Middle East - Anthony Ham [72]
Not content with the power of performance, Powers and Sophia have set up a secular NGO, Musical Missions of Peace (www.musicalmissionsofpeace.org), which is based on the premise that ‘people who have learned and sung each others’ popular love songs together are less likely to war with one another than those who have not’. The NGO provides support to Iraqi musicians and refugees in exile in Jordan and Syria and promotes education and performance of international music in the US.
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Amr Diab World (www>.amrdiabworld.com) is the glitzy homepage of the Arab world’s most famous modern pop star; it covers all the vacuity and strangely compelling kitsch that is modern Arab celebrity.
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Heading the current crop of megastar singers (the Arabic music scene is totally dominated by solo vocalists, there are no groups) are Majida al-Rumi of Lebanon, Iraqi-born Kazem (Kadim) al-Saher and the enduring legend of Iraq’s Ilham al-Madfai who founded the Middle East’s first rock band back in the 1960s.
In the largely shrink-wrapped world of pop, regional influences are minimised and most artists have a tendency to sound the same, no matter where they come from. Arab pop music is like its Western counterpart in that fashions change almost as regularly as the stars change hairstyles. Watch Arab MTV and you’ll soon learn what’s hot, although that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll be around tomorrow.
Turkish
Traditional Turkish music is enjoying something of a revival with Sufi music, dominated by traditional instrumentation, leading the way. Sufis are religious mystics who use music and dance to attain a trancelike state of divine ecstasy. Sufi music’s spiritual home is Konya and the sound is bewitchingly hypnotic – a simple repeated melody usually played on the nai (reed pipe), accompanied by recitations of Sufi poetry.
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middle Eastern music – our top ten albums
▪ The Lady and the Legend, Fairouz (Lebanon)
▪ Al-Atlaal, Umm Kolthum (Egypt)
▪ Awedony, Amr Diab (Egypt)
▪ Bare Footed, Kazem al-Sahir (Iraq)
▪ Le Luth de Baghdad, Nasseer Shamma (Iraq)
▪ Asmar, Yeir Dalal (Israel)
▪ The Idan Raichel Project, The Idan Raichel Project (Israel)
▪ Nar with Secret Tribe, Mercan Dede (Turkey)
▪ Deli Kızın Türküsü, Sezen Aksu (Turkey)
▪ Les Plus Grands Classiques de la Musique Arabe, various artists
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Songlines (www.songlines.co.uk) is the premier world music magazine. It features interviews with stars, extensive CD reviews and a host of other titbits that will broaden your horizons and prompt many additions to your CD collection.
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Sufi music’s growing popularity beyond Turkey’s borders owes much to the work of artists like Mercan Dede (www.mercandede.com) whose blend of Sufism with electronica has taken the genre beyond its traditional boundaries and into a mainstream audience. He even doubles as a DJ with the stage name Arkin Allen, spinning hardcore house and techno beats at rave festivals in the US and Canada. Not surprisingly, one Turkish newspaper described him as a ‘dervish for the modern world’.
Traditional Turkish folk music has also undergone a revival in recent years, as ‘Türkü’ – an updated, modern version often using electronic instruments coupled with traditional songs.
But Turkey’s most pervasive soundtrack of choice is Turkish pop and its stars rank among the country’s best-known celebrities. Sezen Aksu is not known as ‘the Queen of Turkish music’ for nothing; she launched the country’s love affair with the genre with her first single in 1976. Combining Western influences and local folk music to create a thoroughly contemporary sound, she’s also an independent spirit not afraid to speak out on environmental issues and Turkey’s treatment of its minorities.
If Sezen Aksu laid the foundations for pop music’s current popularity, Tarkan took it to