If you’ve been following my blog’s Facebook page or my personal Twitter account, you’d have found out by now that I was simply blown away by how amazing the movie La La Land was, and that I was rooting for it to win everything at the 89th Academy Awards.
Yes, I feel personally victimized by the fact it did not win Best Picture; #JeSuisLaLaLand #JusticeForLaLaLand are the official hashtags in case you are wondering.
Part of the brilliance of the movie for me, as someone who generally dislikes (read, hates) musicals, is that the music was so charming. The movie’s soundtrack basically stayed on repeat for a few weeks after watching the movie, and I suggest you download it in case you haven’t. Notable tracks are: Epilogue, City of Stars, Audition and Mia & Sebastian’s Theme.
Therefore, when a friend sent me a YouTube link of a Lebanese oriental cover of one of the soundtrack’s songs, I couldn’t but click and then be so enchanted that I couldn’t but share it here, which isn’t something I usually do:
I hope you find this as wonderful as I did. The group behind this calls itself “Aleph.” It’s made up of:
Aleph Abi Saad Piano
Jihad Asad – Kanoun
Ramzi Boukamel – Guitar
Ghassan ‘Gass’ Sakr – Palmas
Raed Boukamel – Nay (Flute)
Charlie Fadel – Cajon
Michel Labaki – Bass
Their covers gives an extra flair of melancholy to the soundtrack, which I daresay goes really well with the overall theme of the movie. So today, I can’t but celebrate the talent of this Lebanese musical group that turned the soundtrack of one of this past year’s most celebrated movies, one that should be familiar, into a sound that is distinctly theirs.
Establishing himself as one of the most coveted musicians in France for this past year, French-Lebanese musician and trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf added another accolade to his growing list of achievements with his first César for his work on the movie “Dans les forêts de Sibérie.”
The César Awards are considered as the French equivalent of the Oscars, which will be held tonight. They are the highest French honor that can be given to the movie industry. It was Ibrahim Maalouf’s second nomination and first win.
Maalouf was competing against another Lebanese composer, Gabriel Yared, who has previously won an Oscar and a Grammy for his work on The English Patient.
The César adds to Ibrahim Maalouf’s achievements this year as he has previously won “best musical spectacle” at Les Victoires de La Musique almost two weeks ago.
Ibrahim Maalouf is considered by many to be a pioneer musician with his adaptation of Oriental quarter notes to Western music, by custom-made trumpets that have four valves instead of three. This has allowed Maalouf to create outstanding music over his career, including a Western version of Oum Kalthoum’s music in a 2015 album that was titled “Kalthoum.”
He credits his Lebanese immigrant background in shaping his musical voice and giving him a message to pass on through his work.
You can check the video of Maalouf winning here. He will be coming to Lebanon for a concert at Baalbek on July 22nd.
From Roula Yammout to Rima Dib to Miriam Klink, the current state of Lebanon’s music scene is horrific. We make fun of what is available, hoping that our ridicule leads to them ceasing to exist, but it seems they take the ridicule as attention and use it as fuel to launch even more disasters on our ears.
Enter Sevine Abi Aad, a performer whose own story with Arab record labels mirrors the current scene we’re forced to tolerate. A few years ago, Sevine had a record label interested in her. One look at her and the record label had comments: they wanted to fix her nose, make her breasts bigger and fix her gaped teeth.
She told them no and decided to do her own thing. The result is her debut song “Ana Mesh Fenneneh,” a satirical look at the Lebanon’s music of today where ass and breasts and blonde hair overtake any semblance of notes.
I sat down for a brief chat with Sevine about her song and her song, as well as upcoming album.
What prompted you to write this song and perform it?
I met with a lyricist I love (Nami Moukheiber) and started telling him about the topics I would like to sing about, that I love comedy, and making people laugh during my performances was important to showcase on the album, and how for me, it’s super important that I’ve lived and gone through whatever I’m singing about.
I remember telling him that I’d like to do a song about the fact that it’s very frustrating for artists to get heard if they’re not willing to play by the rules of the industry (i.e change your physical features, act a certain way, sing a certain style). Years before, I had been approached by industry people who, after just one glance at me had said: Bedna na3mellik menkharik, sodrik, nzabbit el fere2 ben snenik etc… without even discussing the music.
And so I told Nami ‘Ya khayye, ana mich fenneneh, tayib! w ma beddeh koun fenneneh!!!’ So, it’s quite autobiographical. The song was also written with Mike Massy.
What message do you want to give across through this song and album to the current musical status quo in lebanon?
This applies to the song, not the entire album. It’s about the dilemma, the temptation faced by ‘unknown’ independent artists to just give up and give in to the formatted way of the industry.
And we might be tempted to do so because we feel that we aren’t recognized and validated enough in the field.
For example, in terms of live music performance, not many venues will agree to host you and your music if they think the audience won’t enjoy it and they base the criteria for audience’s enjoyment on the repertoire and choice of songs.
Sadly, in most venues, they will ask you to play and rehash songs the people already know and love to dance and sing to… and so you get stuck doing what everyone else is doing or feeling frustrated that you can’t play the music YOU want in many places and share it with people.
So, sometimes, for independent artists, it’s a choice between this (becoming a ‘fenneneh’) or to keep playing for a tiny audience, and find other ways of supporting yourself financially – which is so harmful, because it will take time away from the music and creativity… And its a vicious cycle we need to break once and for all.
The thing is there is a whole underlying hub of amazing vocalists all over the country, who write amazing stuff, and who are performing for a tiny niche audience. And they don’t get the recognition from the wider audience that they so deserve.
Things are changing, for sure, but it still needs to be valued by a wider range of people who sometimes don’t even know about this independent scene. The bigger message though, goes beyond the music industry. It’s a message to young girls and women to stop trying to alter the way they look and act, just in order to be perceived as more ‘attractive’, ‘popular’, ‘fun’.
There is way too much pressure for women here to go under the knife, and it’s a shame they have forgotten how beautiful a person is by being unique and having their own identity. No one, in any industry should make a woman feel that she isn’t pretty enough or talented enough. And self confidence and knowing yourself and believing in what you’re doing should stay your main way of achieving the success you aim for. No compromise.
Is the satirical style of this present in the rest of your album?
It’s not on the entire album, no. Though, again, I love comedy, I also wanted to showcase other sides of me, so. But it’s definitely present in another Lebanese song called ‘Chaghlet Belle,’ written and composed by Mike Massy, which I hope we’ll be able to shoot a video for before the end of the year. Other songs are very cinematic and theatrical, and they’re in other languages (french and english).
I leave you with the song:
Ana Mech Fenneneh
La2 bass je te jure mich mbayyan! Abadan!
La2 bass ktir tali3 naturel!
We7etik we7yetik, yih walaw ana b2ellik chou!
Ana ana ana ana ana ana
Ana mech fenneneh Ana mech fenneneh
Ana mech fenneneh w ba3ref ghanneh
Wejje byit7arrak aktar men jesme
Bghanne bsawte mech bi hazzet khasre
B2adde ghnene bala tanneh w ranneh
Ana mech fehmene w mech se2lene
Ana mech fenneneh Ana mech fenneneh
Ana mech fenneneh w ba3ref ghanneh
Kel el ness ma beddon gheir masla7te
leh chaklek 7elo w ma 3am tenchehre?
Leh bi Kelna Star ma 3am techterke?
Sawt w talle w haybe bass 2ten3eh 2ten3eh 2ten3eh
W ana
Ana mech fehmeneh
Ana mech fehmeneh Ana mech fehmeneh w mech fer2eneh
Tayib leh ma bta3mle chi CD?
7ki Montana byestmanno 3alayke
Eh lek chou fiya halla2?
Kella 3amaliyit tejmil machina halla2!
Ya 3layke chou ma-jdoube yekhreb baytik ente
7at dallik hek ente 7at dallik hek!
2al chou 2al? 2al ana badde awwem me2t-eyet el fan
Pfff….chou hableh!
Lezim kabbir 3a2le w kabbir…
7atta ysir sawteh ad3af men khasre
Sar badda chi hamse wghamze w lamse
7atta el jomhour ya3melneh nejmeh!
Ente mech fenneneh Ente mech fenneneh Ente mech fenneneh w rou7e ndabbeh!
A source of mine just sent me the line-up of this summer’s Byblos Festival, in an otherwise very quiet lead up.
This same time last year, the festival had already confirmed John Legend and I had leaked Alt-J performing. Many had thought the festival was out of big names for this summer, but it seems we’ve all been wrong.
Sia, the Australian super star behind songs such as Chandelier and Titanium, will be performing on August 9th. No words yet on whether she will show her face, but her voice will more than suffice either way.
This will be Sia’s first performance in the entire Middle East. It will be a recreation of her critically acclaimed showcase at Coachella.
In a surprisingly disappointing line-up, Sia seems to be the main draw when it comes to international talent.
Other acts that will also be in the festival are Mashrou’ Leila, Hishik Bishik and Carole Samaha as Lebanese performers and renowned saxophonist Kenny G as well as Grace Jones.
The full line-up is present at the above picture and ticket prices will be as follows:
Here it unfolds, the worst chapter in the non-ending story of the Lebanese garbage crisis. Don’t be fooled, the crisis is far from over. The governmental “solution” is so short-sighted and non-sensical that the crisis is bound to be repeated if not in 60 days, then in a few months or years. This is how we do things in this country: we put band-aids on gaping wounds, without making sure that the wound itself has actually been stabilized enough to be managed with band-aids; we do makeup coverups for problems that need hardcore fixes.
Perhaps nothing exemplifies how short-sighted and lala-landish our government is than the Minister of Environment tweeting (then deleting) a few days ago that the wave of mosquitoes and flies the likes of which this country has not seen in recent memory is due to nothing other than the heat. He then subsequently blocked everyone who told him off or otherwise.
Ignore the fact that our Minister of Environment’s credentials don’t come anywhere near the science of the environment, and ignore the fact that we’re not actually experiencing waves of heat that could bring this much mosquitoes to our cities, what remains is a minister in a government that is trying to repeatedly fool you: the mosquitoes are due to the garbage, not just the weather.
As they stacked up the garbage in various locations around Beirut over the past several months, from Karantina to the Beirut River, the organic matter in that garbage underwent fermentation and decomposition leading to a wide array of toxins and bacteria. For months, those toxic materials were just lying there, unperturbed. However, the moment those poor garbage handlers started removing it, the chemicals were “freed” allowing them to move up to the Beiruti atmosphere and give you the absolutely horrible smell that feels inescapable.
The smell will remain there as long as they’re removing the garbage. The more time they take, the more we’ll have to endure, so let’s hope the poor fellows handling it physically can sustain the effort it takes before temperatures become higher and work conditions become too horrifying for the to manage.
Many people have reported unable to prevent vomiting many times a day because of the stench. Some have reported feeling ashamed of not being unable to vomit in public. I tell those people, your vomit is more honorable than the faces of those in governance who have inflicted this upon us. Wear it – not literally – like a badge of honor. If you’re having multiple episodes of vomiting, however, make sure to stay hydrated. Use anti-emetics, like primperan or motilium, to try and prevent such episodes as much as you can.
The disgusting smell has the worst ramifications on those with already present pulmonary disease. If you’re asthmatic or have an underlying lung illness and are feeling more out of breath than usual, consult your pulmonologist on adjusting your inhaler dose.
But what can be done about the smell and the mosquitoes and flies other than essentially sucking it up? We have to make sure our homes are safe for us and our children.
The mosquitoes and flies are a huge problem because 1) they exist in huge amounts, 2) they are caused by the garbage crisis, 3) they carry toxins with them as they travel, 4) they might carry infectious vectors from one person to the next and 5) they will bite.
So here’s a step by step process over how to handle things to the best of your capacity.
Use face masks while going out if the smell is too much for you to handle. They’re present at most pharmacies and will help to a certain point.
Before leaving your house, close the windows and doors to make sure mosquitoes and flies don’t welcome you back home. You can also use low dose insecticide, which will dissipate over the day, to keep the house free of the pests.
Make sure to have cleansing hand gel with you at all times. Use it abundantly.
If you or your children are bitten by a mosquito or flies, many of which are specific to this kind of fermentation process, clean the bite with a little bit of antiseptic, which will help in relief and cleaning.
You can also use antiseptic sprays around the house. Those are a bit expensive, but there’s a cheaper DIY method that Ziad Abi Chaker shared on Facebook yesterday, consisting of mixing mouthwash with equal parts of water (1 cup mouthwash to 1 cup of water), putting the combo in a spray bottle and spraying the house.
Maintain proper hygiene, not only of yourself but also of your house. The cleaner it is, the safer it is for yourself and your family.
Every time a wave of nausea hits you or a mosquito/fly bites you, curse the hell out of this country and its government for making you go through this.
While our politicians live in lala-land and pretend that the only thing happening in Beirut is basically #Live and #Love, we are dealing with things that no civilized country has to ever deal with. Except the only notion of civility we have is what we propagate to those poor tourists to whom we now have to find an explanation as to why it just smells so bad in the city they’ve been duped to visit. If only odors can be carried over to Instagram posts.
I can’t believe it’s the year 2016 and we are discussing the ways to handle a putrid smell taking over our capital. What will be equally horrifying is the fact that the people in Nehme and other areas in the country where landfills reined supreme had to deal with such things for an extended period of time while no one cared. There’s a reason those people protested the landfill in their area, closed roads leading to it and refused to receive garbage in it again, only to be faced with army men and tanks forcing them to open it up.
In a short period, when the Burj Hammoud landfill opens up, this smell and everything that comes with it will become customary for Beirut. Keep that in mind.
A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares 