Lebanon’s Brooklyn, NYC Peeps: The Lo Frequency make good in Beirut

In late October, the Brooklyn-based live hip-hop outfit Chen Lo and the Liberation Family – known now as The Lo Frequency -came to Beirut for a two-month residency in order to establish a Hip-Hop Academy and to perform with local talent (MCs, DJs, and producers). The US embassy initiative was not exactly what they expected. Beats and Breath linked up with the Lo Frequency in Brooklyn to discuss what ultimately became a two-month blessing for the Arab hip-hop movement.

OG members of The Lo Frequency fam (L to R: BAASIK, Chen Lo, Ken White, DJ Scandales)

BEIRUT – I first heard about Chen Lo and the Liberation Family in early 2010 after musical contacts of mine in the United States told me to be on the look out for a hip-hop band on a US State Department world tour co-sponsored by Jazz at the Lincoln Center. The tour, called the Rhythm Road Tour, was due to stop in Beirut in the spring, and the Liberation Family was one of ten bands touring regions of the world “under the auspices of cultural exchange and diplomacy.”

My friends said if I was in Beirut in April, I needed to check them out.

As fate would have it, I was out of Lebanon during their Beirut tour stop, but by all local accounts, and despite a poorly attended, poorly promoted show, Chen Lo and The Liberation Family was the best hip-hop show Beirut had seen in 2010.

Six months later, the Liberation Family, was back in Beirut prepared to conduct a Hip-Hop Academy with US embassy support. Or so I was told.

What actually occurred was a little bit of a cultural soap opera with “dastardly” characters from both the local club scene and the US embassy performing a “vanishing act” when the band, an expanded 6-piece group now called The Lo Frequency, arrived in Beirut in late October from Brooklyn, New York.

Left with only a housing stipend, airfare and a paired-down version of the original Hip-Hop Academy proposal, group founder, rapper Chen Lo said the band’s “cultural refugee” status in Beirut was a blessing in disguise. “To be honest. Not only did it force us to pull our resources together in a short period of time, but also it gave us the freedom to shape our experience with minimal interference from the US embassy,” Lo said.

Lo, a well-established hip-hop lyricist who has performed with hip-hop heavyweights like Nas and KRS-ONE, singer Erykah Badu and with legendary Last Poets member, Abiodun Oyewole, was joined in Beirut by Ken White, a jazz drummer and percussionist with influences as far ranging as Indian classical music to West African drumming.

White said, “While the embassy seemed content to settle for the bare minimum of conditions…Broadly speaking, I think we were successful in doing much of what we set out to do. We put on a showcase event at Beirut’s City Theater (Masrah al Medina) that highlighted some of the best talent the Lebanese hip hop scene has to offer.”

The musical director of The Lo Frequency, White and Lo formed the original Liberation Family in 2007, two years after meeting at New York University. Now the band includes DJ Scandales, a Queens, New York-native and veteran turntablist who gets down with many of New York’s hip-hop royalty, and one of the few women bass players holding it down on the New York hip-hop scene, BAASIK. Rounding out the group are North Carolina native soul singer Shannon Grier (Editor’s note: crazy vocal skills) and guitar phenomenon Hakhi Alakhun – a musician that gives me faith in my long jaded view of the guitar.

Beats and Breath caught up with Chen Lo, White and DJ Scandales just days after their return to the United States in early December to find out what went down in Beirut and to talk more generally about what they thought of the development of the Arab hip-hop scene – having seen hip-hop in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

NOTE: Since this interview, a lot has happened to the Lo Frequency and in the Arab world. The Arab Awakenings took root and continue throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The Lo Frequency continued building their musical repertoire, and in April, the Fam raised $7,800 in 30 days to pay for the costs of recording, mixing, mastering and packaging an EP of their music to be called The Export. And they shot a music video which will be included in a forthcoming post – directed and produced by Merass Sadek.

The whole Lo Frequency family (l to r: BAASIK, Chen Lo, Hakhi Alakhun, DJ Scandales, Ken White, Shannon Grier) Lens: Fatima Quraishi

BEATS AND BREATH: Why did you decide on a residency in Beirut – I mean compared to all of the other cities that were part of the first tour you did?

CHEN LO: We had a chance to rock in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. There were some strong scenes in other places we visited, some stronger than others (like the scene in Morocco). But Beirut was the place that felt like the powerhouse of the developing scenes. There was some very advanced talent here. Also, the environment, more than many others, was fertile soil for a major movement. Artists were tapping into the history of the place as well as plugging into the cosmopolitan and vastly international city that is Beirut. We just felt nature could take care of the rest.

KEN WHITE: I’d say what ultimately drew us back more than anything else was the particular personal connections we made with members of the scene. For instance, almost immediately, we had a real friend in John Nasr (aka Johnny Damascus) from (Lebanon’s live hip-hop band) Fareeq El Atrash (Forward Music Label). Turntablist DJ Lethal Skillz was a great contact point, a real professional who offered great potentials for further collaboration.

As well, for me Beirut represents a crossroads culture- a culture with a recent history of traumatic events that’s caused social upheaval…and subsequently there’s a desire to rebuild and redefine itself. You combine this with its central proximity to cultural hubs like Europe and North Africa, and add to that its center stage position in world politics – it makes Beirut fertile ground for cultural mingling, collision and creation. So when we came on our first trip to Beirut, we found a lot of like-minded people rooted in the history and the essence of hip-hop trying to build a scene and a community.

B&B: This second tour of duty in Beirut was meant to be with US embassy support – but that wasn’t what panned out in the end. What happened?

CHEN LO: We received a message (last May) that a major venue in Beirut wanted to do a collaborative performance experiment with us. Through a little cost sharing with the US Embassy in Beirut, it was proposed that they (the venue) would bring us (the Lo Frequency), house us, pay us a fee and deal with our incidental expenses.

We decided to enhance this proposal by structuring a Hip Hop Academy, followed by a showcase performance at the venue and even unique musical fusions with some of the world class musicians that worked there (at the venue). Of course the US embassy jumped all over the idea.

To say the least – when we got here we realized the venue had other things in mind and nothing worked out with them. Unfortunately (and fortunately) their final offer was not in our best interest at all and in the end they contributed absolutely NO resources to the process – which left us out here on our own.

The US embassy supported us in endeavors that were in their best interest like English speaking Access classes in a few areas around Lebanon like Tripoli and portions of the Hip Hop Academy ended up getting funded but in a severely stripped down form.

Still, in regards to really tapping the scene and moving forward, we had to hustle on our own accords. To be honest, it was the best thing that could have happened. Not only did it force us to pull our resources together in a short period, but also it gave us the freedom to shape our experience with minimal interference from the US embassy.

DJ SCANDALES: I can say that I saw Ken And Chen put In over 6 months of work with phone calls at like 4 in the morning…we were in Vietnam (on our world tour) last May when we started planning for our trip to Beirut.

Our (the groups) goal was to enhance, create and record with this hip-hop Academy – and a lot of effort went into this to assure its success — only to be undermined by our own embassy. I mean our schedule was reduced from 2 months to like 2 weeks in total, and much of it was put together the day of our meeting with the Embassy after we actually arrived in Beirut. We pretty much were newborn babies dropped off on someone’s doorstep with a note attached. Except the note had no explanation just a closing greeting of “Thanks!” But we’ve had 15-years of real world experience with in the music industry – we bounced back.

KEN: What surprised us was the amount to which we needed to rely on our local partners and our own dedication and drive to get anything meaningful done. It seemed as though the embassy agenda did not extend as far as we thought and as far as our intentions were taking us. The bare minimum seemed to be sufficient for them. It was truly our local partners in and around the hip-hop scene in Beirut that made the experience pretty monumental. In the end it worked out for the best.

Snap at their Beirut showcase for the hip-hop academy workshop> Lebanese MCs (l to r) Edd, Malikah, Ram6, Chyno Lens: Karen Kalou

B&B: What do you think about the hip-hop scene in the Arab world. Is there really a scene to speak of? Is it regional? Is it pan-Arab? What’s your assessment?

KEN: It’s hard for me to say whether there is a strong unified Pan-Arab hip-hop movement…yet. I feel it developing though.

CHEN LO: I’d say there definitely is a scene in the Arab World. In my experience over the past year, it seems like hip-hop in all of its various manifestations and angles is flourishing at a greater rate outside of the US. The Arab world is a part of that growth for sure.

DJ SCAN: For me, during our tour we saw major differences from the more seasoned Moroccan scene to the much newer Syrian hip-hop scene,

CHEN: Yeah, I think there are some regional differences, but I think it is Pan-Arab. I haven’t seen hip-hop all over the Arab World, but we’ve encountered a lot of it. North Africa, if you include it in the Arab world, has two very strong and established scenes in Algeria and Morocco. In many other places, including Lebanon, things are developing at a very rapid pace.

DJ SCAN: But what makes the Arab hip-hop scene so fresh is that it is still in its early growth stage and is untainted by Corporations dictating the direction of the music and culture.

KEN: True but there has been a lot of divide and conquer throughout the Arab world by colonial powers. People are also very entrenched in their politics. As a result, the major cross-national hip-hop scenes I see are centered on political movements like the Palestinian cause.

What I find most interesting about hip-hop in the Arab world is the commonality in the way in which most artists say they came to hip-hop. Almost across the board, artists saw hip-hop as the tool that spoke to them the most to express what they experience around them everyday. And in a climate, where proper outlets to do that are essential, it reminds me much more of the conditions in which hip-hop began in the South Bronx. As more and more artists gain popularity and begin to collaborate across national borders, they’ll find common ground and common cause in the culture of hip-hop.

B&B: Now that you guys are back in the US have you experienced any culture shock after being in Lebanon for two months?

CHEN: Being back in the US, culture shock is definitely in effect. We’re plotting on our next overseas endeavors in 2011 and working on an album. These are exciting times for us. We want to keep collaborating with artists all over the globe and making a living doing our passion. We have to get it while it’s good and make it better. KEN: It was definitely disorienting for me and still i haven’t really settled back at all. I’m still trying to get over missing all of our new friends. Our experience in Beirut was really a beginning – a launching pad to not only come back to Lebanon but tap into similar movements all over the world.

The Export - EP (The Lo Frequency's first release)

Arab hip-hop’s Don of the Bass – exclusive interview with Johnny Damascus of Fareeq al Atrash

I interviewed John Imad Nasr aka Johnny Damascus -co-founder of Lebanon’s live hip-hop crew Fareeq al Atrash – one month after the release of their self-titled debut album on the Forward Music label last July, 2010.  This abreviated interview appeared in the Jordan-based men’s magazine UMen, and is being re-published after the debut of the Merass Sadek-directed music video featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center hip-hop ambassador’s The Lo Frequency family with members of Fareeq al Atrash after a one-month workshop with The Lo and Lebanon’s hip-hop community last November in Beirut.

Mad respect to John for the time. Beats and Breath will soon release the writer’s edit of  The National article on Fareeq al Atrash’s debut album with interviews with the rest of the band in the weeks to follow.

In his Beirut studio - Johnny Nasr on his Fender (lens: Tanya Traboulsi)

BEIRUT – Johnny D has to be about the most humble figure in the Lebanese hip-hop scene. He’s a veteran of the 961 old-school and one of the architects of the burgeoning new Arab hip-hop sound. And…I’ve never seen John front; dude’s never been anything but kind and welcoming to both fans and critics.

John has witnessed hip-hop scenes come and go over the last 10 years in Beirut, and perhaps it is because of this transience that John has no delusions about Rap 3rabi and its place in the minds of the masses. In a sense Lebanese hip-hop and Johnny D have grown up together, and he’s taken the knocks and bruises and come out better for it.

That’s what makes the debut album of Fareeq al Atrash so special. Up until now, there’s been no real permanence to speak of musically. No real sense of history or continuity with the hip-hop scene here. With the exception of a few heads, Johnny D is showing the youngsters coming up that there is at least one musical forbearer.

The original version of Fareeq al Atrash – “the band name being a pun on famed Arabic singer Fareed Al Atrache” – was a purely funk-driven jam band that had its heyday between 2002 and 2004. Although it was a hint at what was to come, the band – and Johnny – went through some serious soul-searching after the death of percussionist, beat-maker and group co-founder Issam Raad in 2004.

A few months before the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, inspiration struck when Johnny D met local MC, Edouard Abbas aka (El) Edd – who I called the MF DOOM of the Arab world in a November 2007 magazine article. The two struck up an instant friendship and spent the war building the foundations, both lyrically and musically, for Fareeq al Atrash’s current sound.

Now the group includes the band’s original guitarist Ghassan Khayyat aka Goo, two of the scenes strongest lyrical rap talents, Edd and Nasser Shorbaji aka Chyno – and Lebanon’s most gifted beatboxer Fayez Zouheiry aka FZ.

Of course, the unspoken story of Fareeq al Atrash’s debut album release is the backing of Forward Music, the Beirut-based label that features the visionary efforts of co-founder Ghazi Abdel Baki who is more well known for producing musicians like Charbel Rouhana (Oud) and Suffi singer Mustafa Said in what one local critic called “diverse, layered, genre-fusing world music.” (Baki also composed and arranged the horn section on Farreeq al Atrash’s debut album.)

Talking with Johnny D at his apartment in Beirut, he told me that Fareeq al Atrash was respecting Arabic and hip-hop musical traditions by signing with Forward Music.

Fareeq al Atrash in studio (left to right: Edd, Goo, Johnny D, Chyno, FZ) [lens: Tanya Traboulsi)

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BEATS AND BREATH: Let’s talk about something that is key for the growth of any music genre or scene – entrepreneurial risk-taking – I’m talking about label support. There’s your label Forward Music – and another one called Eka3 Records – that represents at least two risk takers. There’s certainly not an Arab hip-hop label. So tell me about Forward?

JONNY D: Let me just mention a record label that is now defunct but that did a lot of good work over the years.

B&B: Incognito?

JOHNNY D: Yeah, Incognito. They did a lot of good work over the years.

B&B: But Incognito was not a real label in the sense that they didn’t give their artists much backing or promotion, they produced, recorded and manufactured limited copies, but it was up to the artist to promote themselves. That’s not a real label.

JONNY D: Sure. It was run out of a CD shop. But the thing with Forward – to put it into context – they are celebrating their 10 year anniversary. In the Arab world, that’s impressive in and of itself.

Everybody at Forward is pretty much veterans from the music scene during the Civil War here and beyond. One of their musicians – Charbel Rouhana -  is like an idol to me. When I was 15 (now 30 years old) I went to one of his concerts just randomly and I was blown away.

His bass player, Aboud Saadi, who I think is one of the founders of Forward Music – he still works closely with them. Wow. For me to be part of a continuity with that musical history, I really felt like it was important for me to get signed with them.

B&B: Well that’s really rare. You don’t hear musicians talking about a label like this.

JOHNNY D: No you don’t. There not your typical kind of label. They really do embody a spirit of independence in a place where it’s hard to navigate. And they’re really trailblazers and go for the gusto. They really couldn’t give a shit for what’s established.

When Ghazi (Abdel Baki) started Forward Music, he’s said it was his mission to get Arabic music or even the pop music phenomenon out of the corn-ball phase that it was in at the time (and is still in to today). He wanted to make authentic, beautiful Arabic music again with totally organic instruments – and with classical arrangements.

I think about his work with Ghada Shbeir and his work with Soumaya Baalbaki. And Forward’s incredible work with Mustafa Said, the visionary Sufi singer. All those records are bold.

It was really flattering for them to consider us as a group. We’re the first hip-hop group they’ve ever signed. Our type of music appeals to a much younger audience than they’re used to – with the exception of Ziad Sahab (a local oud virtuoso).

If authenticity is a part of what makes hip-hop what it is – as Afrika Baambata would say – then I feel like we’re part of a very authentic scene here – of musicians and of like-minded, independent free-thinking people.

B&B: Do you think you’ll end up incorporating more of the T’arab or Arab musical influences into your funk stylings?

JOHNNY D: We actually have experimented with Arab musical strains. And we’re totally open to it. But the only reason we’ve shied away from it is because we kind of fear the gimmicky sound to it. Like as soon as you put some Oud into it or some Takasin (Johnny hums the melody.) Then you’re screwed. I just turn that shit off as soon as I hear it – no offense to anybody out there doing that.

For me Track 4 – Tighla Ma’ezzita – embodies a look to what could be a future sound.

(We listen to the track.)

What you might notice from this track is in a typical 4/4 beat, but it’s syncopated in a way that denotes a dabke (dance style) beat – without suggesting to people immediately that “Oh this is Dabke,” or this is very Lebanese. Somebody from anywhere can still listen to this and be like, “This is straight up hip-hop.”

But this is probably the most “oriental” track of the album – “oriental” with quotation marks of course. It combines funk and hip-hop and a local flavor and our local language.

“]

Fareeq al Atrash in John's Studio. [Lens: Tanya Traboulsi

B&B: Translate the song

JOHNNY D: It means it gets dearer to me, and becomes more important to me with memory – it weighs on my mind more heavily with time.

This song I’m really proud of and it’s “Middle Eastern” enough. I’ll definitely want to include for the future, artists from Forward Music on future records. But it wasn’t in the cards for the songs we chose.

We didn’t want this album to be a gimmick, and we didn’t want to throw it in there to satisfy anybody. We stuck to pretty much what we were best at, and the inclusion of horn arrangements on our album is pretty much an update for our sound I think.

B&B: I see that you pull from all sorts of rare-groove, and jazz elements for the backbone of Fareeq’s music. You pull from guys like Roy Ayers, Miles Davis, Funkadelic…name some other artists you’re pulling from.

JOHNNY D:  Man…Fela Kuti is one of the biggest influences both in terms of the music itself and in terms of music being political activism that’s real and can make a difference. I know we haven’t made much of a difference yet, but it’s my dream to be able to be part of a movement to emancipate and empower my people here.

B&B: And with respect to your people here at some point as you gain power and influence with your music, you’re inevitably going to come up against the powers that be. Especially if your lyrics are political – as they clearly are. Are you prepared for that – and what could happen in regards to things like censorship or jail time?

JOHNNY D: I am actually worried right now because a lot of lyrics on this record are not entirely acceptable to polite society. Although it’s important to note that there is no cursing on the record. But there’s just a lot of controversy and a lot of content that could offend certain people of certain preoccupations.

So I’m still waiting to see what happens…or are they just going to ignore us?

B&B: Ignore or censor? Perhaps ignoring is the greater of the two in this case?

JOHNNY D: Well trivialization is a very powerful weapon of any establishment. And as it stands, I don’t know if we are being ignored or aren’t being noticed yet. I don’t know.

Not sure if I should say this honestly or not, but we get a lot of attention from media outlets that we openly criticize on our record. I honestly think it’s either very big of them to continue to do stories on us even though we slam them, or I’m not sure if they’ve actually noticed yet.

B&B: You’ve said Philadelphia’s rap heroes – the live hip-hop crew The Roots, consciously inspired you and that you’re trying to be an extension of the certain musical traditions.

JOHNNY D: They were pretty much THE catalyst for what got me listening to hip-hop very seriously as a genre around 1996. I was more of a jazz or funk dude who also loved hip-hop. To me that was kind of like what my elitist, hipster, bourgeois understanding of music was all about.

Hip-hop – I guess it goes without saying – is just an extension of those traditions.

B&B: That’s a clear reference that you’re trying to make?

JOHNNY D: For sure. Even in our music, we try to introduce that continuity locally to our audience. A lot of people here don’t draw that conclusion. People here don’t see this music as an expression of Black American music past. They don’t see it as an extension of the music because they might not like hip-hop or maybe they don’t relate to it. Or the media spins it in a way that gives them a bad impression or a superficial understanding of what hip-hop is in a way.

B&B: But do you think people really care about these linkages at the end of the day?

JOHNNY D: (laughing) No I don’t. I think my job is to make them care, and to make them feel that this type of music is just that — it’s music. And we’re trying to pay our dues to the culture ourselves.

However, if you listen to the first song of the record – Njoom ‘Am Te’rab – during the last 3rd of the song is basically us reinterpreting the Sugar Hill Gang’s ‘Rapper’s Delight.’

This is where it started and it – ‘Rappers Delight’- was the first song to break radio airwaves in the United States, and we hope that this song will kind of break ground like that as well.

Album cover to Fareeq al Atrash's self-titled debut album on Forward Music