Sarah Carr on Amr Haha

In last week's podcast, we played a song by DJ Amr Haha, which as I explained is the sound of Cairo now: hip-hop mixed with drum'n'bass mixed with Egyptian shaabi. I'm very jealous that Sarah Carr of the Inanities blog got to meet him. Read her account of a baladi wedding featuring DJ Amr.

Revolution spreads to America

This is very funny.

Zenga Zenga

This won't be new to many of you, but I just got to see it after returning from Greece. Catchy.

Music: Against the government

Voice of Freedom

Yet another good song--and the first music video to have been properly (and cleverly) staged in Midan Tahrir. Written and performed by, among others, Hany Adel--member of Downtown stalwarts Wust Al Balad. 

(thanks to Mandouza)

Another #jan25 music video

Mohamed Mounir asks, "Ezzay?"

That didn't take him long. He should play at Tahrir! 

Mish Ba3id, the North Africa revolution mixtape

A bunch of North African hip-hop artists have produced this mixtape compilation of revolutionary songs. 

Get it here or here [direct dl link].

#jan25 - the soundtrack

Arabian Knightz and Lauryn Hill have laid down the first track in honor of Egypt's uprising.

Rebel 

A lot of songs were played in Midan Tahrir in the last few days — any suggestions to what might make it to a soundtrack playlist?

Casals and Bach's cello suites

From a wonderful interview of Eric Siblin, the author of a book on cellist Pablo Casals popularization of Bach's cello suites, by Scott Horton of Harpers:

When the ideological barricades went up in Europe in the 1930s Casals, like many, took sides. His position was not surprising given his background. As someone whose father had been an anti-monarchist Republican, and as a native Catalan—which meant being very wary of Madrid’s centralizing powers—Casals was predisposed to favor the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. When Franco and his fascist troops, assisted by Hitler and Mussolini, won the civil war in early 1939, Casals was forced into grief-stricken exile. He remained an anti-Franco activist for the rest of his life, enlisting his reputation and cello for the cause. The most famous instrumentalist of his day, Casals went so far as to silence his cello, refusing to perform in any country that had diplomatic relations with the Franco regime in Spain. Casals would have related to the politics of Bono more than Bach.

His pioneering recording of the cello suites was made towards the end of the 1930s when the Spanish Civil War was convulsing his homeland. That monumental recording, which has never gone out of print, has remained the touchstone for every cellist since. Had the civil war not been raging in Spain, I doubt there would have been the same degree of urgency, desperation, and hopefulness in that epic recording.

Six cool things about Morocco

 As most readers of the blog know, Issandr and I spent the summer visiting and reporting from Morocco. What follows is a belated, personal and haphazard list of some cool things I discovered there. 

1. Music. Hindi Zahra, a Berber-Moroccan-French singer-songwriter. 

Hindi Zahra - Stand Up
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2. The online magazine Mithly, the first Arabic magazine by and for gay men (Click here to hear my interview with the editor).

Click to read more ...

Egyptian Reggae

Jonathan Richman- Egyptian Reggae
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Jonathan Richman is a Boston-raised musician credited to be an early innovator of punk rock along with his band, The Modern Lovers. In 1977, he had a hit single (reaching no. 5 in the UK) with this instrumental track, Egyptian Reggae. The video above is not his, but a skit done along to the tune of unknown origins.

Moroccan rap: Fez City Clan

Fez City Clan — check out the kid's solo at around 1:56.

South Sudan's "Time To Vote" song

Not crazy about the song, but it certainly packs an emotional punch. And what a beautiful place.

Cheer up, Israel

When will the injustice done to Israel stop?

The international community has imposed an “emotional blockade” on Israel that has prevented the world from sympathizing with Israeli citizens, according to France’s Ambassador for Human Rights Francois Zimeray.

“World compassion has not gone to Israel,” said Zimeray, noting that both Israelis and Palestinian have suffered as a result of the conflict. “The world does not realize how intense this [Israeli] suffering can be.”

Quick, quick, let's have something that'll cheer up those Israelis. I can only think of the following as adequate to the task — its sophistication and elegance mirrors that of the arguments of Israel's apologists:

Incidentally, having listened obsessively to the above masterpiece for the past week and done quite a lot of digging into the careers of the incomparable Delfin, the sultry Tigresa Del Oriente and undeniable prodigy that is La Pequena Wendy, I must report that this video is not their work alone. If you're a Spanish speaker you will have noticed that the video starts with Delfin's lament that Israel is not accurately portrayed on television. (As any Delfin afficionado will tell you, every Delfin video starts with an ugly truth revealed by the tube, like in his first hit, the tasteful commentary on 9/11 that is Torres Gemelas.) But the production quality of this song — En Tus Tierras Bailares, or "In Your Land I Will Dance" — is actually far above their previous hits. Yes, yes, that includes La Tigresa's unforgettable Anaconda and Wendy's classic ode to beer, Cerveza Cerveza.

The simple reason for this is that it is produced by the quite talented Gaby Kerpel, a Jewish Argentinian folk musician. Why did he decide to recruit Ecuadorian and Peruvian Indians specializing in Andean trucker music for this piece of hasbara? Who knows. I don't even know whether it's exploitative or actually deeply subversive. But I think we are all deeply in his debt.

God Only Knows

No doubt powered by a serious cocktail of amphetamines, Hosni Mubarak undertook his first trip abroad this week since he was hospitalized in Germany — a sign that he is gradually returning to business as usual, or at least that he wants to be seen as doing so. His regimen these days seems to be a meeting a day, and one major speech in two or three months. During his trip abroad — a summit with Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, with whom he is said to be plotting to corner the hair dye futures market (a hot commodity from the Mediterranean region to the Gulf to South Asia) —Boss Hozz came out with the following pearl:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Wednesday that only God could know who would succeed him following his 29-year-old rule, the official MENA news agency reported.

Dogging a question on his possible successor by an Italian reporter, Mubarak spontaneously said that “only God could know that.”

It reminds me of something a friend of mine who's often sought for commentary on succession used to frequently say about Egypt's post-Mubarak future and the deliberately cultivated ambiguity about it: "not even God himself knows what Mubarak is thinking about succession." This might be an apt time to reflect a to why Mubarak has never designated a successor or appointed a vice-president who would be seen as such. As I see it, there are three main reasons:

1. In the early Mubarak period, there was a clear alternative from within the regime in Field Marshall Abu Ghazala, who was ousted from his position as minister of defense in 1989 and remained under house arrest (more or less) for the rest of his life. By not appointing a vice-president, Mubarak refrained from formalizing that alternative. After he consolidated power, Mubarak never saw a need to anoint anyone else with the vice-presidency, since even personalities not thought to be presidentiable (such as himself and Anwar al-Sadat) obtained legitimacy from the position. Cultivating a strategic ambiguity about succession has kept attention where Mubarak likes it best: on himself as kingmaker and ultimate decider.
2. A second related reason has to do with threats from outside Egypt rather than inside it. Had there been a vice-president, it would become tempting for a certain major power (you know who you are!) looking to influence Egypt's domestic and foreign policy to meddle in regime politicking. Just look at Pakistan's history. It would have also been tempting for peer powers in the region — Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Israel — to also have another point of contact within the Egyptian regime that could present a credible alternative.
3. A final and more speculative question that has to be asked, considering Gamal Mubarak's rise in influence over the past decade, is whether Mubarak pere has been plotting to install his son for years. It's probably more organic than that — Gamal's rise stems from his father's reluctance to share room at the top of the pyramid; a son is a natural trusted proxy (although not always, as deposed sultans of Oman and Qatar know). But one of the more interesting questions in today's Egypt is how Hosni Mubarak feels about tawreeth: is he fully on board, reluctantly so, or even very ambivalent about in a "King Lear" elderly paranoid way? 

 While you think about that, listen to this track (dedicated to Mystic Mubarak):

And then go on to read Adam Shatz masterful portrait of late Mubarak Egypt at the London Review of Books, Mubarak's Last Breath:

Under Mubarak, Egypt, the ‘mother of the earth’ (umm idduniya), has seen its influence plummet. Nowhere is the decline of the Sunni Arab world so acutely felt as in Cairo ‘the Victorious’, a mega-city much of which has turned into an enormous slum. The air is so thick with fumes you can hardly breathe, the atmosphere as constricted as the country’s political life.

Frustration, shame, humiliation: it does not take much for Egyptians to call up these feelings. It’s still often said that ‘what happens in Egypt affects the entire Arab world,’ but nothing much has happened there in years. Egypt has fallen behind Saudi Arabia – not to mention non-Arab countries like Turkey and Iran – in regional leadership. Even tiny Qatar has a more independent foreign policy. Egypt is by far the largest Arab country, with 80 million inhabitants, yet it’s seen by most Arabs – and by the Egyptians themselves – as a client state of the United States and Israel, who depend on Mubarak to ensure regional ‘stability’ in the struggle with the ‘resistance front’ led by Iran.

Read the whole thing.

Don't go breaking my heart

Elton John should come to Egypt, because he'll find plenty of people as nuts as he is here:

Cairo - Egypt's musician's union on Sunday rejected plans for British singer Elton John to perform at a private concert scheduled for May 18, because of his "controversial remarks attacking religions".

"How do we allow a gay, who wants to ban religions, claimed that the prophet Eissa (Jesus) was gay and calls for Middle Eastern countries to allow gays to have sexual freedom," head of the Egyptian Musician Union, Mounir al-Wasimi told the German Press Agency dpa.

The pop superstar, 63, stirred controversy after his remarks to US celebrity news magazine Parade in February, where he said: "Try being a gay woman in the Middle East - you're as good as dead," after saying he believed Jesus was "gay".

By the way, there is something quite hilarious about how some Egyptians, when speaking in English, refer to homosexual individuals as "a gay," as in, "he is a gay."

Musical notes

1. Notes from Palestine is a blog and video documentary project following a group of Palestinian musicians teaching music in the West Bank. Through that, it explains a lot of the restrictions imposed by the occupation, from the wall to ever-expanding settlements, as well as the difficult choices the musicians must make to follow their calling. Below is the latest video installment in the series, which is being filmed by Finnish researcher Eero Mäntymaa.

A place to call home from eero mäntymaa on Vimeo.

2. Lately I have been obsessed with this great early/mid seventies track by the virtuoso Egyptian guitarist Omar Khorshid, who played in Abdel Halim Hafez's and Oum Kulthoum's orchestras as well as his own band.

Here's the track, which is a kind of psychedelic funk meets Arabica:

Rakset al-Fadaa

That album cover comes from a recent compilation by the fantastic label Sublime Frequencies (which also put the great Omar Suleiman we mentioned before) which is reviewed here.

3. On a different register, I never listened much to Natalie Merchant, but came across her latest collections of songs based on children's nursery rhymes at the TED podcast. I really like this one:

The Sleepy Giant 

Do watch the TED podcast which had that song and other great performances:

4. Shaaban Abdel Rahim is really getting rather tiresome and unimaginative, but here is his latest track for the return of Hosni Mubarak.

 Welcome Back Mr President

Shish Kebab

 Ernest Gellner, Culture, Politics and Identity.

L'Odeur du Shishkebab

(By 1960s Quebecois band Les Marcassins du Val)

[Thanks, E.]

Abdel Halim's "Ahwak"

Abdel Halim Hafez, because I have no time to blog properly this morning. Lovely song.