"Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories," highlights the significance of Santa Rosa Junior College in Sonoma County as a beacon for Women's History Month celebrations. Rooted in the legacy of advocating for women's rights since 1978, this region has been at the forefront of national recognition for this movement. Join us in honoring the remarkable journey of women across generations, celebrating their achievements, and reflecting on the progress we've made.
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Women’s Voices in
(Indie) Arabic Music
By Dr. Ramzi Salti (Stanford University)
Here is the corrected and edited transcript of Dr. Ramzi
Salti’s talk about “Women’s Voices in Arabic Music” which was presented for
Women’s History Month at Santa Rosa Junior College on March 7, 2024. You can read the entire transcript below or watch
the video with CC (transcript) turned on at this link.
Welcome Comments by Solen Sanli Vasquez
[Solen] I'm Solen Sanli Vasquez and I teach Sociology here
at the college we're in for a treat today.
We're really so grateful and so honored to have Dr. Salti with us today.
My colleague Heidi Saleh and I had heard him during our fellowship that we did
at Stanford University and since then this has been a dream to bring him to
campus and talk to us here at SRJC so I'm one of the coordinators of Women's History
Month and I'm also one of the co-founders of the Middle Eastern and North
African Association here at the college. We're like a new, fledgling group and
we're putting on a lot of events so this event comes to you in collaboration with
both Women's History Month and the Middle Eastern and North African
Association.
I think one of our goals and one of our dreams today was to
talk about Middle Eastern Joy. As you know, there's so much tragedy going on in
the region at the moment and especially when we see representations of women. The
representations of women tend to be also around repression and violence and
just negative, maybe, representation. So
today we're in for a treat because we get to hear again about Middle Eastern
women, Arab women, in the context of the wonderful music that they put together
and perform.
So, Dr. Ramzi Salti as I said comes to us from Stanford University. He's a seasoned Stanford lecturer with a PhD
in Comparative Literature and a strong background in Arabic language,
literature, music and culture. He's also the host of Arabology, a radio
program/podcast that highlights music and other cultural productions from the
Arab world. You should definitely check out his podcast, it's awesome. So
without further ado I present to you Dr. Salti.
[Applause]
Introduction: Arabology and Women’s Voices in Arabic Music
I'm not going to go chronologically or geographically, I'm
just going by my feeling today, so welcome to my talk and thank you so much to
Professor Heidi Saleh and Solen Sanli Vasquez, my two new daughters or sisters,
who brought me here. They have been
fantastic and just another example of how when women in general, and Middle
Eastern women in particular, get together they get things done and I think that
if we had more women in power in the Middle East, in the Arab world, we would
be in a much better zone as you will see today.
So the talk today will include a lot of what we call indie or
alternative Arab women singers, you can see their pictures there and I'm proud
that I met most of them I could be like the grandpa or I can be like the DJ but
I have always been so proud to feature their music as they reach out to Uncle
Ramzi or DJ Ramzi. You will be seeing
some of these women through the video clips today and we're only playing little
segments.
Umm Kulthum (Egypt)
The first woman, unfortunately, I didn't get to meet because
she passed away in 1975, so I was a child then. But her name is Umm Kulthum;
that's not her real name, that's her nickname, but it's so popular that nobody
knows her real name. It is Fatima something, and Umm Kulthum is a powerhouse.
This woman was iconic, and is still iconic. In 1950s Egypt,
before Egypt even became a republic, she was friends with the king, King Faruk.
Then when the Nasser regime took over and Egypt became a republic, she became
Nasser's best friend. In other words, this woman was not just a singer; she was
a political voice, and she used it to talk about women too. She came from the
countryside, so there's no nepotism here. She was born very poor, and people
would hear this voice she had. She was trained quranically so she could also
recite the Quran. She came from a village in Upper Egypt, and when her father
heard her, they started bringing her to Cairo, where she became more and more
famous and rose to fame and eventually passed away in 1975.
The other interesting thing about her is she never married,
and she never had children, and yet she was always invited to be part of the
table. And I love that about Umm Kulthum, that she was beyond these, you know,
and she addressed issues of gender in the 1950s like what's wrong with a
woman not getting married? That was shocking in Egypt: What do you mean? Isn't
it a function for everybody to get married and such? And she stuck to her guns,
and now, later, we're finding all these interviews that can be considered subversive,
a 1950s Egyptian woman in that era, in that circumstance, speaking about her
freedom.
I'm going to play a song about Freedom today that she sang and
that can be applied, I think, to everybody who is oppressed today. All
oppressed groups can relate to this song that I'm going to play in a moment,
but let me first show you Umm Kulthum in concert in one of the very few color
clips, which is not colorized, it's not AI, it's actual color footage of her
one year before she passed. You're going to hear her say two words 'Ya Habibi.'
Do you know what that means? My love, my sweetie, my buddy, my friend. Habibi
is everybody, it's how you say it. Well, she says it from the heart, from the
soul of her soul when she says Ya Habibi, and you know how long her songs were
on average? 40 minutes per track! Can you imagine a song going for 40 minutes?
How can it be 40 minutes? The lyrics are yay long because of the repetition, so
when she says ya habibi once you're supposed to feel like okay, then she says
it again you're like oh I'm starting to get it by the third time you're like
hyperventilating by the fourth time you're rushing the stage This is Umm
Kulthum, like the repetition is supposed to bring you to a state of euphoria
which. We call it in Arabic 'Tarab' and if you can reach ecstasy through song,
you're going to feel this connection with the Divine. So here I'm just going to
play a little clip, and you're also going to see in the clip her funeral when
she died in 1975 in Egypt; the streets, the schools, everything shut down, and
everybody was in the street to say goodbye to this great lady. So Umm Kulthum
has a few documentaries in English if you don't speak Arabic or some have been
translated. One of the best ones is narrated by Omar Sharif if you know who he
is. He narrates the Umm Kulthum biography that is available on Amazon now, and
it's great to have an Egyptian icon narrate the story of another Egyptian icon.
[Video: Umm Kulthum Sings ‘Inta Omri’]
[Ramzi] But I see a lot of young people here. What do young
people think about Umm Kulthum today? Because when I was your age, kids, my dad
would play Umm Kulthum, you heard her, it's not exactly techno music so I would
be like ‘Dad please take this off she's just going on and on and on and on.’ God forgive me for saying this, wherever you
are Dad I'm sorry, because now at my age and for the past maybe 10 years she
has been my salvation. I feel what he was saying so you know here's what young
people have to say about her today.
[Video of young Arabs speaking about Umm Kulthum]
[Ramzi] So as you can see, even though she's been gone for a
very long time her songs still live on and a lot of them have been remixed.
Wait till you hear like you know a hip-hop remix with Umm Kulthum's voice, it
kind of works. I'm going to show you that quickly in a moment but here is a
typical moment captured on film where one word that Umm Kulthum says manages to
bring the audience to ecstasy, to Tarab. The word is Nazra, I think you might
know it Solen, nazra is to see so the word Nazra means 'a glance' it's just one
word Nazra, spell it N A Z R A, she just plays with the word Nazra where she
stays on the 'N' like Nnnnn. I mean I can't do it; it would be insulting for
her but you know and when she says NAZRA it's as if she sang an opera! People
go crazy and she laughs and it shows how there was this interplay, you connect
with the audience where I don't think too many artists in the history of music
could do that. I'm going to show you
what I mean.
[Video Excerpt of Umm Kuthum saying Nazra]
[Ramzi] So, what did you think of that moment? All it is is
one word, and you heard the audience interaction so she was, you know this was
before TV, but she was on the radio, from Radio Egypt. Everybody on Thursday
nights knew it was Umm Kulthum night, and they would gather and listen to her
live concerts, all of which have been on vinyl thank God and are now on iTunes
and everywhere else on Spotify. But here are her three biggest hits. Now I'm
not going to stay on Umm Kulthum too much because there's a lot of women coming
your way but one of her most famous songs is called Al Atlal. The second most
famous song is called Inta Omri which means 'You Are My Life,' and then we'll
do a little remix for you to move with Umm Kulthum's groovy beats today. In
terms of Al-Atlal, you know she's going to speak in Arabic. Naila, I don't know
if you want to translate. Maybe I'll just read the... because okay... Would you
translate into English, Naila? It's that one. All right so I will try to, okay,
pretend that I am Umm Kulthum chained in a relationship that's toxic deciding
to break free. Now that's pretty you know dramatic but I think if you
contextualize it within what was going on in Egypt then 'give me my freedom'
becomes the citizen rising against the monarchy and it becomes the oppressed
rising against the rulers so it's veiled in that she's in a relationship where
she's being controlled and she's going to break free which right there is big
enough but when you're add all those dimensions...so اعطني حريتي أطلق يدي Yalla
Naila!
[Naila] Give me my freedom, unleash my hands انني أعطيت ما
استبقيت شيئا [Naila] I have given everything and
left nothing for myself. For too long... No, no, hold on i need to do the
'ouch' that Umm Kulthum does آه من
قيدك أدمى معصمي
[Naila] For too long your chains have made my wrists bleed.
[Ramzi] So when she goes Ohhhh I mean I can't do it justice I hope you feel
like the pain but also this joy of breaking free. Okay so if you leave today
with one song you learned it's Al-Atlal and you can use it as a reference like
'Oh my gosh it's like Umm Kulthum when she cried out in pain in ‘Al-Atlal' Here
it is Did you hear that ouch? آخ من
قيدك أدمي معصمي The second song
I'm going to play is called Inta Omri 'You Are My Life' and that has been
remixed and re-recorded by hundreds of singers so I can't cheat you out of a
little part from Inta Omri where she says, if you can read in the middle, ‘Everything
I saw before my eyes first saw you was just wasted time how can they count it
against me?’ So I don't know if any of you have felt that way but this is
supposed to be the ultimate romantic gesture, to find someone and say You know
what? All the years before I knew you, they don't count. Now I started living. But
there's also a lamentation: 'Why didn't you come sooner?' So anyway, here is
Inta Omri So you learned how to say 'you are my life' in Arabic? Do you want to
try, Professor Solen?
[Solan] Not sing it!
[Ramzi] No, but feel it! Inta Omri! It's beyond 'you're my
love' it's like 'you are the years of my life' Inta Omri...Arabic has that
tendency. All right you want to jam a little bit to a remix of Inta Omri? She's
going to say the same thing about "When my first my eyes first saw you,
nothing counted before" but with a little bit of a modern twist. Here we
go!
[Music]
[Ramzi] Nobody got up and like jammed
[Audience] I was about to!
[Ramzi] You know you're an amazing person; I felt you got
the ecstasy. Obviously, please research Umm Kulthum and find more things about
her because I'm going to go from the Queen of Egypt the Fourth Pyramid, they
called her, Theo, right? Like people think there's only 3 pyramids in Egypt,
and Umm Kulthum is the fourth!
Fairuz (Lebanon)
But I'm from Lebanon, I was born and raised in Lebanon, and we've
always had a friendly rivalry with Egypt.
So Umm Kulthum is Egyptian and she's the greatest but we've got our
answer to Umm Kulthum in the form of Fairuz. You say Fairuz in front of a Lebanese person,
they faint! She represents everything that was beautiful about Lebanon, and
still is. She represents hope, she is an
icon from the 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 2000s, she's still around, she's
still alive, she's still in Lebanon, she never left although she could
have easily with her money left the country with all the wars and situations
we've been in. She's still there in
Lebanon today, she's speaking out still for the oppressed, she sings
beyond religions. Now she herself is
Christian but it doesn't matter because she has sung for Al-Aqsa, she's
sung church hymns, she’s got a Christmas Carols album but she also has
also has a Ramadan album so she is amazing and the main thing about Fairuz is
not just her iconic status musically: Umm Kulthum and her generation had
40-minute songs. You want to listen to one song? It's 40 minutes! Fairuz
came onto the scene and decided we're going to release a song in 3 minutes
and everyone went crazy! What is that? It's unheard of, three minutes, it's not
even an appetizer! But now all of Arabic music is just like western music,
it has to be 3-5 minutes long, and that's all because of Fairuz who was the
first to do that.
But let me begin by the way she loves Lebanon. Bahebak Ya Lebnan means I love
you Lebanon. When Fairuz sings for Lebanon and says ‘I love you Lebanon’ the
audience goes wild. You're not going to
be able to see the audience but you're going to be able to see her face; when
she says I love you Lebanon, she gets such a standing ovation that she
literally has to stop, wait, and start again, and this is not the beginning of
a concert or something and so just three words 'Bhebbak Ya Lebnan' have created
frenzy and you can see her face when she says it she almost expects to take a
little break. Here it is:
[Music]
All right, may she live on forever. You know, people
sometimes ask me, kids, how old is Fairuz and I have this answer, you get very
serious: 'How old are the stars?' How old is the moon? The sun? Love? And then
you walk away. That's how you answer. Don't go on Wikipedia trying to find her
age; she's ageless. So here is a little tribute to Fairuz from NPR:
[Audio with Fairuz Slideshow]
[NPR] You don't have to be Lebanese to know this voice but if you are,
chances are this is a voice you've heard ever since childhood even if you
were born and raised on the other side of the world, this voice
robably sang to you from LPs and tape decks in kitchens and living
rooms without ever needing to ask when you hear the words 'I loved
you in the summer, I loved you in the winter' you just know: This is
Fairuz.
[Music]
[NPR] Her real name is Nihad Haddad and she was
born in 1935 in a Lebanon that was still finding its place in the Arab
world. The name Fairuz means turquoise in Arabic. The man who discovered her
said her voice was like a rare gem that it worked with both Arabic and western
music. Listen here to the way she sings the word 'Habibi' which means my darling.
[Music]
[Ramzi] So, the whole show is available on NPR. Here's
Fairuz in a very, very rare interview because she does not give
interviews; she's very reclusive talking about how she and her husband who
wrote all her music Assi Rahbani managed to change the landscape of Arabic
music bringing it from 60-minute songs to three-minute classics.
[Excerpt from Fairuz Interview]
So basically, the Rahbani School of Music still lives
on today. So, some of you were looking at me kind of like he's
exaggerating nobody can be that great, he must be a Fairuz fanatic, but I'm
nothing compared to some of the Lebanese who have dedicated their lives to going
to Fairuz concerts and taking pictures. This Armenian photographer in Lebanon,
he didn't eat for days, he would go to photograph Fairuz to get the, you
know, film for the camera and he was at Baalbek which is an old Roman site
in Lebanon with an outside amphitheater and it was gonna rain and it's night
time and so what do you think, sir, happened when Fairuz came out and sang
to the Moon? Would you be able to guess? There you go! Suddenly it stopped
raining, the clouds dispersed and Baalbek became bathed in moonlight; I know
you're thinking ‘coincidence’ but what if it happened every time Fairuz sings?
Listen to this guy he's very... He's me if I were an Armenian photographer
[Scene from We Loved Each Other So Much Documentary]
[Ramzi] So you see I am not the only Lebanese fanatic
but honestly this shows you what an icon she is. If you're interested in
learning more about Fairuz, there's this DVD that's available and the short
segment we just saw with the guy speaking was from a documentary called We
Loved Each Other So Much. It's available I think on Prime other places and
it's people talking about Fairuz for 2 hours then playing a Fairuz song but it
shows you how no matter where you are in the Arab world, you love her. Arabs fight each other all the time, it
breaks my heart, but when it comes to Fairuz they'll agree. It doesn't matter
where you are from, you just say 'Fairuz' and suddenly the doors open and she
managed to do that.
Okay these are more hits by Fairuz that I'm going to skip
today because I want to go to the next person but please keep... I'm going to
be sharing a link to the PowerPoint and there's a YouTube playlist if you
want to explore these three huge hits by Fairuz.
Tania Kassis (Lebanon)
Who's the follow-up to Fairuz? Who's the new Fairuz? A younger Fairuz? I know that gentleman there
gave me that look like how dare you say Fairuz could ever have a runner up?
I agree with you sir, it is unthinkable,
but you know with these kids somebody's got to take over and if we need to pick
somebody let's pick Tania Kassis who is Lebanese. She's also very much into peace music, music
that brings Christianity and Islam together which is nice and she has an
operatic voice she has a lot of tributes to Beirut like this one but THIS, I
hope, is going to move you. Tania Kassis
did something unheard of, she took the Muslim call to prayer what's called the
azan or the Shahada you know the Allahu Akbar that you hear all the time and
then she brought in the Ave Maria and mixed them together on stage and you can
imagine, in a sectarian world, especially Lebanon, people didn't not know how
to take it. They're like ‘wait how dare you’ but then ‘wow it worked so
beautifully that maybe we can apply it to our everyday life.’ You know Lebanon has 14 official religions
all of which attempt to coexist and got into civil war, but when they do coexist,
it's a beautiful place. Do you want to hear the Muslim call to prayer with the
Ave Maria together and you don't have to like it, but just appreciate what a
gutsy move this was because she could have gotten into a lot of trouble.
[Music: Tania Kassis “Islamo Christian Ave”]
[Chant] Allahu Akbar
[Music]
[Chant] Ave Maria [Music]
[Islamic Call to Prayer] [Ave Maria]
[Ramzi] So, what did you think? Did anyone one feel it was
disrespectful or blasphemous? And you're free to think so of course. Did you? There is a certain element that says
you shouldn't mess with the call to prayer you know what's next you're going to
make a pop version or something but the message for Lebanon despite the fact
that I see both sides of the argument is the fact that we desperately need
Islam and Christianity The Sunni Shiite Muslims, the Maronites, the Orthodox
Christians so I prefer to look at the message like that and hopefully this can
serve for in real life for discussions and conversations.
Yasmine Hamdan (Lebanon)
Moving on to Yasmine Haman, the queen of underground Arabic
music. She is a phenomenon, she released
her first album which was called Arabology--yes like my radio show—and now
you know where I stole my title from. It
was a moment to actually meet Yasmine Hamdan at Stanford and tell her thank you
for giving me the title.
There's a picture of me with her there and that's one of the
happiest moments of my life. She came to
Stanford, she sat in the radio with me, she sang Arabology to the Arabology
host and she didn't sue me for stealing that! So, she's pretty amazing you're
going to love her, her vibe, here she is singing about Lebanon it's called
'Balad.' Balad means country and as we
know Lebanon is a very chaotic country and what's the answer? What do you,
young man, what do you think the answer is to solving all of Lebanon's
problems? It's sad but it's also very easy: Put a woman in charge! Do you want
to see what you what happens when you put a woman in charge of Lebanon? So, in
this video Yasmine Haman is being put in charge and takes over the airwaves:
[Music]
Don't you love how she like put real footage of the Lebanese
Parliament discussing forever and then she takes over with her Lebanese flag
and the words I am the citizen deposed. It's quite powerful, and that is
Yasmine Hamdan.
Tania Saleh (Lebanon)
We'll move to Tania Saleh,
another person I got to meet in Lebanon. I love her music, but she had one song
that I think is worth your time. It is called 'Omar and Ali.' Omar and Ali.
What's the significance of the name Omar, and what's the significance of the
name Ali? Does anyone know? So in Islam, Omar is a typical name for a Sunni
Muslim, and Ali is a typical name for a Shia or Shiite Muslim. In Lebanon, the
fight, the Civil War wasn't just Christians and Muslims or, you know, Syrians
or Palestinians. It was within the factions; you had Shiites against Sunnis,
and that is really heartbreaking. Like I'm a Lebanese Christian, it breaks my
heart when I see Maronites in Lebanon fighting with the Orthodox Christians
instead of saying it's the same Bible. Same thing for Muslims in terms of
Shiite and Sunni; they both read the same Quran, they have Ramadan, you know,
but then there's like this little difference, and suddenly they're fighting
each other?
So, Tania Saleh says 'Yo,
Omar, get up and kiss Ali, hey Ali, get up, kiss Omar.' Kiss him where? Kiss
him between the eyes. This is considered the most precious spot, so pretty
gutsy of her to talk about Shia Sunni relations. All right, that is Tania Saleh
from Lebanon. The song is Omar and Ali.
Hana Malhas (Jordan) + Lena Chamamyan (Syria)
I'm going to move to the next singer. Now we are in Jordan.
Anyone been to Jordan? Oh, so you must know Hana Malhas. Hana Malhas is as
close to the queen of underground music in Jordan today. I'm bringing you not
the very commercial singers who have million-dollar contracts. You can find
Nancy Ajram and Amr Diab amazing, fun, but not very, not very politically
conscious. Hana Malhas is. Hana Malhas from Jordan takes very old songs like
songs from the 50s, and she's known for changing the landscape. She sings
original material; she sings old material. I'm going to show you a duet of her
singing in English with a Syrian singer. The Syrian singer is called Lena
Chamamyan. You can tell from her last name she's Armenian, but then a lot of
Armenians live in Aleppo. Lena Chamamyan came from Aleppo to Jordan, met Hana
Malhas, they recorded their version of John Lennon's 'Imagine' together for
Syria and for the Arab world, and it's kind of in English. Theo, you're going
to love the English part, but when Lena Chamamyan chimes in, she brings an
Arabic 'Imagine' version with an amazing voice. Let me just show you what
happens when two great women get together.
[Video of Hana and Lena singing 'Imagine' in English and Arabic with subtitles]
What did you think of that mix? I could see it on your face
you know so yeah, some things, when mixed together, work quite well especially
John Lennon's ‘Imagine’ because of Imagine all the people so I love that
there's so many versions of it. Do check
out Hana Malhas's work.
Emel Mathlouthi (Tunisia)
I want to go to Tunisia and the voice of the Arab Spring.
Were you around then? Were you babies? No, it was 2011. The Arab world got
shook by this Arab Spring; they all thought, oh wow, good things are going to
come, people have woken up, and they did wake up, they did wake up for a while.
In Tunisia, you know, it was a very important time, and they did manage to
change the Constitution, and they did a lot of things. But what about the
music? You know, every revolution has a soundtrack. If you were going to ask
anybody, 'What's the soundtrack to the Arab Spring?' It started with Emel
Mathlouthi, this amazing woman who would sing in the streets of Tunisia with
her guitar, and she would sing about freedom.
So, she had a song called 'My Word Is Free and
Unencumbered.' The government at the time would, you know, they would arrest
her; she was even tortured, I think, but she would come out of jail and go back
to the street and sing for freedom, and that is Emel Mathlouthi. So, you can
imagine when I met her, I think she thought I was just an idiot. I don't know,
uh, because I mean she was the voice of an entire generation, and for her to
come to Stanford and sing was amazing. Let me show you how she was at 19, when
in the middle of the Revolution, would sing this song called 'My Word Is Free,'
and you're going to see the crowds, and if you look closely at the video, the
police approach at one point with batons, and she gets scared like, Should I
sit down? Should I run away? And the people in the street go 'Emel keep
going, we're with you,' and that's sort of a moment captured, um, and it's her
own song.
[Video: Go on, Emel!]
So, it's a very raw moment. Did you hear the song and, like,
her voice? Okay. Like every revolution,
I hope, when one day people wake up and they start, you know, whoever you
demonized, whoever you imprisoned becomes your hero, you know I mean Martin
Luther King, Malcolm X, at the time and now. This is our version. So eventually
she was invited to the Nobel ceremony, little Emel out from the street, to sing
the same song, only juxtapose the setting now: a 36-band Orchestra, streaming
from Sweden live, no expense spared, wearing designer clothes by a Tunisian
designer. Same song, same woman, but a few years later.
[Music]
Same song, same words, but completely different setting.
Emel Mathlouthi, I can't play just one song. She has albums, she has concerts
all over the world. she was just in Türkiye; they love her there.
Dina El Wedidi (Egypt)
OK, so you remember the Arab Spring then spilled into Egypt
and in Egypt we had the answer to Emel Mathlouthi. What was her name? Yes,
Hala.
[Hala] Dina.
[Ramzi] Simply Dina. Hala knows her so well; she just says
Dina. Which Dina? Dina El Wedidi. You're
going to love Dina El Wedidi she is just such a defiant singer in Egypt she
came to fame with the Midan, the Square, the Tahrir Square protests, she sang
with them but then eventually she started getting into alternative mixing with
Boasa Nova from Brazil and things like that um let me see what I can...well
maybe I'll show you that. Let me show you her collaboration with a Brazilian
singer; does anybody know this guy? Tell me. Tell me something about him
because I'm the Arabic part. What is his name? [Gilberto Gil] Do you speak
Portuguese? [I used to] Wow thank you for coming today because he's iconic,
right? I mean he's iconic and for him to take little little Dina El Wedidi from
Egypt and say 'Come under my wing, I'm going to mentor you' and then release a
duet with her that becomes like Arabic Bossa Nova What? Arabic Bossa Nova? And
she was so grateful to him for that, but then he ended up saying 'I learned
from her more than I ended up teaching her' and she's very very modest. So here is a part of the concert they did.
[Video of Dina El Wedidi and Gilberto Gil]
[Gilberto Gill] Welcome to the stage a new colleague, Dina!
[Dina] To share the stage with Gil, it was the biggest thing that happened in
my life. To sing with him an Arab song with Bossa Nova style was a really deep
moment. My heart was tic tic tic.
[Gil] Egyptian music is very different from the Brazilian
it's so full of small details and specific dynamics where I can get ideas
from. I learn also from that, you know.
Dina El Wedidi, who I did meet too. Did you see my face in that picture over
here? I'm just like such a, you know, fan.
Alsarah (Sudan)
Okay, moving on to Sudan and who is the most powerful
woman's voice coming out of Sudan today? Her name is Alsarah, it's like a
made-up name but if you like Nubian music...She still sings an Arabic but
there's like a lot of African rhythms Do you want to see a little part to see
the African-Arab connection? Here she is singing this song called 'Farasha'
which means Butterfly.
[Music with translated lyrics]
Oh, butterfly in the morning dew, come dance and frolic with me. Leave your
worries in a distant valley amidst roses and the breeze. Come closer so I can
taste your honey. Come on, dance with me, you’re the dream, the vision, the
happiness that fills my eyes.
[Ramzi] So, Alsarah and the Nubatones. If you liked this,
you will love all her songs. If you didn't like this, you're not gonna like any
of her albums. I love it. I love the way North Sudan and South Sudan who are in
a war situation get united in Alsarah's music.
Souad Massi (Algeria)
Moving on to Algeria, do you want to mellow out for a
minute? I think you're going to enjoy this. Yes, Souad Massi. Oh my gosh I just
saw one of my favorite people walk in! Ehab! You know that I'm about to play
Souad Massi and you were the one who would tell me about Souad Massi, right? I
mean this was not rehearsed, right Ehab? It wasn't rehearsed! Well basically
Souad Massi is from Algeria and she just needs a guitar, she does not need a
fancy band and she just broke onto the scene and now they love her in France,
so she moved there but Algeria is still in her heart. She mostly sings in
Arabic. The song is called ‘Rawi' which means 'Narrator' and the morale of the
story is this: "In your heart, there is a story that needs to be
told" and that's what the song's about. Look at your heart and tell your
story. It's called 'Rawi' Very mellow, guitar, hope you will let her take you
away. Don't resist her.
[Music Video: Souad Massi sings ‘Rawi’]
So, I hope you liked her; she's great if you want to mellow
out after a bad day. She's amazing. Souad Massi, don't forget the name. I'll
check with you in 6 months and you'll be a transformed person and say thanks to
Souad Massi.
Oum and Manal (Morocco)
Okay, I'm going to go to Morocco just because they need to
be represented today. Even though I'm
not going to play the videos, they are amazing. Two women, sir, please try to
remember at least one of them. One of them is called 'Oum' like "Oum
Kulthum" but just 'Oum' and she does the Saharan kind of Moroccan singing
but then you've got a new one named Manal and she's kind of poppy but she's
interesting because she uses Moroccan imagery.
Palestinian Women in Song
I so want to reach this point in my presentation as I
promised you in the beginning. I'm going to end with the voice of Palestinian
women. Almost every woman we heard today
was singing about a struggle: Political, social, and also in terms of gender.
Palestinian women have been surprisingly vocal for many years talking not just
about politics but also speaking out against patriarchy. They are powerful and
maybe because so many of them live under occupation the stories they tell
through their songs gain a new perspective.
In this video, it's a short clip I'm going to play, it's a
great video because it combines so many women Palestinian women who, if I had
the time, each of these women would deserve her own presentation, definitely
her own slide. But for time's sake, for them to come together, let me read
their names because they are all still singing for a better tomorrow. They are
Maisa Daw, Lina Makoul, Nancy Hawa, Noel Kharman, Yusor Hamed. The song is
called Asli Barri, 'I Am of the Earth,' and all these women got together in the
desert and sang about women's agency but also politically and in terms of
socially. So, all of them together.
Please watch the video to see the interaction. I'm just going to play a short
clip right now.
Please watch the whole video if you have time, just the
interaction of these women and just the fact that they were singing against a
certain system gains a new dimension. I'm going to move to two more. We're
going to end with Elyanna if you know who she is. But before I go to Elyanna,
my last song, which is going to be a gift from me and from everybody that
worked with me on this presentation, to you guys, to thank you for coming It's
going to be called 'Olive Branch.' I'm going to end with 'Olive Branch'
Mayssa Daw
Before I do, let's have some feminist anger in the room. How
many women, especially in the Arab world, especially in Palestine, have been
objectified to a degree where the body becomes measurements, becomes not your
own, the way the female body is narrated and told, and never by the women. This
Palestinian young woman, I think she's only 24 or something, just released this
song that unleashes centuries of anger. She's
reclaiming her body not only as a woman but as a Palestinian Woman and how
patriarchy and certain traditions have tried to put her down. It's very
powerful but it's raw.
[Clip: Maysa Daw & DAM - JASADIK-HOM (Your Body of
Theirs)]
[Ramzi] Can you feel it? And this is her writing and her
song. She's also part of a Palestinian group called DAM, they used to be three
guys and became known as DAM. One of the guys left and instead of replacing him
with another guy they brought in Maysa Daw and the group now changed suddenly,
it's like reborn and Maysa of course became at the forefront. That's the group
over there, DAM.
Elyanna
Okay so I'm going to end today with Elyanna. Has anyone
heard of Elyanna?
[Audience] Yes, I watched her Coachella concert.
[Ramzi] What's the big deal about Coachella and Elyanna?
Like why is that a big deal?
[Audience] It's just groundbreaking to have a female singer
in Arabic.
[Ramzi] Not just female, but the first time someone sings in
Arabic at Coachella. You know, from Umm Kulthum to Coachella with Elyanna. She
sang live at Coachella and people loved her. She is Palestinian and very proud
of it and she became known before October 7 so basically, now, she's sending
messages of peace to Gaza but this is before that. You want to hear a little
more about her? She is half Chilean; half Palestinian She was born in Nazareth
and of course Arabic is her native language.
[TV Report] Elyanna's story starts in Nazareth where she
was born.
[Elyanna] First of all I grew up in Palestine, Nazareth
I'm also part Chilean so I grew up in in these two worlds and of course they
influenced me and of course they had a huge impact on me as a person and as an
artist.
[TV Report] Palestinian and Chilean but singing in Arabic
or Spanish was not part of the original plan.
[Ramzi] So you can watch the whole report on Dateline.
I love her, I still haven't met her, but stay tuned I'm dying to meet her. And
basically, like you saw in the report, it was before the 7th of October and
what I want to talk about is what she did after. So let me go here to the last
slide today and leave you with a song called Olive Branch. It's in Arabic but
there are subtitles and she's sending peace and she's always reminding us how
Jewish, Muslim, and Christian folks are all brothers and sisters, always lived
in peace. I know what's going on now, it's not about that. It's about something
else. And she's sending a message of peace, an Olive Branch to Gaza. So, I'm
going to end with Elyanna, sending a message. There's a hard sentence, you
might find it painful, but hopefully it will change when she says, "In the
land of peace, peace has died" and that's how she ends it.
[Elyanna sings ‘Olive Branch’]
Words aren't enough, what else can I say? My tears have dried up, and my
heart is broken. I'm far away, but I'm praying for you and I'm sending peace,
on an olive branch. I'm far away, but
I'm praying for you and I'm sending peace, on an olive branch. In the land of
peace, peace has died, and the world is sleeping on a hurt child.
[Ramzi] Not an easy time for any Palestinian singer to sing
because if you release stuff people are like ‘Why are you singing, you know,
releasing joyous music as if nothing's going on’ but then if you do nothing,
you also feel useless. I love Elyanna.
Q & A Session
I'm going to end with Elyanna and turn it over to you because I have saturated you, oversaturated you, today with name after name and you stayed till the end! At some point people need a breather and I gave you no breather. Thank you for staying with me and I welcome any reactions, any questions about any of the amazing women that we featured today, even if you just want to give me your fave. So, I'm not going to call on anyone who doesn't raise their hand but...thank you![Audience] I didn't know what this was going to be like; I
work here, I just wanted to say this was so moving to me. My mother's Egyptian,
I grew up with Egyptian music, I've been there, but I just didn't realize, I
had no idea...
[Ramzi] Can you share your name with our audience?
[Audience] Yasmina.
[Ramzi] You must have enjoyed it, it's genetic, right? By
the way, the artwork was done by a Sudanese refugee for me, and it was just a
gift. When he heard I'm doing a talk about Arab women, he sent me this graphic
and drew me and drew every woman that I spoke about today and I said I want to
pay you or whatever and he just got offended, it's a gift! So, his name
is Zad Hussain, his name is down there, follow him on Insta if you like this
kind of art. So, somebody almost got fired because of me they stayed late!
[Audience] that is compliment
[Ramzi] Tell them I thought this was more important. We need
to talk, go to work, but I need to see you later and Professor Solen, you guys
are so lucky to have her, and Heidi Saleh who just walked in. Oh my God, seeing Heidi Saleh is like seeing a
part of me because we've been in touch for so long and Heidi is of course from
Egypt and she knew Umm Kulthum before I even spoke, immediately, and we're
related. You know this is my cousin Naila who came in from San Diego today and she
was saying that the Saleh family and the Salti family and the Sfeir family are
all related.
[Heidi] That's why I knew we have a connection
[Ramzi] and we're gonna hang out after this okay I love that
Theo who did the audio visual today has a comment.
[Theo] Umm Kulthum, was she a composer as well, or primarily
a singer? I know in the United States we have a long history of great female
performers but traditionally the music is composed by males.
[Ramzi] That's a great question. Many of the indie Arab
women I played were writing their own material and singing it but with Umm
Kulthum, definitely not. Poets and composers in the 50s and 60s in Egypt would
fiercely compete to send her poems hoping she'll take a glance at them so she
had the best poets and the best composers at her disposal and she chose, she
knew how to choose, so she never wrote her own things, but boy did they become
hers in the way she delivered them. You heard her moaning when her lover
wouldn't set her free; that's nothing.
Tarab! We recorded it, Heidi. There was a moment these kids were feeling
Umm Kulthum's pain! This guy went like Unchain Me! Any other comments? Please.
[Audience] I just want to say my grandma’s from Iraq. She's
an Iraqi Jew actually who grew up speaking Arabic and Hebrew so I actually
really enjoyed the mix, the Ave Maria and the call to prayer. That kind of
reminds of my family.
[Ramzi] I've done a presentation on Judeo Arabic music. In
Arabic and Jewish music, you're also gonna find some amazing
collaborations. There is a version of ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon by an
Israeli singer whose name is Noa with a Palestinian singer and they sing it,
half Hebrew half Arabic, and then they joined it in English. What was her name? I forgot the Palestinian
singer's name [Mira Awad] but I think they represented peace at the Eurovision
song contest, but that was many many years ago. I think right now these voices
are being silenced. Thank you, habibti. And you loved Elyanna already, I didn't
have to convert you, but but the young man next to you…I saw him like he was
getting converted and then when Elyanna started to sing... Did you like any of
the music today?
[Male in Audience] I felt touched by it, every single one.
[Ramzi] Thank you so much. So, will you look them up and try
to encourage them, disseminate information about them? These are not women who have huge recording
contracts, but they so deserve it. Those
million-dollar deals, the Coca Cola and the Pepsi deals, go to Arab women and
men in the Arab world who sing about nothing. I mean it's fine, it's nice for a
party, right? Who doesn't want to belly dance? But at some point, we need music
to wake us up and these women wake us up much more than men, maybe. Anyone else
want to react?
[Naila] If you have the opportunity to interview Fairuz on
your Arabology podcast, what is one question you would ask her?
[Ramzi] Wow like you're asking me this in front of... I'm
just a human, I'd break down, I don't know, I guess I would ask her if she ever
understood the depth of the love that the Arab world has for her, if this was
ever in her consciousness, but something tells me it's not. She's very simple,
lives in a simple home, does not go out, her whole life was singing when her
husband was alive, 24-hours at home, recording, so no wonder they have
thousands of songs released; but honestly she's still alive, so there's still a
chance, Naila, maybe we can have a picture with Fairuz who... How old is
Fairuz? Wait Heidi 1 second the guy knows, the kid knows, how old is Fairuz?
[Male in Audience] How old are the stars?
[Laughter]
[Ramzi] A star is born today, my kids are blooming, right?
Heidi, before you walked in, I said she's ageless so when people say how old is
Fairuz, you're like "How old is the universe?"
[Heidi] I was just going to say, as an Egyptian girl, Fairuz
was such an icon. I grew up listening to her.
She was the only voice other than the Egyptian voices I was hearing back
home in Egypt. Everybody respected her
and loved her music and she connected me to this magical place called Lebanon
that I had never heard of even though I was living in Egypt. She's just an icon, she's incredible.
[Ramzi] Some people say there are 2 camps, the Umm Kulthum
camp and the Fairuz camp. Absolutely,
but Umm Kulthum came first and influenced Fairuz. I think Fairuz always had
this admiration for Umm Kulthum, but Fairuz dared to release 3-minute songs
where Umm Kulthum's were minimum 30 minutes and so Umm Kulthum handed the baton
to Fairuz and she did not resist her. The answer, by the way, to 'Fairuz or Umm
Kulthum' is, because Fairuz songs are more chill in the morning: Fairuz is in
the morning and Umm Kulthum is at night. You get home from hard day's work, put
your feet up, you're going to listen to a 40-minute song. In the morning, who
has time? The Arab world says Fairuz in the morning, Umm Kulthum at night فيروزيات
الصباح وأم كلثوم في الليل
[Solen] I may have asked you the same exact question when we
listened to you back at Stanford, but I'll do it anyway. Talking about interesting artists who sang
the call to prayer, you haven't sampled any Turkish music, I'm not offended, but
another artist comes to mind. There is a trans woman... she sounds like Umm
Kulthum, she's in that category of amazing singers, classically trained in
Arabesque, Turkish classical music, and she sings the call to prayer on
television.
[Ramzi] We need to incorporate that in the Tania Kassis
section where you heard her do the Ave Maria. We're not there yet.
[Solen] The Turkish public loves her.
[Ramzi] Shukran, kids! You three are such sweet people
you've been there every time I stutter. Thank you, guys, for coming today and
stay in touch with me and if you have any Arabic songs for my Arabology
show I am willing to do like an on-air DJ thing. Thank you so much guys. Anybody else want to
say anything before we adjourn?
[Audience] Do you have a Spotify playlist?
[Ramzi] I have many
Spotify playlists and more importantly my Arabology show is available on
Spotify, Apple podcasts, SoundCloud. There's over 300 episodes, each episode's 2 to
3 hours long so it's good for long car rides, you can forward a lot of it but
in each show, I've tried to focus on something; so you look at the show tile,
it could be like 'Arab Women in Music' but it could also be just shaabi
Egyptian music, 3 hours of that. The nice thing about it is because people are
very open in America to different music but with Arabic music in particular,
nobody ever translates, nobody tells them what it's about so listeners kind of
go hmmm but once you understand...That's what I do, I speak in English to an
American audience, to a global audience, about these women and the input I get
is wow we never realized! Even Arab Americans go "My Dad used to
listen to Umm Kulthum" it's no big deal, but now...
Please do listen to Arabology if you like and send
requests and let me know I put my email there, it's author30@gmail.com but look
me up on Google and you'll find either DJ Ramzi with my headphones or Dr Ramzi
Salti at Stanford so either one, okay?
So, what do you think, Solen? Shukran habibiti inti, and I
love the kufiya, shukran. And my cousins of course, Naila and Hala, who came
all the way from San Diego to be here today and my surprise guest, my
brother-in-law Ehab, who walked in out of the blue; did you see him walk in
like that? That was not expected and the timing, he waited for Souad
Massi whose work he loves; that and Pink Martini. Shukran everybody, thank you,
thank you.
Watch the video with CC (transcript) turned on at https://youtu.be/4_5ekhsngS4
