113 feat. Rida Taliani, "Partir Loin" (rai 'n' b)

From the 113 album, 113 Degrés (2005). Rapping on this song is done by Rim'K.

Lyrics (from here, with some corrections)

Reda
-Ouais gros!!
-elle est où Joséphine!
-allez laissez moi de toi!
-ah bon c'est comme ça!
-mat hanich!
-113 Taliani!
-c'est bon!

refrain:
(Reda Taliani)

Yal babour ya mon amour
Kharejni mel la misere
Fi bladi rani mahboure
Aite aite ou j'en ai marre
Matrabish vocation
Fi dari sa fait montemps
Hada nessetni qui je suis
Nkhdem aali a jour nuit
Yal babour ya mon amour
Kharejni mel la misère
Evasion spéciale L'Algérie l'occidentale

rim-k:
Moi je suis de kabylifornie
On fumait 350 benji
Sur les bords de la corniche
Habsini maalich
Rien a perdre Rim-k le malade mentale
plus connu que le hadj memba
J'voudrais passé le hénné a ma bien aimée
Avant que je taille
Comme Cheb Hasni jsui sentimentale
Partir loin,rien a perdre
C'est Boston ou la cheba
Laissez moi de toi
Comme Robinson sur une ile
Mon mouton je l'apellerai Mercredi
Dès que l'avion atterie
Comme les chibanies jvou rends la carte de residence
Un moment d'évasion ya yma leve toi et danse

Réda taliani:
ça fait plaisir

Refrain :Reda taliani
Yal babour ya mon amour
Kharejni mel la misere
Fi bladi rani mahggoure
Aite aitou j'en ai marre
Matratish l'occasion
Fi dari sa fait longtemps
Hada nessetni qui je suis
Nkhdem aali a jour nuit
Yal babour ya mon amour
Kharejni mel la misère
Evasion spéciale L'Algérie l'occidentale

J'reste bledard, debrouillard
J't'annonce ammene moi loin de la misere
Mon + fidele compagnon en route pour l'elolado
Tellement plein c'est quoi dirou lsac a dos
Partir loin sans les cousin
Le plein toujour les carages c'est dur
J'me considère chanceux d'etre en vie
Pourvu que sa dur
J'ai grandis qu'avec des voleurs
Du haut toujours les youyous qui résonne
Dans ma tete etre a la quete du bonheur

Reda Taliani:
Yal bledi nti fik el khir
Nedi elii hanousse zhar ya aachlei
Andou lktef wou tzidi loul baloul bahr

Refrain : Reda taliani
Yal babour yamon amour
Kharejni mel la misere
Fi bladi rani mahggoure
Aite aitou j'en ai marre
Matratish l'occasion
Fi dari sa fait montemps
Hada nessetni qui je suis
Nkhdem aali a jour nuit
Yal babour ya mon amour
Kharejni mel la misère
Evasion spéciale L'Algérie l'occidentale

R2da Taliani
Yal babour ya mon amour
Kharejni mel la misere
Fi bledi rani mahggoure
Aaite aaitou j'en i marre
Matratish l'occasion
Arwah arwah c'est le moment
Hada nessetni qui je suis
Nkhdem aali a jour et nuit

Yal babour ya mon amour
Kharejni mel la misere
Fi bledi rani mahggoure
Aaite aaitou j'en i marre
N'sacrifie wine dire
Nta rouhi ntala wilili chah

Rim-k:
Algéri,Maroc,Tunisie
Viens jt'enmmene vien vien
(Taliani : ya yaaaa Yaaaa,ya Wouldi Ya Wouldi,wouldi)
Laissez moi de toi ! rraaay
Vive la J.S.K
MAGHREB UNITED
Algérie, Maroc, Tunisie réuni fi
Maghreb United
Partir Loin,

pour fuir les problemes qu'on a dans la tete mec !
Farid Williams o clavier, Rachid le toulousain o percus,
Maghreb United !

Cheikha Rabia Live

CHEIKHA RABIA Live from Dinamyte on Vimeo.

Here's what Amazon.Fr says about Cheikha Rabia, regarding her 2007 release, Liberti:


En ce temps-là, le long des plaines riches en vignobles de l'Oranie, la vie n'était pas si belle, mais le soleil était plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui. Le jour, des troubadours, sous une chaleur accablante et une poussière âcre, hantaient les souks de leurs refrains, contant leur quotidien, dont même un chien ne voudrait pas, juste sauvé par le gong du tempo. La nuit, à la fraîche, les chants deviennent encore plus gris, lors de gasra (veillées entre hommes, animées par des femmes-maîtresses), où la danse fi nissait par l'emporter sur l'apitoiement sur son sort. Leur musique était estampillée gharbi (l'ouest en arabe) et repose sur une dizaine de modes, baptisés le plus souvent du nom de la région d'origine et se jouait sur cinq rythmes différents : le tenqar (lent, sorte de blues calqué sur le pas de chameau), le hamza (un peu plus vif), le alaoui (très rapide et générateur d'une danse aux confi gurations fascinantes), le guebli (montagnard, léger) et le taoussi (imitant la démarche du paon). C'est à ce trab (terre, terroir...), comme l'on nomme le raï des racines, et à sa verve poétique sauvegardée par la tradition orale, que Cheikha Rabia, est restée fi dèle. Elle l'illustre, à l'enseigne de cet album, par une voix pathétique et des complaintes narrant, sur fond de gasba (fl ûte de roseau) et de guellal (percussion longiline),des histoires d'amours contrariées, des rêves d'évasion ailleurs pour échapper à la solitude et à la détresse morale et sexuelle, ou le destin, parfois tragique, de femmes trahies par leurs sentiments. A côté de ces histoires d'amour qui fi nissent mal en général, on sent parfois poindre une lueur d'espoir ou une profonde nostalgie. Née il y a un peu plus de cinquante ans à Relizane, une ville des plaines oranaises, Rabia n'a pas eu une vie facile. Après la Première Guerre Mondiale, son père, qui a combattu pour la France, revient avec deux pieds en moins, puis il meurt, bien des années plus tard, en 1954, en laissant neuf enfants. Une tante férue de raï les prend en charge. En 1962, Rabia, âgée de 16 ans, entre dans la vie professionnelle comme secrétaire auprès d'un médecin français mais, à l'heure de la sortie, elle se mêle aux spectateurs des fêtes de mariages et de circoncisions animées par les meddahates (ensembles exclusivement féminins). En 1965, elle se produit elle-même dans un café algérois, puis dans quelques boîtes où elle se fait un petit nom. En 1977, elle débarque à Paris où elle ouvre un bar qu'elle tiendra jusqu'en 1988. Au cours de la même période, elle enregistre plusieurs cassettes, avec la complicité des musiciens Baghdad Saïdi et Abdallah Relizani, sans pour autant arriver à se faire entendre. Il est vrai que le raï électrique des Cheb, mais aussi la présence de Cheikha REMITTI tenaient le haut de l'affi che. Cheikha Rabia, qui a introduit des choeurs féminins dans ses chansons, va enfi n trouver quelques oreilles attentives au Bédjaïa Club, le dernier lieu mythique parisien où l'on peut encore écouter du trab. Aujourd'hui REMITTI n'est plus (elle nous a quittés en mai 2006) et Cheikha Rabia perpétue seule un genre « habité », en voie de disparition dans sa terre d'origine. En son coeur et ses chansons brûle un feu qui ne s'éteindra jamais, celui de la passion pour un style à la fois hors mode et à la mode.

Breaking News, Tamer Abu Ghazaleh

I love this song by Palestinian artist Tamer Abu Ghazaleh. I wish I had time to make an effort to translate. But here are the first two lines:

إلى كل الجعانين من تشيلي للصين
هناك أكل مجاني في أرض فلسطين

To all the hungry, from Chile to China/There's free food in the land of Palestine.



Tamer describes himself as follows: "A composer of alternative Arabic music, and an Oud, Buzuq, and vocal performer. The lyrics in his compositions are in formal (fus-ha), Palestinian, or Egyptian dialect, written by himself or by Arab poets. The lyrics, in general, are not directed towards a specific theme; they express an array of human experience that is not defined by time or place: love, challenge, insecurity, boredom, thrill, frustration, etc."

To learn more about Tamer and to listen to more of his music, go to his Myspace page.

Egyptian Sha'bi for the revolution

Here's a quite wonderful song, in the sha'bi vein, from Mona Liza.



Somebody: please translate.

Khaled Mattawa on Libyan music

Khaled's article recently published by The Daily Beast, "Libya's Explosive Music Revolution," is really invaluable. Links to lots of important youtube clips of Libyan singers, like Nasser al-Mezdawi and Ahmed Fakroun.

The Nasser al-Mezdawi vid is for a song called "Shantat Safar." Please go here (to my blog Kanz al-Tuhaf) for a different, and I believe, the original version of the song, provided to me by a Libyan friend.

Libyan Merskawi Music: 'Abd al-Jalil 'Abd al-Qadir

Khaled Mattawa tells us that Merskawi music was one of two styles of urban music to emerge in Libya in the 1970s. Merskawi's "conventional lyrics and traditional rhythms along with the hard living of its singers made it the favored sound among the young and disaffected. Singing mainly at private gatherings, Merskawi performers commanded top dollar, as well as the commensurate supply of local moonshine and hashish, which were all happily provided to them even in conservative Libya."

Also courtesy Khaled, I learned of a fantastic Libyan Merskawi artist, 'Abd al-Jalil 'Abd al-Qadir. Please check him out. The performance reminds me a bit of Pakistani qawwali. It's partly the presence of the accordion, but it's also the relaxed feel, the spontaneity, the fact that the musicians are seated, and the length of the song. Below is part one of the song راد الله عليا. Please check out part two as well. It's really fabulous. Such a find!

R.I.P. Dimi Mint Abba

Dimi Mint Abba, Mauritania's best-known singer (at least abroad), passed away in early June. Read Robin Denselow's obit in The Guardian here. And check out this brilliant live performance. R.I.P.

Mustapha Bakbou, live at Mawazine festival, 2011

Yes, this is 'festivalized' Gnawa music. But it's one of the grand masters (m'allims) of Gnawa, Mustapha Bakbou (a.k.a. Baqbou), in great form. It's not a jam with foreign musicians. The accompanying percussion and electric bass for the most part firm up rather than overshadow the beats of the qraqeb and Bakbou's guinbri playing. The filming is crisp and the sound is excellent. Highly recommended. Although going to a lila is better, always. But not usually possible.

Highly recommended-- Houria Ivanan: Pop music From Kabylia

Thanks to Abdellah, I just learned about the music blog Cartilage Consortium. They have many interesting tracks of Middle Eastern pop music to download. Check out the most recent post, with two tracks from 1984, from Houria Ivanan, an early pseudonym for Nora At Brahim. Great stuff!

Hussein Barghouthi and Sabreen

Short doc on poet and Sabreen lyricist Hussein Barghouthi. Notable especially for footage in the beginning of Sabreen in concert. Footage must date from the early 80s?

Lebanese rap group Fareeq al-Atrash

Some great beatboxing here. The group help raise money for the Free Gaza Movement, below. Love the use of the live instruments.

A review of Fareeq al-Atrash's album "Fareeq al-Atrash (pre-album) + a link to download is here. More on the group from BabelMed here.

Speed Caravan Live, feat. Mehdi Haddab on oud, "Galvanize"

JEREMIX / SPEED CARAVAN from JEREMIX on Vimeo.

Great 'ud playing from Speed Caravan's Mehdi Haddab, ex-Ekova, and currently also 1/2 of DuOud. The percussionist, Mohamed Bouamar, formerly played with Natacha Atlas.

Mambo al-Sudani, Sayyid Khalifa

From the film, Tamr Henna, starring Naimah Akif and Rushdi Abazah.

Ali Hassan Kuban vids

In Abdeen and in his club.

In concert, in the seventies?

Karam Mourad, "Assaramessuga"

Karam Mourad is the nephew of Hamza El Din, and here he performs a song by his uncle.

Take Away Show _ KARAM MOURAD (outtake) from Vincent Moon / petites planetes on Vimeo.

More Hamza El Din

"The Wish": for a new Nubia, on the banks of Lake Nasser.

"Ollin Arageed" -- the song he used to perform with the Grateful Dead.

More on the tuffar

From an essential article, "Hizballah's Domestic Growing Pains," by Marlin Dick, via Middle East Report Online.

On Hizballah and the tuffar:

Meanwhile, Hizballah has largely washed its hands of the tuffar -- outlaws in the northern Bekaa Valley involved in cannabis cultivation. The tuffarhave remained aloof from both the government and Hizballah, having retreated to the outer reaches of Lebanon, where they represent more a voice of protest than a plan of action. The popularity of their cause stems from corruption and waste in the central government, the lack of profitable alternatives to drug farming and the specter of nearly 40,000 outstanding warrants hanging over the heads of Bekaa residents. Hizballah leader Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah has demanded an amnesty or another solution to the warrants issue.

During and after the civil war, Syrian military and intelligence officials managed the unruly clans in the northern Bekaa, whose turf battles had a propensity for violence, and since Syria’s 2005 withdrawal, Hizballah has not filled the vacuum. While continuing to sponsor reconciliation between the area’s clans, it has not acted to end the disturbances once and for all. Hizballah is not pulling the strings of the tuffar movement, but rather eyeing it warily as an offshoot of the network of Bekaa tribes it has yet to fully coopt. Perhaps because of the charged sectarian climate of recent years, the party has not lobbied hard for the canceling of outstanding warrants -- a move that would benefit the Shi‘i community. Meanwhile, Hizballah has refused to condone the acts of violent Shi‘i clan members or criminals, or to protect the mini-industry of car theft centered in the village of Barital. Clashes between the Lebanese army and outlaws have become more frequent since Syria’s withdrawal and Hizballah has generally offered its tacit blessing for army intervention in towns like Baalbek, where clan members have engaged in shootouts in the streets, sometimes with rocket-propelled grenades.

Touffar, "Habr 'Awaraq"

photo: Sam Tarling

Touffar are a terrific rap group from Ba'albak, Lebanon (I had thought they were Palestinian, but it seems not). I particularly like this song. Unfortunately, I don't have the time (or adequate skills) to try to work on translating and making sense of it, or other Touffar videos (there are lots on youtube). Here's an article in Arabic on the Touffar phenomenon (again, lack of time prevents me from further work.) So this note serves as (a) an expression of my fondness for the song in question (b) a kind of placeholder and (c) hopefully an incitement to someone who knows the dialect well to translate the song into English. The lyrics of the song, helpfully, are present as subtitles in this video.

The first I heard of Touffar (or Tuffar), was from Angry Arab, who wrote this on Nov. 9, 2009:

There is a movement that needs to be covered more in the press. It is the Tuffar movement in the Ba`albak region. Some [c]overage of the movement suffers from prejudices and from stereotypes about them as criminals and drug dealers. Even an article in Al-Akhbar a few months ago did not deviate from that norm. Tafar is being very poor, or penniless. Tuffar characterizes a movement associated with the Ja`far clan in Ba`albak and champions the poor and neglected in the region. It is Shi`ite but not with Hizbullah and not with the Amal movement, the two Shi`ite political groupings in the region. Many in Lebanon blame (often unfairly) the car theft and drug dealings on Tuffar. Tuffar is a lawless movement that champions rebellion against the government, and is more political than often assumes. A supporter sent me rappings by Tuffar which speak to their sentiments and feelings and political expressions. There is this one and this one. Listen carefully to the lyrics. By the way, the Lebanese accent of that region is my favorite accent from Lebanon. It is close to Fusha and I like how they stretch words: so jurd becomes jooord.

And after a little searching, I found a link to an article by Josh Wood on Touffar from Esquire Middle East. You can download it here. I excerpt below some interesting bits.

The disintegration of the legitimate economy means cannabis cultivation, gun-running, banditry and petrol smuggling have become a way of life for many in the [Ba'albeck] region. The illegal economy is complicated by the presence of a highly complicated system of clan politics – which, when combined with a general population that has more guns than the armies of many small nations, often leads to violence.

“Touffar” means outlaws, a reference to the men and women who have resorted to arms to protect their livelihood and land at all costs, both against the Lebanese government and others who wish to impede. It is a culture in the Bekaa resulting from absolute desperation, which the band points to in their music. The other side of the coin is the pride people feel to this region. Their loyalty to the land and to resistance are also major themes in Touffar’s music. This has helped create bridges between their music and unlikely listeners, such as Hezbollah, the Lebanese Party of God...

In Beirut, I finally meet up with Touffar at a currently hip “communist” bar in Hamra that serves up economysized beers at bourgeoisie prices, yet still attracts members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine along with plenty of Che-obsessed youths wrapped in kaffiyas.

Nasserdyn has long hair and a skinny face and enthusiastically talks about the band with good English. The author of most of the band’s lyrics, Jaafar, is slightly bearded and more reserved than Nasserdyn, butting-in at random moments of inspiration. While they are hip hop artists, the guys aren’t wearing bling, baggy clothes or stiff baseball caps. They opt instead for strikingly conventional t-shirts and shorts, making it hard for me to spot them as I walk into the bar. Together, Nasserdyn and Jaafar make up Touffar. They’re hanging out with a member of Katibe 5, a well-known local Palestinian rap group that emerged from Burj al-Barajneh, Beirut’s largest Palestinian refugee camp. The Palestinian refugees, numbering up to four hundred thousand in Lebanon, have a natural kinship in poverty and disenfranchisement with many from the Bekaa Valley.

Jaafar and Nasserdyn cut to the chase and lay out the essence of the group: “Touffar is the way of life that is outside of the law,” Nasserdyn explains. “We are the people the government wants to put in jail, and we don’t want to give ourselves up — we’re like outlaws.” Jaafar and Nasserdyn deny ever running into trouble with the law or engaging in any (really) illegal activities themselves. But they say that they took on the persona of outlaws to give the region a voice. They acknowledge that their spirit of resistance does in fact make them outlaws in the eyes of many, such as the Lebanese state...

Living as outlaws in the Bekaa, according to Jaafar, is “a way of living, because we don’t have another choice.”

“If you want to live, if you want to eat, you have to do certain things,” adds Nasserdyn.

From their brevity – and the angst in their lyrics – it seems that they might actually be the real deal: their way of life is something real and inescapable, not some lifestyle choice or teenage rebellion...

For Jaafar and Nasserdyn, rap has always been about resistance – an out to vent frustrations, to subvert the government and to bring about change. While they insist that their sound is not inspired by anybody in particular, they speak of older American rap music, written by frustrated African-American youth in the ghettos. This was long before before American rap turned more towards lyrics about dollar bills and swimming pools filled with girls in bikinis.

“Rap music is fight music,” explains Jaafar.

While the band repeatedly chastises those who leave the Bekaa, forced to move to Beirut or emigrate abroad due to the poor economic situation, it is ironic to find them in Lebanon’s capital. They assure me that they are only here for their concert and to complete their education and that they still live in Baalbek.

“If there was a university in Bekaa, the government would make sure that it was s***,” says Nasserdyn bluntly.

In the batch of songs they are currently recording, emigration to Beirut by Baalbek’s youth plays a key role. For Touffar, those who abandon the land of the Bekaa and give up the fight to protect the land, are racked up as traitors to themselves and their home. While they understand these motives, the band looks down on those from the Bekaa who take up menial jobs in Beirut (“they deserve a slap in the face every morning,” says Nasserdyn) and also the rogue clan members who have taken to armed robberies in the Lebanese capital.

Beirut bothers them, visibly...

Their song title “Al-Wasakh al-Tijari” or “Commercial Filth” is an Arabic reference to downtown Beirut’s commercial centre, which is called al-Wasat al-Tijari. The lyrics relentlessly attack the development of the city centre by Hariri’s company Solidere and question who benefits from these ventures.

“Our music is not just about Baalbek,” Nasserdyn tells me. “It’s about the people who robbed Baalbek to create this place [Beirut] for kings from Saudi and the Khaleej [the Gulf ].”

“They want to turn Lebanon into a big hotel… And we say that Lebanon isn’t a hotel or a brothel.”

This anti-commercial establishment sentiment spreads further than lyrics. Far from 50 Cent’s “Get Rich or Die Trying” model, Touffar says that they’re not in the business for the money. Given that they’ve refused to record an album onto CD thus far (they spread their songs virally through YouTube and from person to person on mobile phones) this claims might be valid. In their first headline concert in Beirut, the band charged a paltry two dollar entrance fee; just enough to cover overhead costs. If they feel that they have successfully brought about change, they suggest, perhaps they’ll stop rapping. If they start feeling that their music is doing little in the way of change, another path might be in order.

“Right now we are fighting with our lyrics. Maybe later we will fight another way to get our freedom and liberty.” says Jaafar “The real resistance is by bullets.”

Ali* al-Yaghi sits, like he does everyday, in a roadside café next to a grassy park in the relatively upscale Baalbek neighbourhood of Ras al-Ain, gently pulling on a Marlboro Light. A former hash and arms dealer, twenty-year-old Ali is now training to become a Hezbollah fighter and hopes to fight and perhaps become a martyr during the next war with Israel. He differs immensely from the arak-swilling socialist intelligentsia in Beirut, yet he is just as enthusiastic supporter of Touffar and a personification of the group’s lyrics.

“Ibn Baalbek ma yamot” he says upon being asked about the band, before breaking out into an impromptu performance of one of their songs. “The son of Baalbek does not die” — a motto of Touffar that epitomises the spirit of resistance held by the residents of the Bekaa.

We’re sitting under a large portrait of the turbaned and bespectacled Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in yellow chairs...Ali sits with his mobile phone on the table, alternating between Touffar songs and videos of Hezbollah fighters ambushing Israeli patrols...

Ali embodies the Bekaa tragedy that Touffar raps about. After finishing secondary education, he quickly realised that there were few opportunities to work. Like many, he chose to go illicit – selling hashish and guns until he was arrested by Lebanese internal security forces over a year ago. Hezbollah bailed him out. Then they handed him an American-made M-16 and he began training to join the Party of God’s military wing.

In an environment where work is nearly impossible to come by, even for the educated, the modest stipends of Hezbollah’s militia become an alluring factor for those not scooped up in the Bekaa’s illicit economy.

“Only Hezbollah saves Baalbek.” he says. “The only other work is hashish. If the government took care of Baalbek, then people wouldn’t grow hashish. Right now, all we do is sit and wait.”

The café owner looks up from his counter. “Look at Beirut: Saad Hariri p***es money!” he says scathingly, attacking the opulent reconstruction of downtown Beirut.

“We [in Baalbek] love Lebanon, but the state does not love us back. There is only Hezbollah for us here.”

Hezbollah and Touffar are odd bedfellows. While the rappers’ music obviously does not resonate heavily with many in Hezbollah, the message of resistance does. Similarly, Jaafar and Nasserdyn’s self-proclaimed secular attitudes clash heavily with the Islamist oriented mission of Hezbollah, but at the same time, they are fighting the same fight and thus enjoy a heavy following by those who identify with Hezbollah. The first line of their song “Madina al-Shuhada” (“City of the Martyrs”) gives light to the attraction: “The road to Jerusalem begins in the city of the martyrs (Baalbek).”

Yet Touffar is not a group of Hezbollah rappers. Nor are they socialists or gangsters or any other adjective that could be thrown in front of them. They are young, they are angry and they are very proud of their hometown, a city that was once an axis of empires, now fallen into disrepair. They tell me not to expect to see them on MTV or to see their albums on the Billboard charts. They just want to get their message out, they want to show the realities of life on the ground in the Bekaa and make their lives and the lives of those around them just that little bit better.

Again, inshallah someone will do more on this. If you check out the Touffar vids, you will see lots of shots of hashish plants. The Beqa'a Valley, where Ba'albak is located, is renowned for its hashish. (It's where "Lebanese blonde" comes from. You know, of course, the Thievery Corporation song by that name.) Conditions of production are pretty rough.

Zaid Hamdan & The Wings, Digla, Laal

I was recently blown away by three great rock songs from the Middle East and South Asia, so I thought I would share.

1. Zeid & the Wings, "General Suleiman."

Zeid Hamdan was formerly in the fabulously terrific Lebanese band Soapkills, described by many as "Lebanese trip-hop." Zeid & the Wings is his new project. This song is so catchy and fabulous.

I can't get all the lyrics, but they include lines like "all the militias go home," "foreign intelligence go home," and so on.

Read more about the song here. And check out this episode of The Monocle for a long interview with Zeid (in English) and several of his songs.

ADDED DEC. 11, 2012:

Here's a transcription of the lyrics, found here (and which I located thanks to the comment from Anonymous, below.)

General Suleiman

Gene Gene General
General Suleiman
Gene Gene General
General Suleiman
Salam Salam Salam Aleik
General Suleiman
You're a Miracle Man
For peace in our nation
General Suleiman
You're a miracle man
General Suleiman
You're a miracle man
Put your weapons down
Put your weapons down
Now it s time
To leave your warlords behind
Everything is fine , and they ll be no more crime
Let the country shine with general Suleiman
General Suleiman
You're a miracle man
General Suleiman
You're a miracle man
Gene Gene General
General Suleiman
Gene Gene General
General Suleiman
Salam Salam Salam Aleik
General Suleiman
You're a Miracle Man
For peace in our nation
All the milicia man GO HOME
Corrupted politician GO HOME
To Weapon dealer say GO HOME
To trouble maker say GO HOME
Foreign intelligence GO HOME
Neighbourgh influence GO HOME
All the milicia man GO HOME
Corrupted politician GO HOME
To Weapon dealer say GO HOME
To trouble maker say GO HOME
Foreign intelligence GO HOME
Neighbourgh influence GO HOME
Gene Gene General
General Suleiman
Gene Gene General
General Suleiman
Salam Salam Salam Aleik
General Suleiman
You're a Miracle Man
For peace in our nation
General Suleiman
You're a miracle man
General Suleiman
You're a miracle man
Gene gene general , GO HOME !

2. Digla, "Highlights."

This is such a catchy pop-rock song. If the world were fair, it would be on the charts in the US and elsewhere. At first brush, you wouldn't imagine that it came from Cairo, Egypt. What I especially like about it is that it is not only Top 40 material (in a good way) but that it also expresses its Egyptianness in a seamless manner. About 1 minute into the song, the singer breaks into Arabic, singing "ya layl" (oh night, a stereotypical phrase of the Arab mawwal), with the added percussive backing of a tambourine (daff) and the derbouka--which also are shown in the video. The "Arabic" elements are integrated seamlessly, however, they don't break the rhythm or the feel of the song at all. You don't get any feeling of "hybridity" here, no sense of "East" and "West" being harnessed together. It just all works as a rock song.

I've not listened carefully to the lyrics, but these have their local flavor as well. One of the lines is about the juxtaposition of a donkey cart parking beside a tourist bus.

The video is terrific too, typical scenes of Cairo, but happy, upbeat ones. Just like the song. Some day, a group from Lebanon or Egypt will make it onto the Western rock charts, without the artists having to move to London or Paris or New York. The talent is certainly there.

3. Laal, "Doob Gaya Hai" (song for Pakistani flood victims)

I've written about this leftist Pakistani folk-rock group at hawgblawg. Just check out the remarkable images, which give you some ideas of the unimaginable devastation and suffering that have been wreaked upon the Pakistani people by the recent floods. If you feel so inclined, here are some ways that you can help.

Here are some recommended avenues for making donations:

Relief4Pakistan

Via the US government, if you are so inclined. It's easy, text "SWAT" to 50555 and make a $10 contribution that will help provide tents, clothing, food, clean drinking water, and medicine to people displaced by floods.

The Nation magazine offers an array of ways to help, in this article by Pete Rothberg.

Zar music in Egypt: al-Mazaher and Rango

The zar cult is widely practiced in Egypt, the Sudan, and coastal East Africa. Anthropologists of the Middle East are familiar with it through the work of IM Lewis' classic Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession (originally published in 1971) and Janice Boddy's Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan (1989). The practices associated with the cult involve possession by spirits who then must be propitiated in ceremonies that involve the playing of music. The zar cult bears a family resemblance to the Gnawa cult of Morocco.

Although the cult is quite common in Egypt among the lower classes, and especially in Southern Egypt and among descendants of immigrants from the Sudan, at the time I lived in Egypt its rituals were pretty much in the shadows, as far as I can tell. I knew a student at AUC, Hager El Hadidi, who was doing research on the amulets associated with the ritual. Here's an example of a zar amulet, depicting one of the zar spirits, Yawri Bey, as an army officer.

Photo: Sigrid van Roode, from Bedouin Silver, with permission

Hager never got me to a zar ritual, and I don't know anyone who went during the time I spent in Cairo. In this regard, the zar was very different than the Gnawa cult in Morocco, where it is not hard to get into a lila, an all-night Gnawa ceremony, if you have the right contacts. Moreover, the music associated with the Gnawa is very well known in Morocco. In the 1970s the Gnawa ritual, music, and practitioners were quite marginalized; today Gnawa is at the center of Moroccan popular culture. The annual Gnawa festival in Essaouira is the country's biggest festival.

It appears, however, that things are changing for the zar in Egypt, and it is becoming more publicly visibile, as a musical, and ritual, practice.

First, through the appearance of a group from Cairo, al-Mazaher, that performs zar music in public. It appears that the main space where it performs is Makan, a performance space established by the Egyptian Center for Culture and Arts (ECCA) in Sayyida Zaynab, a popular quarter close to downtown Cairo. In addition to zar music from al-Mazaher, Makan has featured Nubian music (from famed Nubian musician Sayed al-Gayer) and baladi music from Mawawil. Here's a video of al-Mazaher at Makan:



And here's another, of al-Mazer performing with Oficina Zoè, from Salento, Italy.

And here's a brief clip featuring dancing to the accompaniment of the tanbura (or simsimiyya), a six-stringed lyre, which, in the zar ritual, is supposed to bring down the spirits, much as the ginbri does in the Gnawa ritual. The dancer is wearing a a percussive instrument called the mangour, a leather belt sewn with numerous goat hooves.

Rango is a related genre of music, played at ceremonies that closely resemble the zar. The chief difference seems to be that rango is specific to descendants of Sudanese immigrants to Egypt and that the chief instrument is the rango, a xylophone made of wood. The wooden blocks of the xylophone are attached to gourds, the vehicles through which the spirits manifest themselves and enter the devotees of the cult, when the music is performed at rituals.

The last (apparently) surviving rango musician, Hassan Bergamon, was "rediscovered," after the screening of a documentary on rango on Nile TV in the '90s. He has formed an ensemble, called Rango, and the group has been performing in Egypt and abroad, and the group recently released an album, called Bride of the Zar.

Here's a photo of Bergamon and his rango.


You can read more about the group, and listen to samples of the songs, at the group's website, here. The samples are quite interesting, and two of them resemble Gnawa music: track one, "Sawakin," and track four, "Ahlan be etlat asyad" (welcome to the three lords). The playing on the tanbura sounds like the ginbri, and the singing resembles that of the Gnawa. And track four, a song that, I guess, welcomes the coming of three of the spirits or djinns, would appear to be like the Gnawa songs that welcome the mluk, and in particular, the song "Merhaba."

And check out the videos of the group on youtube, accessible through the group's website. I particularly like this one, "Major."



Go here for another article about Rango, from the magazine Prospect. The author is incorrect about the "lost Sudanese tribal language called Rotana." Rotana is the colloquial name that Egyptians gave to the two Nubian languages, Feddika and Kenuzi. These languages are by no means lost, but are spoken by thousands, maybe tens of thousands of Nubians.

I find it of note that zar music as well as zar ritual has become much more visible in Egypt at the same time that orthodox Islamic views, which look with great disfavor upon such rituals that involve spirit possession and in which both men and women participate, are on the upswing. Stay tuned.

Added July 8:

Check out this account of Rango's concerts in Bradford and Selby, courtesy of the invaluable blog, Tales from Bradistan.

It states that all the members are of Nubian background. Given rango's origins in Sudan, this of course makes sense, and also makes sense of the fact that Prospect (see above) refers to lyrics in Rotana, the name Egyptians in the past used to describe the two Nubian languages. It means "gibberish," and is derived from the verb ratana (رطن).

It means, "to speak an unintelligible language, to talk gibberish, jabber" (Hans Wehr). The name reflects the fact that, back in the day, Egyptians considered Nubians to be "primitives." The term is still in use, and I once heard Nubian musician Ali Hassan Kuban use the term to describe speaking Nubian.