Radio Tadamon! Arab Songs of Hope
- World Skip the Beat, CKUT Radio. Monday July, 2008.
Photo: Beirut by Piax. Tadamon! special edition: entire program is on-line for download.
A special edition produced by Mostafa Henaway, featuring music that spans different eras and moments in Middle East history, music composed and performed during the moments of social and political transformation. Music from the Middle East that either directly or indirectly is a reflection of these critical historical moments, from Egypt with music from the 1950’s and 1960’s that is a celebration of a new era, independent of colonialism, or more contemporary songs that present a critique dictatorship and tyranny in Egypt in the 1970’s song by Sheikh Imam.
Music from Lebanon, compositions and artists that emerged in the context of over twenty years of Israeli occupation and fifteen-years of civil-war in the country. Music from Lebanon that reflects a will of people to not be divided by sectarian politics, expressed by artists such as Ziad Rahbani in the famous song Ana Mesh Kafer, a song which asks how people of different religious faiths can condemn each other.
Or the song, Oudak Rannan, a story from Lebanese singer Fairouz, song composed during the Lebanese civil war. A song written to honor the guard outside of her home in Beirut, who would play the oud to Fairouz singing although the guard was Muslim and Fairouz is Christian, a guard who later lost his life during armed clashes in the civil war.
Or to the Palestinian people who continue to live on and celebrate a struggle against colonization and for land. Famous songs that sing of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and for the right of return, like Marcel Khalife’s Walking Tall, who sings “with a coffin on my shoulder and olive branch in my hand I walk on” and in another song who sings an ode to the late Edward Said and a commitment to Palestine.
featured songs…
01: Marcel Khalife, Samai Bayati, Lebanon
02: Marcel Khalife, Passport (homage to Edward Said), Lebanon
03: Fairouz, Oudak Rannan, Lebanon
04: Fairouz, Al Bosta, Lebanon
05: Fairouz, Ya Tayr, Lebanon
06: Fairouz, Sa’alouni Ennas, Lebanon
07: Ziad Rahbani, Ya Zaman el-Ta’efiye, Lebanon
08: Ziad Rahbani, Haly Taabani, Lebanon
09: Ziad Rahbani, Ana Mesh Kafer, Lebanon
10: Ziad Rahbani, Esmaa Ya Reda, Lebanon
11: Omaima Khalil and Marcel Khalife, Land of the South, Lebanon
12: Marcel Khalife, Walking Tall, Lebanon
13: Cheb Khaled / IAM, Oran Marseille, France / Algeria
14: Abdel Halim Hafez, Asmar ya Asmarani, Egypt
15: Sheikh Imam, Rig’ou al Talamza, Egypt
16: Cheb Khaled, Algeria
17: Abdel Halim Hafez, Khousara, Egypt
