Category Music
I think I might have a problem with the international language of music I consider myself fortunate for participating in Yo-Yo Ma’s workshop with The Silk Road Ensemble a couple of days back. I found it quite humbling… Continue Reading →
The last time I was in Iraq, my uncle just learned that his wife is pregnant with twins. This last week, I visited to find these twins to be grown 15 year old teenagers. It’s been 15 years since I… Continue Reading →
I hate Israel and I’ll say it if they ask me Even if they murder me or put me in jail I hate israel eeeeeeeeeeeeh I love Husni Mubarak cause he has a big heart if he steps forward, he… Continue Reading →
Traditional gnawa music is intended for spiritual purification in Morocco, as highlighted in “The Blue Spirit Chose Me” chapter of Rebel Music. It is “believed to heal people afflicted with spirit possession.” When it is believed that the jinn have… Continue Reading →
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers were, true to their name, labelled as jazz ambassadors and messengers to the outside world, a symbol of the melting pot that was the United States. To many, these jazz musicians transcended their entire… Continue Reading →
Throughout our class, we have been displacing the concept of ‘the clash of civilizations’. This concept not only pits ‘the East’ against ‘the West’, but also it assumes that each entity is a coherent and whole one. Alas, the cultural… Continue Reading →
(Note about picture – I really hate it when shalwar kameez are taken up by non-south asian people and made to look more like a tacky bed sheet than anything else) When I heard Red Baarat was coming to AD,… Continue Reading →
Today’s discussion in class on Sufi poetry and its branches in revered Sufi temples across South Asia made me dig deeper into the written trails of Bulleh Shah and the message he preached centuries before I was born. The short… Continue Reading →
Marie Gisele (featured in the below video) is the image of subversion in today’s music scene. A Brazilian Christian woman who converted to Islam seven years ago, Gisele is a thrash metal guitarist…who performs in a full niqab. Naturally, her… Continue Reading →
I recently came across an article by Hissa Hilal from 2011 on a particular idea of Islam that has come to dominate society. Hissa Hilal may not be famous outside of the Gulf region, however she is the first female… Continue Reading →