looking in the mirror: orientalism in music

One aspect of the electronic, postmodern world is that there has been a reinforcement of the stereotypes by which the Orient is viewed. Television, films, and all the media's resources have forced information into more and more standardized molds. So far as the Orient is concerned, standardization and cultural stereotyping have intensified the hold of the nineteenth-century academic and imaginative demonology of "the mysterious Orient."
-Edward Said, Orientalism (1978)


By this time it should not come as a surprise that the site, both geographic and intellectual, which we call the Middle East, is seen not only as exotic, but as something erotic. It is a place where sexuality is unleashed in the absence of the civilizing impulse. No matter how many records Nancy Ajram sells in Egypt, the face of this Middle East will be the Niqaabi or the Afghan woman in the burqa (it is indicative of the problem that indeed most Westerners do not make a distinction between Arabian, Afghan, Persian, Pakistani, etc.). This eroticized vision is a necessary part of Western policy towards the region; it is a place where one's potency must be demonstrated. The violence and the eroticism cannot be separated. It is no accident that the two constant images that mesmerize the mainstream media are the militant and the sexually available, restrained woman.

This geographic erogenous zone is a place Occidentals plunder when they wish because here the rules of civilization no longer apply. It is a place that obeys only the laws of power and is thus closer to Nature, but for that reason less human. We appropriate it to ourselves at moments when our own passions seem uncontainable by the facade of civilization. This embrace of the Orient can come in a confused rush, much like passion itself, indiscriminately devouring whatever is available, expressing and managing the violence of desire by displacing onto a setting that is not one's own. Displacing it from oneself by denying that this is really who one is. This is who They are, but not I.



Sarah Brightman, "Harem", Harem (2003)

Brightman's video received (relatively mild) criticism for its mixture of Arabian and Indian images and symbols, but this really misses the point. Instead what one should see is the necessary confusion that comes of trying to make sense of the unfreedom we genuinely feel but are forced to deny and therefore must project onto someone, some-They who are, Naturally, unfree. This is repeated in the song "Free". Here the sound is not Orientalist, but the setting and theme is quintessentially so. Once again amid a group of young women in Asian clothing, this time rendered immobile, Brightman tells us of her desire to be free as she flounders in her desire to be desired. The contradiction is not, of course, in the desire for recognition, but in the dehumanizing form which that recognition apparently must take.



Sarah Brightman, "Free", Harem (2003)


Sting's collaboration with Cheb Mami bears some of the same elements. There are obvious allusions to fetishism: the concealing of the drivers face and her uniform, which repeats, in an Occidental fashion, the fantasy of the veiled Arabian woman. These themes are especially prominent, not surprisingly, in the remix version, which invokes the sexuality of the dance club. There women, now uncovered, dance in real cages, on display for the male viewer.

Yet one should not simply toss this visual experiment into the same bin of confusion with the Brightman fantasy, for at least two reasons. First, the desire of Sting to reach out to Cheb Mami is indicative of a larger and very long-standing theme in Sting's work: his internationalism, transculturalism. He constantly experiments in a variety of musical genres and sounds. Thus the incorporation of North African rai is in fact an acknowledgement of its humanity, its importance as a form of popular music. This is in stark contrast to Brightman, whose musical selections have often forgotten the reasons for their own existence and thus have to try to situate themselves within the world of popular music, reducing themselves to kitsch. Second, while the vision of "Desert Rose" is classical Orientalism, it does twist it by internalizing it. The desert is not some far away place, it turns out. The passions, violent and erotic, are not ultimately other, but are our own. The song leads back to the Occidental world and holds up a mirror to our own hypocrisy, even as Sting ends the song awash in a sea of young dancing women. The harem is not far away. It is here.



Sting and Cheb Mami, "Desert Rose", Sacred Love (2003)




Sting and Cheb Mami, "Desert Rose -- Remix", Sacred Love (2003)

-LoA

for and against the theatres of violence

"i do not understand my own actions. for i do not do what i want but i do the very thing which i hate."
-paul the apostle, letter to the romans 7:15 (c.65 AD)



Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "As I Sat Sadly By Her Side" (2001)



john milbank has written that perhaps the greatest violence we perpetuate against others is the violence of the spectator. it is the violence present in the inability to turn our heads from the car wreck in horror-fascination. it is the violence of watching the plane crash over and over again on cnn. he is right to a degree, but the spectacle also renders the spectator inert before its power. it creates a field in which one relates to the event as something purely given. early christian criticisms of the theater traveled along this double line recognizing that one was both completely impotent and motionless before the spectacle and yet, at the same time, by one's sitting actively affirmed its power.

this is the place in which we now find ourselves so often: sitting at the window, in front of the tv, watching a disaster unfold that is not of our making but which was, at the same time, authored by no one else but us. we are caught in the double violence which renders us powerless to stop its unfolding, and thus at the same time constitutes us as the active and free agents of its realization. that which is external to us becomes the truth of who we are.

in the attitude we adopt toward the spectacle we become other to ourselves. caught in this dangerous theater we come to wear the mask which is assigned us, demanded of us, and the truth of who we are and what we will becomes immaterial. in watching the drama unfold, we are ourselves made actors. the drama, which we recognize to be a thing outside us, is transformed from inert to having a dynamic inertial power. the action makes us passive and our passivity becomes our action.

-LoA

the universal natacha atlas

truth is that whether you know it or not you have probably heard the voice of natacha atlas. a genuinely international musician who has recorded music in arabic, french, spanish and english; she has accompanied a wide variety of singers on various albums. she joined sarah brightman on "arabian nights" from the album harem (on which a post is forthcoming), she appeared on the indigo girls come on now social, on the track "faye tucker", she was hired to provide the vocals on cirque de soleil's sound track for verekai, and also provided music for the sound track of the orlando bloom movie, the kingdom of heaven. these among many other international projects means that it would be hard for someone to avoid her.

given earlier posts it is natural to compare her work with that of arabian pop queens nancy ajram and elissa. but even a cursory glance reveals that despite very contemporary sounds from all the artists involved, atlas moves to a very different groove. while elissa, for instance, portrays herself and her music as extremely cosmopolitan despite her deep roots in the levant, atlas, who is nomadic (an egyptian muslim with some distant jewish roots, growing up in a moroccan suburb of brussels and then in the uk, etc.) emphasizes her north african identity both in her sound and in her appearance, even as she maps that identification on a variety of cultural forms. the rhythms of rai, salsa, north african folk music, etc. permeates everything she does, even when she does not perform in arabic.

we offer, as an introduction, three songs from the 1990s. the first two are a narrative pair (though, to be clear, atlas videos do not possess the narrative quality that we have come to associate with ajram's work): the first in english, the second in french. in "one brief moment", she mourns the man she has (not even yet) lost as she apathetically changes clothes in front of the taxi driver while they drive through london. in the second, having arrived at the location where she is to perform, she covers "mon amie la rose" as men look on with desire and as the dramas of love (and its lack) unfold among the dancers, only to leave as distant and unmoved as she arrived. "mon amie la rose" was an important hit for establishing her french audience.



Natacha Atlas, "One Brief Moment", Gedida (1999)




Natacha Atlas, "Mon Amie La Rose", Gedida (1999)

only yesterday you were admiring me
tomorrow i will be dust forever
[and then in arabic at the end...]
my friend the rose
told me something
during the night...



the final song, "leysh nat'arak" is a regal march from her first solo album that reveals her confidence and her embrace of her egyptian roots. she also makes clear that her musical choices have political consequences and motivations in a way that entirely sets her apart from elissa and nancy ajram. she has referred to herself as the "the human gaza strip", divided and torn between worlds, and she does not hold back on this powerful song.


Natacha Atlas, "Leysh Nat'Arak" ["Why Are You Fighting?"] (1995)

why are you fighting?
crossing borders in the desert heat
the stories in the rocks and stones
signatures of time written on every face
the syncopated heartbeat of arab and jew
a song that keeps saying remember
if you are cousins why are you fighting
listen to your hearts and the truth will be clear
it's written on your bones

-LoA

nancy ajram: life in the circus

life in the circus ain't easy
but the folks on the outside don't know
the tent goes up and the tent comes down
and all that they see is the show

-ani difranco, from "freakshow"

i refer the uninitiated back to the earlier "nancy ajram: pop and plot". "akhasmak aah" is especially important since it forms the backdrop against which the video for "ya salam" is set. recall that "akhasmak aah" was ajram's breakout single off the ya salam album and quickly turned her into a superstar in the arabic speaking world. the video was controversial in the middle east. sexually charged: the director made references back to a typical character within older egyptian films - the single female proprietor of a restaraunt who dances for the male customers in order to make more money. in the opening of "ya salam" she sings the closing bars of "akhasmak aah" looking very marilyn-monroe-like, and exits the stage smiling to thunderous applause and kisses from everyone backstage. but it quickly becomes clear that "ya salam" (english = 'how wonderful' or 'how fantastic') is meant to be incredibly ironic as the song and video reflect on the deformed nature of her new character and the social isolation that is involved. like many a young woman in her early 20s, she fantasizes, in her loneliness, about the comforts and initimacy of a real relationship beyond the circus-life. this certainly qualifies as one of, if not the, most powerful of her videos.



Nancy Ajram, "Ya Salam", Ya Salam (2002)


two other more recent videos pick up the same theme in a much more playful way. in both "yatabtab wa dellah" and "mohgaba" the setting is a circus in which she is a member. in "yatabtab" one should notice the character is played to the point of farse: she smiles, bright and innocent, and bounces her head side to side in ponytails like a young girl (something entirely absent from her early videos when she was in fact much younger and carried herself with a great deal of maturity), at once giving the audience what they expect but mocking the expectation itself. in "mohgaba" on the other hand there is again a concluding fantasy sequence with a young man, but in it the impossibility of an escape from the circus-life becomes even more evident when one realizes that this entire scene is quoted in one of her coke commercials. there the image of her, a persona, is used to sell the product: one commodity promoting another. the twisted nature of the circus life has lost all its ironic power, nor is one given the illusion of a peak behind the performer which would reveal her real desires. ajram is reduced to the pop star.

please sit back and enjoy.....nancy ajram

-LoA



Nancy Ajram, "Ya Tabtab wa Dellah", Ya Tabtab wa Dellah (2006)



Nancy Ajram, "Mo3gaba", Ya Tabtab wa Dellah (2006)



Nancy Ajram, "Coca-Cola Commercial #4-Mo3gaba" (2006)

elissa: queen of pop

i have to admit, my brain is in neutral tonight. so i am going to post more music videos. this time it is elissa: the queen of arabic pop. like nancy ajram she is also from lebanon. i offer these mostly commentary free (don't get used to it ;) ). i would only like to note that, unlike the ajram videos from a few nights back, these for elissa are not plot driven in any way. instead they focus on her person. this is especially true in the recent "bastannak" where she is on the move and placed in a variety of settings. in each case the encounters she has with men (conjoined with the peripheral nature of the other women) only reinforces her iconic status allowing her to remain a direct object for the (implied male) viewer/listener.

enjoy the wonderful music of elissa.




Elissa, "Bastannak", Bastannak (2006)

I wait for you, my love
and..I wish to live my whole life by your side
I do not know how long love will keep your passions burning
But I never forgot all that was between us....




Elissa, "Aghmal Ehsas", Aishalak (2002)

The best feeling in the world is to love like crazy
and that is what is between me and you.
You made me live days full of longing and passion;
Your love dissolved me....




Elissa, "Aishalak", Aishalak (2002)

I am living for you the most beautiful years
of my life,.. oh gleam of my eye.
And in my heart, oh baby, there is desire
And passion ever since the first day of your love...


-LoA

nancy ajram: pop and plot

in 2002 a young lebanese woman with a handful of songs but no recognition to her credit burst onto the scene of arab-pop with "akhasmak aah". her director, a veteran of the egyptian movie industry turned to one of the popular tropes of his craft to define her, and to make an impression with the viewing audience: the female proprietor/manager of a bar, working alone, dancing for a little extra money, in front of an all-male audience. ajram was sexy, flirtatious, hard-working...and an elusive, independent figure. the story internal to the video matched its reception. ajram caused a controversy, especially in egypt, for being too sexual, but slipped away from the chaos herself (though she would be rather viciously pursued by critics over the next several years) and into stardom.


Nancy Ajram, "Akhasmak Aah", Ya Salam (2002)

i will upset you, yes!
i will leave you, no!


the next three are put together in order to form an over-arching story. this is indeed a characteristic of many ajram videos: the presence of a strong, clear, if simple, plot. the director is generally aided in this by the fact that arabic pop seems to have a more patient ear with each song pushing the five minute mark, if not beyond. even more, one can note here the development of larger storyline that progresses from her initial crush, through the excitement of a wedding to the challenges of marriage.

Nancy Ajram, "Yay sehr 3youno", Ah w Noss (2005)


Nancy Ajram, "Lawn 3younak"

the coup d'grace. plaintive and powerful in any language.

Nancy Ajram, "Enta Eih", Ah w Noss (2005)

What are you? Is it not enough
That you hurt me? Have pity. How cruel are you?


-LoA