Habibi, ya nour el-ain!

So what kind of music do you like? A question I'm constantly asked. And one for which I have no answer. Well, no "definite" answer anyway.

Telling people I have a wide range of music I enjoy just has them telling me yeah, they like rock from 1972 to 1995 too...that's how wide their range is. Well, no. When I say wide, I mean WIDE. From African tribal chants to Basque pop. From Peruvian slave lullabies to Polynesian war songs. From Afrikaaner anthems to Turkish religious music.
It's not that I just listen once and claim I've heard it. I actually enjoy the wide varieties in music style. I can confidently say there's only two kinds of music that I, as a genre, dislike. Country-Western and IndiPop (Indian pop for the Firangs reading this...).

I suppose my first foray into world music was at Embassy, the club on Lansdowne Street in Boston where I heard "Habibi, ya nour el-ain" by Amr Diab for the first time and realized what a huge world of music there was outside the English pop and Bollywood orbits. Slowly, I began building up my collection of Arabic music. Starting with Amr Diab and his Egyptian pop and moving onto Fairuz (Lebanese diva type music..Ya Tayr being my favourite song)..and ending where it should have all begun..Umm Kulthoum and her throaty romantic music. Starting as a Q'uran reader, she became to Egypt and the Arab world what Lata Mangeshkar is to India. To hear her sing "El hob kolloh" became my nightly ritual for months.

I moved on through recommendations form other Arab music lovers, reviews online and just curiousity till I discovered *rai*. Originally protest music from Algeria, it's now metamorphed into pop thanks to Sting's liberal use of Cheb Mami in "Desert Rose". Rai is now my favourite brand of Arab music. Cheb Kahled, Cheb Mami, Salah, Fadel and Sahrawi..too many to list! And my guilty pleasure..Cheikha Rimmitti - a 75 year old Algerian woman who grew up in the slums of the Casbah and worked as a bar-waitress and part-time prostitute. Her use of the name "Cheikha" meaning "respected woman" was a way to thumb her nose at her conservative critics. And "Rimmitti" from "remettez" or "Give us another"...the cry she heard in bars in Algiers asking for more beer. To listen to her sing "Anta Rabhi Ou Ras Mali " is simply an experience transporting you to a smoky back room in the Casbah in the 1950's with revolution in the air.

Honourable mentions go to Malouma Mint Maideh's "Ya Habibi" and DjurDjura's "Derya u Mazir" both incredible songs but whos CDs I've been unable to find.

I'd recommend any if not all of these singers and songs to anyone who reads this post. So go out and enjoy a world full of awesome beats and a beautiful language - Arabic.



In other news, I'm super excited about organizing a Bombay scavenger hunt with some fellow Orkutkars. So many ideas, so little brain to hold them in. I'm literally writing on scraps of paper as the ideas flow. Updates follow.

Current music:
Walkin' after midnight - Patsy Cline