More (free) cool music: Moroccan Street; For Stuart Hall; Egyptian trip-hoppy Nadah El Zhazly; more mahraganat

 
1. Thanks to Tim Abdellah Fuson and his invaluable blog Moroccan Tape Stash, a link to samples from the Moroccan Field Recordings at the Pitt Rivers Museum. The recordings in question were made in 1961 by an Oxford University "expedition." And Tim does us the favor of describing and adding his own keen insights into these recordings.

2. Nabeel Zuberi, author of, among other things, Sounds English: Transnational Popular Music (2001, University of Illinois Press), has done a wonderful mixtape in tribute to the late Stuart Hall. As you would expect, it's very political, transnational Caribbean, etc. And illuminating -- I was not familiar with most of the material, except for Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth's "Good Life" and Linton Kwesi Johnson's "Reggae Fi' Peach." And I was familiar with some of the artists. And I loved these lines from a great track by Eddy Grant, "Living on the Front Line":

Me, no want nobodys money
There lord they sugar me no want to see
Me, no want to shoot Palestines
Oh I have land, oh I have mine

3. Thanks to Sherine for alerting me to this article in Mada Masr about Egyptian singer Nadah El Shazly, who I had never heard of. The article doesn't mention it, but the clear influence, at least as far as "Western" sources, seems to be trip-hop, of early to mid nineties vintage. Particularly on the songs "Shorbet Rosas" and "Ghaba." (Check them out on El Shazly's Soundcloud page.) They also remind me of the work of Lebanese group Soapkills (vocals, Yasmine Hamdan), who I think wore their trip-hop influences on their sleeve. There is more going on than that, of course, and El Shazly is capable of other sounds as well, as in her collaboration "Athar Nowaa" with Egyptian rapper El Rass.

4. And Cairo Liberation Front (who are Dutch) have a new mahraganat mixtape, available here. With music from Islam Chipsy and Sadat & Alaa Fifty Cent and more.

Enjoy.

"Maxi Pries wears the Israeli Keffiyeh" --- wha???

Check out this, er, surprising vid, featuring respected British reggae artist Maxi Priest.



The kufiya he is wearing is the record label Shemspeed. It describes its products thus: Israeli Keffiyeh, with its intricate Star of David pattern in the left piece, and words AM ISRAEL CHAI (Jewish People Live) in Hebrew weaved into its fabric in a variety of colors. Check them out here. Colors include blue-and-white, purple, "Army (IDF)" and "Rasta Tiedye."

But there is more to this product than simple appropriation -- though I think it is certainly susceptible to such a claim. Shemspeed also offers the Peace Keffiyeh, which it describes thus:

Peace is something everyone wants, every language in the world has a version of this world in their vocabulary. One of the long standing feuds have been between Jewish & Muslim people, which is the inspiration behind the peace, shalom, salaam Keffiyeh. Though peace talks have been taking place for years now and the divide has grown even wider with harsh actions & rhetoric on both sides, yet it seems there is a consensus that both sides want peace, the problem is that each side wants it on their terms. 

We are launching a grass rout campaign to try to focus on the similarities on these Semitic people rather than on our differences. At the end of the day the roots are quite similar in nature since both faiths originate with Abraham and with a shared culture (before the Jews settled around the world) history and now the land. The only sustainable option is coming in terms with a peaceful resolution to this long standing divide. Here is our contribution to this effect. 

The peace "kef" comes in both black-and-white and red-and-white.

I do, honestly, appreciate the sentiment. And the fact that the patterns of the "peace kef" include both Stars of David and the traditional kufiya pattern, and that peace is written on the "kef" in both Hebrew and Arabic. This all comes from the orientation of DJ/producer Erez Safar, who is the founder of Shemspeed, also the founder of the Sephardic Music Festival, and is of Yemeni background. This "Israeli keffiyeh" then should not be read simply as an attempt at Zionist colonial appropriation but as an effort on the part of an Israeli Jew of "Oriental" background, i.e., a Mizrahi, to stress the cultural commonalities between Arabs and Jews. 

Before passing even cursory judgment on Safar's and Shemspeed's projects, I'd need to become more familiar with the Sephardi Music Festival and with the artists on Shemspeed's label. I am somewhat familiar with Pharaohs Daughter, who I like, though not wildly, and the Hasid reggae artist Matisyahu, whose music I sometimes like but whose politics, when it comes to Israel, I'm suspicious of.

I'm can't imagine that Erez Safar and Shemspeed will be warmly welcomed by many Palestinians or Palestine activists when they call try to reclaim the kufiya as Israeli, or when they infuse it with Star of David patterns. Or when they marked "IDF" kufiyas. Nor are they on very convincing political ground when they act as if both "sides" are equivalent in their "harshness" of their actions and rhetoric. One "side" is an occupying and colonizing force, with enormous military and economic assets. The other is an occupied people resisting. There is no equivalence.

And yet...I welcome Shemspeed's efforts to push the Sephardi, Eastern, Mizrahi side of Jewishness, to challenge Ashkenazi identity. Even at times, to "Arabize" it. Check out, for instance, the Moroccan-Israeli singer Smadar's "Ghali Ya Bouy." Very hot. And she is from Sderot...

Oh, and if you are interested, Shemspeed has other "kef" products (I really don't like this hip abbreviation, sorry), like the Kabbalah Kef and the Kef Shawl and various Kef Skinny Ties. 

By the rivers of Babylon

Journalist writing Rachel Shabi is an Iraqi Jew, born in Israel to parents who migrated there from Iraq in the early fifties and then moved to England. In her book, We Look Like the Enemy: The Hidden Story of Israel's Jews from Arab Lands (New York, 2008), Shabi writes that her father lampoons the legend of Iraqi Jews weeping beside Babylon as they remembered Zion.

"They weren't crying, " he says. "They were singing and dancing and drinking arak!"

Can someone, someday, write and record a vision of that brilliant reggae song?

UB40 Concert, NYC, May 7

I'm posting this on behalf of a friend who is helping to promote the concert.

To aficionados of old school reggae: UB40 will be performing in New York, on Thursday, May 7 at the Nokia Theatre in Times Square. UB40 are from Birmingham - formed in 1978 - and (as 80s heads may know) have had 50 hits in the UK. They gained popularity in the US with the release of Labor of Love, an album of cover songs; their breakout hit on this side of the Atlantic was "Red Red Wine" (a cover of a Neil Diamond song.) Other hits include "Groovin'", "I Got You Babe" with Chrissie Hynde (who discovered them) and "Kingston Town" (a remake of Lord Creator's 1970 version, though UB40's version is a tribute to the earliest West Indian immigrants to England - see newspaper headline: "Town Stages Dance For Coloured People").

See video

Concert Info

Discount Tickets Available!

That (Sudanese) Target Ad

You've all seen it, that Target "dorm dance" ad, with what must be one of the best dance tracks and vocals ever in a mainstream advertisement. And you think, yes, every cool song, and especially now, the coolest world fusion tune, must, immediately and invevitably, be turned into a marketing tool.



(And if you are some nostalgist who imagines this never happened in the sixties, check out The Rolling Stones shilling for Rice Krispies, below.)



The song is "Calabria," by DJ Enur from Denmark, and features vocals by Natasja Saad, a Danish dancehall/reggae vocalist whose father, it turns out, is from Sudan. I can't claim there is anything remotely "Sudanese" about her singing, which is pure dancehall.

But she seems to be trying to look vaguely Sudanese in this photo, no?

On the other hand, here's Natasja in a more typical "dancehall" look.

Natasja was not just a star in Denmark, but also "the first non-Jamaican reggae/dancehall artist ever to win the Jamaican 'Irie FM Big Break Contest,'" according to wikipedia.

Here's the "official" video, in which Natasja appears. Pretty typical dancehall fare, I guess: one guy in a suit, ogling all the beautiful semi-dressed female bodies.



Natasja was killed in a car wreck in Jamaica in June 2007. "Calabria" was already a global hit by that time; in January 2008, it hit Number One on Billboard's Hot Dance Airplay.

And for those of you who are a little slow on the uptake when it comes to Jamaican patois (as I certainly am), here are the lyrics you hear on the Target ad:

Easy now no need fi go down (2x)
Rock that run that this where we from

Whoop Whoop, when you run come around,
Cu(z) I know you're the talk of the town, yeah

Best shown overall, shiny and tall,
One touch make a gal climb whoever you are,
Brass hat, hatter than fireball
Whoop Whoop!
You not small you no lickle at all