSTON/BEIRUT – Yassin Alsalman’s rapper alter-ego The Narcicyst has managed to flip the script on the West’s depiction of Arabs for as long as I’ve known him (2009). He’s ill-fitted for simple government identity criteria, decries labeling, and manages to both scare (in a good way) and excite fans with his lyricism. The song “Vietnam” off of his self-titled debut solo LP manages to call up the horrors of war, interventionism, and the bellicose nature of the West’s foreign policy, while throwing in some ridiculously witty pop-cultural references to boot:

“They say Lebanon’s vietnam,
Iraq’s vietnam, Palestine’s Vietnam,
they wanna see us gone,
So far from home but I can feel the bombs
close to heart like the death of a being dawned.
War made us feel like being free is wrong
trying to be man with a child’s fear in song,
Lullabies when a brother dies,
No merit when a sister perish up
America
Drilling with loud toys mr.cowboy
Bullet riddle the middle east, belittled peace,
Giving in to the inner cheat, over dinner feasts
Like a winner you proud, oil endowed joy!
The same resource you drain,
Came from remains of deceased corpses maimed
All in plain view like Daniel Day Lewis- I knew it
You giving off that kill me buzz… There Will Be Blood“

Three other songs off of The Narcicyst’s first LP – “P.H.A.T.W.A.” “The Last Arabs” featuring an appearance by Syrian-American MC Omar Offendum, and “Hamdulillah” featuring UK-based Palestinian singer/MC Shadia Mansour – are testaments to his brand of cultural insight that has no real equivalent in hip-hop culture.

As an Iraqi (Basra) born in Dubai and settled in Montreal, Narcy is still hungry to define his place in hip-hop culture, and has spent the last near 10-years earning increasing respect from heads in the Middle East and the West. And as he has evolved so has his ability to distill issues of the human condition while also providing keen insight into his life as an Arab artist learning to be at peace with his own exile and sense of home – which he contends isn’t necessarily Basra, Iraq.

His personal website Iraqisthebomb(dot)com has a quote on his “lyrics” page which reads: “This is for the thriving cultures that we were. To the people that could’ve and eventually will.”

I see this as a maxim that describes his knowledge of Arab history and his realistic assessment of what is possible, indeed what he hopes will happen.

The so-called Arab Spring has simply given The Narcicyst and millions of other Arabs living in the Middle East, North Africa and the Diaspora a sense that massive systemic change is possible. I sat down with Narcy in a Skype conversation (Houston-Montreal) to talk about the Arab uprisings, his contribution to the viral video/song #jan25 (named after the trending topic on Twitter for the Egyptian revolution), and how technology is transforming both Arab hip-hop and the expectations of people all over the region.

The Narcicyst at his utter best

INTERVIEW

BEATS AND BREATH: The song #an25 came to you through (Syrian-American MC/rapper) Omar Offendum after he met up with the Palestinian (American) producer Sami Matar?

NARCY: Yeah. We had had the discussion prior to recording the song. And you know the developments in Egypt inspired it. Omar Offendum had been working with Sami for a while. He got in touch and sent me this song and his verse on the song where he said everything that could have been said already (laughing). So I spit a short verse right after it…

B&B: Let’s talk about the residual affects. Clearly this song has brought you a lot of media attention. But did this song expose you to a new audience-base?

NARCY: This isn’t the first time that I release or am part of a release of a song about something going on in the Middle East. When the Israeli Operation Cast Lead was going down in Gaza, I was in Lebanon for New Year’s 2009, and I recorded a remix for my song “Humdulillah” with Shadia Mansour in solidarity with Gazans. We did the hook again where we substituted the name Basra in the original and we put in the word Gaza. And then we put that out. That was like my first time I put out something free for the people that was related to something that was happening. It had a very positive reaction. That was the first one we gauged it with.

I think with Jan25 the difference was the Egyptian experience was being reported internationally as a…well it wasn’t really about Egypt. It was about a people standing up to a government and ultimately overthrowing that government. So we would see it on all of the news networks but also you would see it on websites that wouldn’t necessarily cover things in the Middle East usually. So the beautiful thing about Jan25 was that when we reached out to Vibe magazine and these hip-hop blogs and websites that had nothing to do with politics or the Middle East, they still picked it up.

Part of it had to do with the fact that we had an American artist on it. The other part of it was that it was happening in Egypt and that being that central civilization in that part of the world that people know about – the archetype about what a civilization is. That’s why people actually listened. It definitely added to our impact with social networking followers and it definitely added to our visibility in the world and people in Egypt started hitting us up more and more. It was important to show the people that we were standing with them even though we were halfway across the world.

B&B: I don’t think that you pulled any punches lyrically with hashTagJan25. It could be said that the song opened you up to western audiences in a way that hadn’t happened before. Talk to me about that.

NARCY: It was weird because I had an issue as to what I was going to say on the song. Do I say, “Down down government.” Was I going to write about issues that were going down in Egypt? Was I going spit a 16-bar about freedom? Or was I just going to share my reaction to what was going on?

I think that’s what we decided in the end – that everybody was going to have a different reaction to what was going. I was a bit pessimistic and I saw it as a sign of the times. Possibly a representation of the greater narrative in theology of the end of things and the beginning of things. And finally our people were standing up for things but they were getting killed for standing up.

I was a bit sad. I wasn’t very happy. But also to see that engage a Western audience and to eventually start a dialog with them, I think that was the purpose of that song. Besides that show our people in Egypt that we were watching what was happening like 24/7 on television and we applaud them for their bravery.

I think at the same time it was an example to the West that you know Arab’s could do it on their own. They don’t need the help of the West. I think that was the most important point we made with the song, even when we did interviews about it.

B&B: Do you think that was a message that somehow needed to get out there? That Arabs somehow were perceived in the West of being incapable of orchestrating such uprisings peacefully?

NARCY: No. I think with the example of what happened in Iraq, as a so-called revolution, or a change in the government structure of the country – the way the Western world went about viewing it was that the only way we can free Iraqis from the grip of their dictatorship is by assaulting the dictatorship until it falls.

B&B: And then de-Baathifying everything…

NARCY: Absolutely. And then trying to remove the building blocks and everything that was related to it by bombing the shit out of it, and thinking that was the only way Arabs could go about changing the system. Or creating a so-called democracy in the East. But then as they saw, it was not the solution that they expected it to be.

So I think with Egypt the lesson was that if the people are fed up with the way things are going, they can take it into their own hands. Of course, the people that stood up, and their were secret forces throwing money at things in the background. We don’t know all of those details, but it was a prime example of people power that hasn’t even been exercised in North America – at least I don’t think it has – to the point where it has changed government. It hasn’t.

I think it was a first step for humankind.

The Narcicyst in Beirut. November 2010 (Lens: Michael Bou-Nacklie©)

B&B: Before the Palestinian cause was a de facto uniting element for Arab hip-hop, but do you think that spirit of these revolutions is able to form an even more solid sense of community – a rallying cry or a more Nasser-esque nationalism for Arab hip-hop?

NARCY: You know people refer to these golden oldies days in the past – where we reference Nasser and the Arab movements coming up as one big Umma – I don’t believe in them because it never occurred. It was nice on paper, but it never happened.

Dictators got put into power. Certain money got into certain governments and certain countries from Western powers. And it became a very almost like thievery of the masses looking back on it and when you read up on what was happening in the Arab world in the 1940s through 1970s.

Between our parents generation and our generation, the biggest shift that could have changed the criticism of the systems that we lived in was technology. Back in our parents day they only had phones, letters and so on. And then faxes in the 1980s. But with this day and age, it is really like information is permeable. You can put out information anywhere and it can soak into any magazine or newspaper as fact. Be read on the radio.

You know I could Tweet something really silly. Like say someone died and that would spread like wildfire. So the power of media became a game changer when it came to power structure within society over there.

I think because the Arab hip-hop community uses new technology as its chief means of production – our means of production is very much a laptop or a computer and a microphone, and a sound board to mix. That translated into the way that we have projected our independent careers online. The way we use the internet, and then eventually the way we disseminate our music online.

The song hasHTagJan25 was a prime example of what we’re trying to do with all of our music. Except, all of our music is not as accessible as Jan25 because it’s not about something that everybody is paying attention to. I think that’s the only difference.

I think the Arab hip-hop movement is a great example of this unity, but then you also have the examples of personal issues within the community. It’s still a very fractured experience.

B&B: Discussions of technology – you’re breaking down borders that have come up since colonialism. Technology as an equalizer against physical borders.

NARCY: Let’s not kid ourselves in this respect. While what you’re saying is true, the internet is also a way of tracking everything. If we were living in a borderless Middle East it wouldn’t be a trackable thing. But everything we do now is trackable.

You can find my IP address and find out anything and everything. What shoes I was looking at? If I have a fetish for something they could find out. It’s a thin line – a gift and curse. I think it’s helped but also it separated us because it’s created this sense of voyeurism. We all watch each other’s moves and know what this or that person is doing…which is already creating like strategic alliances.

B&B: I don’t want to romanticize it. I want to acknowledge that it’s a rarified group of people online. It’s not everybody. I think it’s the mobile-phone technology and not the internet that’s changed the game. Even the poorest dudes have mobile-phones. And do you ever expect the Arab Diaspora rappers to get on those Shabi download sites that get the music into the Micro-buses in the Arab world?

NARCY: We’re working on it! (laughter) Our experience in the West as Arab rappers is unique and new. We’re the first to utilize media in a certain way to communicate our experience to the rest of the world. But at the same time it’s an experience that doesn’t have a history. It’s not like something you’re ingesting for like ten years and they’ve done research on and know how it’s going to affect your body

Our experience is brand new. We can look at the African-American experience as an example, but that had political and social relationships that were birthed out of a completely different situation than ours. Whereas we weren’t moved from our home unwillingly, many Diasporic Arabs moved willingly out of their homes. Our latch on to what home is is as prevalent as the search for Africa in the African-American community. That’s the only thing that could be considered a crutch preventing us from that kind of individual that you’re talking about and being able to disseminate our music like that.

Our experience is relative, so we have to find a way to describing things in human terms as opposed to describing things as Arab-American or Arab-Canadian, Arab-European – whatever. It has to be a human element that everybody can relate to in our music that we can speak about.

And I think we’re getting old enough to reach that level of artistic acceptance.

B&B: Do you think it’s a level of sophistication in language and experience? How do you think you’re getting better at what you do?

NARCY: It’s a level of acceptance. When I was 18 I ran strictly off of emotions. And then September 11^th happened. Shit is all crazy with heightened fear all around, so you’re internally and externally doing the same kind of thing. But then as you get older you start accepting the fact that maybe I will never go back “home” where my mother and father are from. Maybe I’ll never belong there again. And perhaps that’s fine. Maybe I don’t need to.

Whereas when I was younger I really had this romanticized vision of my motherland, which really isn’t what it is. Even Iraqis that leave there will tell you that’s not what it is. Where have you gotten this romantic vision from?

It’s not what it used to be, and once I came to accept that it deeply affected my art. It became more free.

It’s funny. You get shackled by nationalism but you also get shackled by wanting nationality. You’re really the freest when you don’t need any of them at all.

 

Arab Raps Theoretical Unification

Beats and Breath’s interview with Egyptian rapper Mohammed el Deeb aka Deeb released in June contended that the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa had a galvanizing effect with Arab hip-hop heads worldwide. But has this been the spark for a Pan-Arab hip-hop movement? I put this piece out there in the context of the rap contributions to the current revolution(s).

Palestinian crew I-Voice at Masrah al Madina in Beirut 2009. Lens: Tanya Traboulsi©

BEIRUT – In the nearly 5 years that I’ve been writing about and documenting hip-hop in the Arab world, it has become something of a personal maxim to say that Arab hip-hop has managed to develop the trappings of a scene but that it most certainly has not created a “movement” despite hip-hop’s arrival in the Maghreb more than 20-years ago.

Like a scratched up 45, I’ve been dogmatic in writing about the fact that there was (and is still) no rap industry in the Arab world – no labels, no record/cd markets, no corporate radio airplay, few credible managers or agents, and except for an elite group of sponsors, no real systemic infrastructure to support the growth of Arabic hip-hop or the top-notch talent emerging.

Of course it’s a contention that has been met with legitimate objections over the years, particularly from artists who are as entrenched in this hip-hop thing as I am:

What about the collective efforts of ARAP, the now defunct Arab Summit (with rappers Omar Offendum, Ragtop, The Narcycist and Excentrik) and the massive crew, Arab League, that counts as members the heavyweight LA-based Palestinian-American producer FredWreck, Egypt’s MC Amin, Deeb and Arabian Knightz with more than 20 rapper and producer affiliates that span the bulk of the Middle-East, North Africa and Diaspora?

Are they not symbols of an Arab hip-hop movement?

I guess the simple answer is, “Yes.” They’re all furthering the idea of what is possible in Arab rap with strong messages and ever more sophisticated production palettes. But scratch the surface and there is nothing that would lead me to think there is a Pan-Arab hip-hop sensibility that is guiding some kind of formal movement within global hip-hop culture.

I have, however, gotten the impression from Arab hip-hop heads throughout the world over the last five years that they’ve been looking for something to unify them the way Pan-Arab Nationalism seemed to give Arabs a sense of dignity and purpose in the 1950′s. While the Pan-Arab nationalist movement has been mythologized and in the larger historical analysis can be judged as nominally successful, its legacy nonetheless leads me to ask: could the Arab uprisings be the spark to create a larger sense of what Arab hip-hop as a movement could be united under – banners or maxims of like the Black Panther movement in the US – a sort of 10-point plan?

Merging political and social reform concepts that have become tenets of the MENA uprisings are certainly places for an Arab hip-hop “nation” to start – philosophically and some could argue artistically. Certainly, the youth-driven Arab uprisings have made that a possibility if in fact Arab hip-hop heads choose to see it in this light. And it’s not like there weren’t precursors to draw from with regards to identity politics and their connections to societal and cultural upheaval.

RBG (left), the author and Ramcess (right) at the first Immortal Entertainment sponsored 'Brooklyn Beats to Beirut Streets' event with Omar Offendum, Ragtop, and Mark Gonzalez joining a gangload of local 961 MCs (lens: Tanya Traboulsi©)

Before the uprisings, the unifying themes behind Arab hip-hop were a sort of de facto endorsement of Palestinian self-determination or varyingly, a challenge to the Western wholesale stereotypes of Arabs as terrorists and Islamists – with the the video of the song “Meen Erhabi” (‘Who’s the terrorist?’) by the Palestinian rap group DAM being the online viral totem (well over 1 million views) of this revolt against occidental stereotyping at the time of its release in 2001.

And while neither one of these messages has lost their potency -particularly in the last 11 years with the rise and fall of the Second Intifada, the September 11 attacks (London, Spain and Mumbai as well) and the subsequent US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, what I’ve concluded, more than anything else, is that the Arab uprisings have, in the very least managed to break some of the chains of invisibility the movement has experienced over the last 15 years. The uprisings have let people know that there is a thing called Arab hip-hop, particularly in the West that has shown such astonishment at the intensity of the uprisings, in what writer Arian Faribouz says is the West’s lack of acknowledgment of the “deep-seated dissatisfaction felt by Arab civil society.”

As with the Arab hip-hop movement, Faribouz acknowledges this is “particularly true for the younger generation, which has so vehemently rebelled against the suppression of free speech and artistic freedom as well as against the social hardships and the lack of job opportunities in their countries. And this didn’t just come about yesterday.”

In November 2007, I wrote an article that to date is still the only definitive history of Lebanese hip-hop in which the region’s premiere Arab turntablist, DJ Lethal Skillz, directed the message for his first album, New World Disorder (2007/2008) at a western audience. (NOTE: that history has been disputed by members of the Lebanese hip-hop massive – but I stand by that story and its recollection of Lebanese hip-hop history.) It was a move that I questioned at the time, but a strategy that I could not argue against then. (In hindsight I would have advised against it.)

Skillz on the corner. Rendition courtesy of SkyLinked

The album contained a smorgasbord of local and regional talent each distilling their rejection of the rampant corruption and social neglect inherent within their societies in witty metaphorical turns of phrase and in very grave tones, lyrically. Lebanese rappers MC Moe and Malikah (961 Underground), Rayess Bek (Aksser), RGB and Siska (Kita3 Beyrouthe), Chyno and El Edd (Fareeq al Atrash), Omarz (Dezert Dragons), Grandsunn and MC Zoog, as well as Ramallah Underground (Boikutt, Stormtrap & Aswaat) from the West Bank – all presaged the messages that were echoed by the demonstrators that took down the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes and now threatens the regimes in Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and Libya.

But as DJ Lethal Skillz acknowledged at the time, because Arab hip-hop had no real local market, New World Disorder was made almost exclusively for export. Since that 2007 article things have changed drastically and the creative efforts of Arab hip-hop purveyors living in the Arab world like Boikutt and Stormtrap of Ramallah Underground, Deeb, MC.Amin and Arabian Knightz in Egypt, Palestinian rapper Sam Zaki in Jordan, and Taffar, Ramcess, Rayess Bek and Fareeq al Atrash in Lebanon are all turning inward to stoke domestic musical fires in order to attract larger numbers of local followers – from the inside out and not the other way around. (Note: There are many other rappers I’ve missed in Lebanon, but there will be more articles dealing with these newly emerging talents as I get to know them more.)

As it stands, the only impression that exists of hip-hop for young Arabs is the hip-hop mainstream strewn all over the foreign owned corporate radio stations and satellite music channels. If you don’t have access to those sources, then what could Arab hip-hop possibly mean to you if you’re an Arab who has not been exposed to the genre?

The Arab revolutions have, thus, exposed hundreds of thousands of young Arab brothers and sisters to a new soundtrack they might not have known was theirs before – and this is the most significant thing I can point to when discussing the revolutions affects on Arab hip-hop.

El Général

Take for example the first hip-hop salvos that came from Tunisia – the origin point of the uprisings. Tunisian rapper Hamada Ben Amor aka El Général rose from relative obscurity within an already marginalized Maghreb hip-hop scene competing with “more prolific” rap scenes in Morocco and France to upload a song in November 2010 on Facebook called Rayess Le Bled (Head of State).

“My president, your people are dying
People eat garbage
Look at what is happening
Misery everywhere, Mr. President
I talk with no fear
I’m speaking for the people who suffer
Although I know I’ll get only trouble
I see injustice everywhere.“

While I can say El General was not nearly as talented as other veterans of the Tunisian hip-hop scene like Balti, Lak3y, or Psyco M, Andy Morgan of The Observer wrote that his song had “within hours lit up the bleak and fearful horizon like an incendiary bomb. Before being banned, it was picked up by local TV station Tunivision and al-Jazeera.”

He added, “El Général’s MySpace was closed down, his mobile cut off. But it was too late. The shock waves were felt across the country and then throughout the Arab world. That was the power of protesting in Arabic, albeit a locally spiced dialect of Arabic. El Général’s bold invective broke frontiers and went viral from Casablanca to Cairo and beyond.”

El Général went even further releasing a second song called Tounes Bladna (Tunisia, Our Country), and on January 6 at five o’clock in the morning, some 30 state security agents showed up at his family’s house to arrest him – “on the orders of President Ben Ali himself.”

The rapper was held in a Tunisian jail for three days before his release – shaken but more resolute than ever to speak out against the excesses of the Tunisian government, particularly after 26-year old Tunisian street-vendor Mohamed Bouazizi’s act of self-immolation was further cementing the demise of Ben Ali’s regime. (He too was greeted as a celebrity in his home town of Sfax.)

And while the more professionally produced, lyrically diverse catalogs of veteran rappers in the Arab world and Diaspora like MC Bigg from Morocco, Canadian-Iraqi MC The Narcycist, LA-based Omar Offendum, UK-based Lebanese-Syrian rapper Eslam Jawaad, and Wu Tang affiliated Dutch-Moroccan rapper Saleh Edin have all managed to garner fan bases in their adopted countries in the West, none it seems has had the impact musically that El Général has had with the Arab street.

In this sense, El Général’s message set a precedent, and Rayess le Bled inspired Arab youth from Tahrir Square in Cairo to the capital Manama in Bahrain where the mostly Shia opposition have experienced the most brutal crackdown at the hands of the minority Suni royal family and the security forces of their Saudi Arabian and Qatari Gulf Cooperation Council allies.

While El Général’s Rayess le Bled has made it to Bahrain, in Libya, songs from 16-year old producer and composer Imad Abbar and his 22-year old rapper partner Hamza Sisi are on heavy rotation in the cars of rebel fighters trying to battle their way westward to Tripoli to end Muammar Gadhafi’s 42-year rule.

The two-man crew from the rebel capital Benghazi in east Libya admitted to AFP that they were no where near the levels of production they wanted to be, forced to record songs in Sisi’s home, in a small amateur studio equipped with a keyboard and a computer -a rudimentary set-up that perhaps has best defined the conditions of early hip-hop artists – producers, DJs and MC’s –worldwide for the last 30 years, what Candadian-Iraqi MC The Narcycist calls “the permeability of the creative process.”

“All you really need is a microphone and a pair of headphones to record, and then a good engineer to mix it. So, it doesn’t really take much to create it,” Narcy said in a Democracy Now! interview in March. In fact, it is the immediacy of the message of hip-hop and the accessibility of production that has made it such a powerful force for the Arab youth in these revolutions.

But a more concrete Pan-Arab hip-hop movement cannot emerge as long as there are gaps of inequality between the hip-hop movement in the Arab world and the hip-hop movement in the Arab Diaspora, despite innovators like Palestinian producer Damar in Jordan, and Tashweesh who are pushing production values to their ultimate limits, rivaling near anything coming out of the West. That means until the means of production “permeates” an increasing number of disenfranchised Arab youth communities, the idea of a Pan-Arab hip-hop movement will remain a theoretical fantasy.

‘Intro’ by Tashweesh from Tashweesh on Vimeo.

Fortunately, I feel optimistic that the gaps in production and infrastructure will continue to lessen and that the Arab hip-hop being produced in the Diaspora will ultimately have to reflect back to the audiences in the Arab world to gain credibility. The standard bearers for future production in Arab hip-hop will come from the Middle East and not from the West – and new rhyme styles will emerge from the Arabic world versus coming from Arabs in the West.

What is certain is that the Arab revolutions are certainly focusing attention on the Arab hip-hop artists living in the Middle East and North Africa in ways that have never happened before, and that by all accounts is the best thing that could ever happen for the young Arab MCs, producers and Djs living in the region – youth who are passionate and serious about what they are doing in their attempts to further the evolution of Arab hip-hop that has so far avoided the trappings of the corporate system that will certainly battle for the soul of the emerging culture.

Zeid Hamdan -independent music scion -talks about his arrest over the song “General Suleiman”

ARTICLE BELOW: Blogger and music scholar Angie Nassar writes on the Beirut-based website NOWLebanon about the government detention and subsequent release of Zeid Hamdan – the self-described “gardener” of the independent music scene in Lebanon, co-founder of the electro-Arab fusion act Soap Kills and his most recent musical venture Zeid and the Wings. (We featured Zeid in a Beats and Breath article in March 2010.)

Hamdan was arrested for his song “General Suleiman” which the Lebanese government found was a direct condemnation of Lebanon’s president. It’s a law clearly enforced in a selective manner considering the amount of slander bandied about by politicians and political parties in Lebanon on a daily basis.

Although I’m not in the habit of re-posting other people’s articles on Beats and Breath, this article is poignant when considering a panel discussion on Alternative Music in Lebanese Culture hosted on Friday, July 29 by AltCity (a media/tech/social impact collaboration space (launching this fall) and organized in collaboration with over 15 community partners) and moderated by local music blogger/musician Omar al Fil.

The panel included Nassar, MC Chyno from Lebanon’s live hip-hop crew Fareeq al Atrash, Mohamad Hodeib a.k.a Walad (guitarist, vocalist, and main songwriter of local band Wled el Balad), writer and urbanist-scholar Jad Baaklini, and Zeid Hamdan in his first public appearance since being released from jail.

Among the things we discussed: “personal” definitions of what “alternative music” means, and further what it means in the Lebanese and Arab contexts; concepts of censorship – both governmental and self-styled censorship; the fact that musicians in the Arab world and in Lebanon will face increasing encroachment by corporate labels and the commercial market as their music takes on more prominence.

Enjoy the article.

Zeid Hamdan sings with his band, “Zeid and the Wings.” (Photo by Tanya Traboulsi via hansharling.blogspot.com)

Though his song, “General Suleiman,” was released nearly a year ago, Lebanese musician and producer Zeid Hamdan was arrested over the track and charged with insulting the president on Wednesday.

After a huge outpouring of support from fans, friends and activists, the charge was dropped and he was released later that evening.

This morning I spoke on the phone with Hamdan who talked about the implications of his arrest and the boundaries of free speech in Lebanon.

“This is a big issue, but it’s not about me. It’s about what’s allowed and what’s forbidden in this country… Are we not allowed to go further than this song? This is crazy. This song is so innocent. And if I saw the president today, I would say the same. I truly believe that military power should not interfere with political power. They are two separate institutions. It is essential that we learn that if we want to build a democracy.” (Read more about the song and its lyrics here.)

“If you fear something, express it. Trigger a debate. But don’t be afraid of standing for your ideas. Just look around you. Look at Syria, look at Egypt, look at Tunisia, look at the whole Arab world. People are dying for their ideas,” he added.

Hamdan said he was asked to go to the Justice Ministry for questioning twice last week. He received a third call to return to the ministry on Wednesday.

“I thought it would be more questions. They told me I was going to meet with the judge and that he would decide whether to press charges. I didn’t meet the judge. They just said I was arrested and they put me in handcuffs directly.”

Hamdan said authorities found out about the song after Italian filmmaker Gigi Roccati, who directed the music video for “General Suleiman,” mailed his show reel to Lebanese ad agency Leo Burnett. The DVD never made it to the agency. It was picked up by someone from Lebanese Customs.

“I don’t even think he [President Sleiman] was aware I was arrested, personally, because this is not good publicity for him.”

“I have a feeling that all this is just a mistake. Someone wanting to do good with the president but not being clever or someone wanting to harm the president and give him a bad image. I don’t know, it’s so stupid, you know. This whole thing is too much.”

Despite his detention, Hamdan says he’ll continue making music and spreading his message to anyone who will listen.  “I write with inspiration from inside to face something I feel it. As long as I don’t attack someone in an unfair way and I don’t give my music to any political party… I’m trying to say this music is for everyone. This song is for everyone. In Egypt they sing it. In all the Arab country’s where they have issues with the military, they sing it.”

“I won’t be more political or less political. I’m not changing anything,” he said.

Hamdan expressed gratitude to everyone who rallied for his release on Wednesday: “ I want them to know that they played a role in setting me free so that they have a role to play in the country as a voice, even if they’re alone they count.”

He also relayed this message: “I want [the people] to feel free to express or fight for their ideas, whatever they are. And so I just want to tell the people not to be afraid and not to feel lonely because we all want the same things and will all fight together for the same things.”

“I hope any musician will keep on spreading good messages, positive messages for the country or the region.”

Hamdan and his band, Zeid and the Wings, just launched their self-titled album last week.

Zeid also heads up the Lebanese Underground, a collective of artists from the country’s alternative music scene.

Follow Zeid Hamdan on Facebook.

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Article originally published on the website NOWLebanon. All rights reserved ©

TIME MAGAZINE repost: Syrian Rappers Urge … Restraint? Protesters Find Little Support in Popular Music

This is an article written by Rania Abouzeid for TIME Magazine ©. I am reposting it here to frame the controversy that has erupted over this article, which was a spin-off to a post put on Greg Schick’s website World Hip-Hop Market.com. The post was about the stance on the Syrian unrest from a good friend, Syrian-Lebanese MC Eslam Jawaad, that led to another conversation between he and I a short time later on this blog. I’m not sure I was prepared for the ripple effects that have occurred, and the strain put on the Arab hip-hop movement.

As well, the vitriol that has surfaced both on the comment section for TIME and on other social networking sites has been noteworthy. Assuming I get permission to do so, I will also post a comment thread from my own Facebook page between Eslam and other colleagues in academia and the media industry, as well as those who are heavily invested in the Arab hip-hop movement.

Syrian-Lebanese MC Eslam Jawaad and his track Dudd Al-Nizam (Against the System).

Eslam Jawaad has rapped against Syria’s protests but says he doesn’t “condone the handling of the situation by the government in any capacity”

 

The shaky snippet of video looks like it was inadvertently filmed, as if the amateur cameraman — in his haste to escape the intense gunfire crackling in the background — forgot to press pause and wound up recording his sandal-clad feet as he ran along the sidewalk. It’s meant to look like one of the countless amateur videos streaming out of Syria from an antigovernment protest, capturing the state’s violent crackdown. Except it is not.

Instead, this is the opening sequence in a music video by Syrian-Lebanese rapper Eslam Jawaad. The song, called “Dudd al-Nizam,” or “Against the System,” is also not what its title may at first imply. The system Jawaad, 34, rails against isn’t the Baathist regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, which has struggled to quell street protests since mid-March. It’s the forces aligned against it. “You are Syrian/ Keep your head high,” the deeply voiced lyrics declare. “The true men of the [anti-Israeli] resistance remain in the lion’s den,” they continue — a play on the fact that Assad means lion in Arabic. (Watch TIME’s video on Israeli-Palestinian hip-hop.)

While rap has provided the gritty sound track to popular uprisings roiling some of the Middle East’s most entrenched dictatorships, in Syria it has largely supported the status quo. Jawaad’s track (which was recorded a month into the unrest), and some half a dozen others including “Dudd al-Balad” (“Against the Country”) by Murder Eyes, have all been against the protests, although not necessarily supportive of Assad’s brutal attempts to suppress them. “I surely don’t condone the handling of the situation by the government in any capacity,” Jawaad told TIME in an e-mail interview from Dubai, where he recently relocated from London. “But I also see the bigger picture here.”

That picture is one the Syrian government is keen to portray: that protesters who have taken to the streets week in and week out for the past three months, despite a death toll approaching 1,400, have either been duped or are active participants in a foreign conspiracy aimed at punishing Syria for its politics. Damascus has long declared itself the beating heart of pan-Arab nationalism, a lynchpin state in an anti-American, anti-Israeli “resistance axis” that includes the Lebanese militant group Hizballah, the Palestinian Hamas movement and Iran.

In the video for “Dudd al-Nizam,” Jawaad — a burly, bald, bearded young man in Ali G sunglasses surrounded by Assad portraits and canary yellow Hizballah flags — addresses the protesters, bemoaning the bloodshed and warning of a “system” aligned against his country of birth. “Brothers of the soil, I swear you’ll be pardoned/ But it’s time you understand the game/ How much has been paid out; who sold their country, and to whom?” he chants rapidly. “This is their system, the new world order/ The system of the damned Zionists and crooks/ So, take note, I am against this system/ I want the fall of the conspiracy, I want security in the country/ I want reform, that’s for sure; in a beneficial way, not chaotic/ So put your hand in mine; we’ll walk together, we’ll build together/ If destruction is the poison, then reforms are the remedy/ Focus on what is more important: let’s smell the air of the [Israeli-occupied, Syrian] Golan, and by God’s will, we’ll meet in Jerusalem.” (Archive: “How Phat Conquered Palestine.”)

Jackson Allers, a Beirut-based writer and filmmaker who has been documenting the rise of Arab hip-hop on his blog BeatsandBreath.com and is writing a book on the subject, says Syria’s antirevolutionary rap may be as much a reflection of a class divide as it is about a desire to preserve one of the last remaining secular pan-Arab socialist states. Although there have been small isolated protests in Syria’s capital, Damascus, and in its largest city, Aleppo, the populations of these two key middle- to upper-class cities have yet to come out in force against the regime. Instead, the uprising has drawn its strength largely from the hinterlands, from rural, socially and more religiously conservative areas like the southern city of Dara’a, where protests first erupted. The hip-hop artists, Allers says, “don’t relate to that. Why would they?”

There’s still a whole swath of the Syrian population that is either undecided, or (especially in the case of some minorities like the Druze, Christians and the ruling Alawites) too frightened, or change-averse. It’s this huge chunk — this loose middle — that will ultimately play a key role in deciding which way this crisis goes, if it chooses a side. It’s unclear how large an audience Syrian rap has and may potentially sway, or at the very least, tap into. “It’s very, very formative,” Allers says of the scene. Although most of the Syrian political rap that has recently emerged has been pro-Assad, there are a few antiregime songs, like “Bayan Raqam Wahid” (“Statement No. 1″), which, tellingly, was released anonymously on the Internet. “You filled the country with intelligence agents/ Human rights are forbidden/ You don’t know the difference between a nationalist and a traitor,” says the unnamed male rapper.

Jawaad says that he and other “pro-stability” rappers are pro-Assad by choice, not because they are forced to be or fear the consequences if they are not. Still, these days, picking sides in the Arab Spring can be a risky proposition for a musician. Egypt’s pop sensation Tamer Hosny, for example, who pledged his loyalty to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak before he was ousted in February, has been all but blacklisted by his former fans. Jawaad says that he and other Syrian rappers spoke out for a reason, but he also seems to be hedging his bets. “If the regime did fall and Syria got better and the people benefited, I wouldn’t be sad that I was wrong.”
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Article first appeared in TIME Magazine. All rights reserved.

 

Movements.org – Hip Hop’s Responses to the Arab Awakening

This article was written by Holiday Dmitri for the website Movements.org.

“Movements.org is a non-profit organization dedicated to identifying, connecting, and supporting grassroots digital activists from around the world. We match members of our global network with necessary resources from the technology, media, private and public sectors in order to help them build capacity.

The organization was formed during a December 2008 summit, the Alliance of Youth Movements, that brought together experts in social media with pioneering grassroots movement leaders for the first time in history. Founders of Movements.org include Jared Cohen, Director of Google Ideas at Google, Jason Liebman, CEO and co-founder of Howcast, and Roman Tsunder, co-founder of Access 360 Media.”

The Lo Frequency and many of Lebanon's hip-hop family. Lens: Karen Kalou©

By HOLIDAY DMITRI

While social media has gotten much of the credit for galvanizing the uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), a new radio documentary is paying respect to another influential medium in the region, one that has articulated the frustrations of the marginalized and incited the young to action - namely hip-hop music.

“The artistic responses to the MENA uprisings were so inspiring from the emergence of increasingly incendiary forms of graffiti, to the poetic traditions and music that have always had a defiant tone in the Arab world. But it was the rap response that piqued my interest,” says friend and journalist Jackson G. Allers, producer of the recent radio documentary “Rhymes to Revolution – Soundtrack to the Arab Awakenings.” His 30-minute spot tells the story of the rise of Arab hip-hop and its role in the recent uprisings that began in Tunisia.

To read the full article: Hip Hop’s Responses to the Arab Awakening | Movements.org.