Current Analysis Hip-Hop of the Revolution (The Sharif Don't Like It) In Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World, journalist Robin Wright describes and analyzes what she considers an important new trend in the Muslim world: the rejection of “Muslim extremists.” She views the Arab uprisings that began in Tunisia in December 2010 and quickly spread Ted Swedenburg • 6 min read
MER Article The Grand (Hip-Hop) Chessboard In November 2006, the film The Making of a Kamikaze by Nouri Bouzid, a respected Tunisian director, was screened to great fanfare at the Carthage Film Festival. The film, a collaboration between the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Tunisian Ministries of Interior, Defense and Culture, examines the grievances Hisham Aïdi • 46 min read
MER Article Troubadours of Revolt Rami ‘Isam, a 23-year old pony-tailed singer for the so-so rock band Mashakil, based in Mansoura, showed up at Tahrir Square on January 28, 2011, guitar in hand and ready to join the pro-democracy revolt. His music soon became an important component of the Tahrir scene, as the insurrectionists set u Ted Swedenburg • 4 min read
Current Analysis The Song Does Not Remain the Same Starting in the late 1990s, and especially following two stories by CNN's chief international correspondent, the British-Iranian Christiane Amanpour, Westerners were treated to a slew of articles and broadcast reports aiming to “lift the veil” on Iran. Amanpour’s second story revolved around “youth Ramin Sadighi, Sohrab Mahdavi • 13 min read
MER Article "Let Us Be Moors" “Seamos moros!” wrote the Cuban poet and nationalist José Martí in 1893, in support of the Berber uprising against Spanish rule in northern Morocco. “Let us be Moors...the revolt in the Rif...is not an isolated incident, but an outbreak of the change and realignment that have entered the world. Let Hisham Aïdi • 33 min read
MER Article Arab "World Music" in the US “World music,” defined as “a marketing term describing the products of musical cross-fertilization between the north -- the US and Western Europe -- and south,” [1] attracts a growing audience in the US. Since the mid-1980s, this term has come to incorporate just about any music of non-European origin -- Ted Swedenburg • 13 min read
MER Article Le lute de Bagdad Given the rich lyricism and pointed social quality of contemporary Arabic poetry, it's no accident that politically motivated Arab music is usually vocal rather than instrumental. The close collaborations between Marcel Khalife and Mahmoud Darwish or Egyptian singer Shaykh Imam and Egyptian poet Ahm Elliott Colla • 4 min read
MER Article Cartel: Travels of German-Turkish Rap Music “You are a Turk from Germany.” The words are from the song “Sen Turksun” (You Are a Turk) by German-Turkish rap group Cartel. Cartel shot to prominence in 1995 in Germany and Turkey with their album, “Cartel,” which within a month of its release sold 30,000 copies in Germany and 180,000 in Turkey. T Alev Çınar • 5 min read
MER Article Burj al-Barajna Dispatch After making my way through the rubble and squalor of the overcrowded refugee camp near Beirut’s International Airport, I arrived half an hour late for my appointment with Umm Muhammad, a local living repository of Palestinian folk song traditions. Reem Kelani • 3 min read
MER Article Zionist Lesbianism and Transsexual Transgression The music of Dana International, a transsexual singer committed to queer issues, often parodies mainstream Israeli culture. Her latest song, “Diva,” was recently selected by the Israeli Broadcasting Authority to represent Israel at this May’s prestigious European song competition, Eurovision. [1] As Yael Ben-zvi • 12 min read
MER Article Al Miskin International/Tainted Love What is up in Egypt? In Cairo, Mustafa Bakri, was deposed as editor-in-chief of al-Ahrar following the failure of the mutiny he led in the halls of the Liberal Party to depose of its leader, Mustafa Kamal Murad. Bakri stormed the party headquarters with 600 armed followers and had himself voted pres Al Miskin • 3 min read
MER Article A New World Order, A New Marcel Khalife Marcel Khalife has always demanded a certain respect for his formal compositions when performing, interspersing his most popular songs featuring the phenomenal voice of Omayma al-Khalil with more symphonic, purely instrumental pieces. But during his last tour of the United States this insistence on his status as a composer was Robert Blecher, Elliott Colla • 7 min read
