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Admin -> Freedom could unlock doors for Iraqi artists' creativity (12/20/2004 3:56:55 PM)
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Freedom could unlock doors for Iraqi artists' creativity
By GEMMA TARLACH
Journal Sentinel pop music critic
Last Updated: April 26, 2003
In Iraq, against the odds, the beat goes on.
As the country emerges from both a repressive regime and the war that ended it, no one disagrees that much of Iraq needs to be rebuilt, and that some of what has been lost can never be replaced.
Yet, thanks to rich traditions preserved by talented musicians - most of whom fled the country to avoid the often absurd demands and ruthless punishments of Saddam Hussein - the music of Iraq has persevered and is now poised for a resurgence on the international stage.
"I'm very optimistic (about Iraq), especially artistically," said Hamid Alwan, a local percussionist and the owner of east-side import shop Village Bazaar.
"I honestly think that there will be an explosion of cultural events. The Iraqi people are incredibly creative," said Alwan, who emigrated to the United States from Iraq 45 years ago.
Iraqis and fans of that nation's cultural traditions are quick to temper their enthusiasm for the music's survival with sadness over greater losses of life, livelihood and heritage suffered, but many now see a future where Iraqi musicians will be free to impress the world with their artistry.
"Unfortunately, because of the sanctions and then the war, musicians in Iraq couldn't finance their CDs or get them out of the country," said Laith Warda, co-owner of Maqam.com, a California-based Web site marketplace for Middle Eastern music.
"There are a lot of really talented musicians still in Iraq, and I think in another three to four months you'll see a lot of happy music coming out of there," added Warda, who fled Iraq in 1981.
The Iraqi musical culture itself tends to be more traditional and conservative than that of other countries in the region. Lebanon in particular has been exporting a fizzy, frothy pop style called "shabbi" for years.
"Lebanese pop music is the Britney Spears of Arabic pop," said Esther Warda, who owns Maqam.com with her husband, Laith. "Iraqi pop is not at all trashy. . . . Iraq produces more soulful, meaningful songs about love and love of the country."
Legacy steeped in sorrow
"Pop music" in Iraq more often than not means musical motifs and lyrics dating back centuries but performed with a mix of traditional and modern instruments. Kazem al-Saher, for example, may be nicknamed "the Elvis of the Middle East," but he sings in classical Arabic. Popular musician Ilham al-Madfai features the electric guitar and saxophone - but uses the instruments to reinterpret age-old folk songs.
A near-constant throughout Iraqi music, whether traditional or more modern, has been an underlying melancholy.
"Most of the songs are sad songs because they try to reflect the reality the people have been living under," explained Joseph Bihnam, an Iraqi-Canadian, via e-mail.
Bihnam's love for Iraqi music inspired him to create Iraq4U.com in 1997. The site features free streaming audio of Iraqi musicians old and new, and its popularity - Bihnam reports an average of 275,000 hits daily - led him to found the Iraqi Music Restoration and Preservation Project. The grass-roots project remasters and digitizes old and usually poor quality recordings of Iraqi music icons of decades past to preserve their legacy.
Bihnam noted that the historical legacy of Iraq has not been a happy one.
"The Iraqis didn't live a gloomy life under Saddam only, but throughout their history," Bihnam added. "From Ottomans, to British rule to Saddam and what have you in between these periods . . . their political system never stabilized. They have not had time to forget their wounded history."
The most recent chapter in Iraq's history - the regime of Saddam Hussein - is also arguably its most unhappy. While much has been reported about the ruthless intolerance of political opposition, few outside Iraq's borders were aware of special restrictions Hussein levied against musicians in his country.
Honoring Hussein in song was mandatory for Iraqi musicians when performing both in Iraq and overseas.
"First you praise Saddam, and then you can sing whatever the hell you want," said Maqam.com's Laith Warda. "But if you don't praise the president, they'll hurt your family."
Other stories abound.
A BBC journalist exploring Iraq's music in 2002 discovered that the country's Kurdish musical traditions, distinctly different from those of Arabic Iraq, had been forced completely underground during Hussein's reign. Kurdish musicians whom the reporter convinced to perform whispered rather than sang for fear of reprisals by the anti-Kurd regime.
Exiled Iraqi musician Ismail Hussain recently told The New York Times that the president's eldest son, Uday, forced him to play at parties for hours, sometimes spraying bullets over his head. Ahmed Mukhtar, player of the region's lute-like oud, has spoken of poets and composers carted off, tortured and killed for perceived critiques of the president in their art.
Hussein's treatment of musicians and the difficulty of reaching fans even in neighboring countries such as Jordan because of sanctions and other restrictions led most popular Iraqi musicians to leave the country.
Holding onto sounds of home
Ironically, the country's turmoil may have helped preserve the unique elements of Arabic Iraq's musical traditions. Musicians in exile - and their displaced fans - leaned toward nostalgic, traditional compositions that reminded them of their homeland. Artists remaining in Iraq had greater difficulty collaborating with musicians from other parts of the world, which appears to have isolated Iraq somewhat from the Western influences apparent in much of the rest of Arabic pop.
Western music has maintained a presence in Iraq over the years, however, most infamously through Voice of Youth, a radio station that was run by Uday Hussein. The station played everything from Eminem to R.E.M., and both disc jockeys and callers spoke exclusively in English. Uday, a notorious playboy, reportedly created the station in 1993 to improve his image among young Iraqis as the cooler, hipper potential successor to his father compared to his younger brother Qusay, a military man.
According to the BBC, Voice of Youth radio fell silent March 25.
Whether through "Mr. Uday's FM," as the station was sometimes called, or the thriving market in bootleg CDs smuggled over the border from Jordan and other countries since sanctions began more than a decade ago, some young Iraqis have embraced the Western pop dream.
Unknown to No One, a quintet of young Baghdad men who sing in English and see themselves as the next Backstreet Boys, recently drew interest from a British label. The five singers met by answering a casting call on Voice of Youth in 1999.
With the boy band trend played out in the West, however, and the Unknown lads still, well, unknown, it's unclear if the act could ever be anything more than a novelty.
As for young Iraqis aspiring to be Mesopotamia's answer to Metallica or the Eminem of the Euphrates, well, don't quit your day job.
"There are some bands in Iraq that play hard rock . . . but these bands have little audience," Iraq4U.com's Bihnam noted, citing bands such as the English language Maybe and Storms, which reached their peak in the '80s. Bihnam added that prior to the first Gulf War, albums by artists such as ABBA, Michael Jackson and Madonna were readily available at most Iraqi stores. Some of the day's biggest pop music trends found fans in Baghdad.
"Don't think that the breakdance era was only in the West - Iraqis had their share of breakdancing, even in the streets!" Bihnam said.
He said that with the loosening of restrictions in trade and travel and the influx of more outside influences, an element of Iraqi pop music likely will become more Westernized in time.
But the people who have held on to their musical traditions through decades of war and repression are unlikely to let them go too easily.
Said Bihnam: "The music will always have an Iraqi accent."
From the April 27, 2003 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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