Compilation of four video stills from Saad Lamjarred («Lm3allem», 2015) and («Ghaltana», 2016), Katy Perry («Dark Horse», 2014) and Myriam Fares («Aman», 2015) (left top to right bottom)

Self-Orientalism in Arab Pop Music

Commentary

When Saad Lamjarred’s hit song «Lm3allem» topped the charts with more than eight hundred million views and became one of the most famous Arab songs worldwide, reinterpreted in English, Hindi, and Korean, little attention was given to the self-Orientalist imageries that were propagated by this song. If anything, argues political scientist Nermin Abbassi, this music video is another invitation to further endorse the global trend of Orientalist consumerism in the audio-visual field.

Here is a small experiment one should do when discussing self-Orientalism in Arab pop music: watch Katy Perry’s music video «Dark Horse» without focusing on the lyrics or who the singer is and apply the same process to Myriam Fares’ song «Aman» or better yet, Saad Lamjarred’s songs «Ghaltana» or «Lm3allem». Will you be able to tell the backgrounds of these artists apart or even spot major differences?

The Reinvigoration of the Oriental

The answer is probably no. These music videos share analogous postmodernist décor glued to ahistorical Orientalist imageries of exotified objects, women, and essentialist cultural representations; though one should state that Arab artists do add an extra creative layer to it.

Myriam Fares’ song «Aman» features a 500-year old poetry verse mixed with electronic music, in a video themed around an «exotic Oriental woman» in different belly dancers’ costumes, with mystical digital effects of a turning Sufi dervish.

In Saad Lamjarred’s music video, a «modern nomad» chases after «indigenous exotic women» to «tame» her in the Moroccan desert, with Pepsi advertisement in the background. The women in this video are actually foreign models. In his other music video, «Lm3allem», Lamjarred this time features extravagantly-styled local models wearing overly-patterned and colourful djellabas.1 All this imagery revolves around a common theme: a reinvigoration of the Oriental and its Westernization in order to become «cooler» and modern, which accordingly results in an overall alienation of the local culture.

When Arab TV Propagates a Western Way of Life

This self-Orientalist imagery in Arab pop music is (or rather becomes) a normalized Western mediated imagery of the Orient that is rebranded to fit into the postmodern trend of the global music industry. However, modern Arab pop music’s high influence by Western musical and visual technologies and styles in addition to Orientalist imagery didn’t occur in a vacuum. The Orientalist imagery in music videos cannot always be explained by either a strategic or a naïve choice of the singers, rather it is simply how the industry works.

Music videos in the Arab world have been the catalyst for growth in the Arab satellite television and entertainment industry since the 1960s. The same music videos and tracks are recorded for companies and mass media moguls whose ultimate ownership is American. One striking example is Rotana, one of the biggest music recording companies and content distributors in the Arab world, which is partly owned by the American entertainment corporation 21^st Century Fox. This is but one of many examples where multi-international corporations such as MTV, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi started investing in entertainment and cultural production venues in the Arab world. Reality music shows such as Star Academy, Arab Idol, and The Voice became the norm in Arabic pop culture, jointly propagating and promoting an overall Western narrative on how people should live, look, drink, and listen.

Therefore, if Arab pop music wishes to join this industry, it needs to pay a participation fee: selling histories and creating marketable and attractive identities that sensationalize heritage, linking it back to an imagery of the Orient in the pre-colonial period, thereby making it easily consumable at the global level. What self-Orientalism does at the end of the day is to reproduce a by-product of the whole globalist commodification of culture that is inherent in the international Western music industry.

1. A traditional North African clothing, especially in the Maghreb region that is worn by both women and men. It comes as a long gown with sleeves and a hood and it is usually a day-to-day garment.

Bibliography

Daraiseh, Isra, and Keith Booker. 2019. Consumerist Orientalism: The Convergence of Arab and American Popular Culture in the Age of Global Capitalism. London: I.B Tauris.

Stiffler, Matthew Jaber. 2014. «Consuming Orientalism: Public Foodways of Arab American Christians». Mashriq & Mahjar 2 (2): 111–38.

El Hamams, Walid, and Mounira Soliman. 2013. Popular Culture in the Middle East and North Africa: A Postcolonial Outlook. London: Taylor & Francis.

This commentary has been written in the context of «DisOrient: Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors». A virtual music video exhibition by Norient for Mannheimer Sommer (July 12–22, 2020). Because of the Corona pandemic, the festival took place as a virtual event.

Biography

Nermin Abbassi is a master’s student in political sciences at the University of Cologne. Her focus topics are Middle Eastern and migration studies from cultural and political perspectives. She has previously worked on how pop music enhances political legitimacy of Islamist parties in Lebanon and Tunisia. Moreover, she’s a member of the artistic committee of the cultural local festival «Hergla Respire L’Art» back in Tunisia, where she manages artistic workshops for young people.

Published on July 09, 2020

Last updated on August 21, 2020

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The Turkish section of the virtual exhibition «DisOrient» (design: Rugwind).

DisOrient – An Orientation

Introduction

by Theresa Beyer,

Dara Shikoh Channa

The Norient Special «DisOrient – Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors» presents contemporary music videos from the Middle East as well as Central and South Asia, that challenge Orientalist stereotypes. Dara Shikoh Channa and Theresa Beyer, who designed and coordinated the project, know this is a sensitive topic.

What does a Punjabi singer do in a Tulipan field? Does Mozart’s «Turkish March» make for a good rap-beat? What do the majestic, abandoned, and nostalgic opera houses of Algier, Beirut, and Muscat echo? And how do Russian nationalists imagine Central Asia? These are the questions posed by the music videos presented in the Norient Special, «DisOrient – Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors». The videos have been produced in Türkiye, Lebanon, Saudi-Arabia, Iran, Tajikistan, and India, among other countries, each showing how musicians and video artists from these regions oppose one-dimensional Orientalist ideas.

Following Edward Said, we see «Orientalism» among others, as a «Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient» (Said 1978, 2). Also in Western music, the «Orient» was (and is) a projection field for the exoticized, essentialized, and de-historicized «Other», which had (and has) to serve as radical antithesis to the West. One example is Mozart’s opera The Abduction from the Seraglio from 1782, which is, according to the musicologist Susanne Binas-Preisendörfer, «a melting pot for everything exotic» (Binas-Preisendörfer 2012). As audio-visual artworks, music videos are akin to opera; both rely on Orientalist imagery to convey the metaphor of the «Other», the «martial», the «traditional», and the «wicked» (see interview with Marcus Henrik Wyrwich about Orientalism in pop music.) Just watch Sting’s «Desert Rose» (1999), Beyoncé’s and Shakira’s «Liar» (2006), or Coldplays «Hymn for the Weekend» (2015). However, the good news is that the music video can also satirize these tropes and turn the concept of Orientalism on its head. That’s why this global form of expression is at the center of this Norient Special.

Transcultural Perspectives

The goal of the Mannheimer Sommer festival 2020 was to deconstruct Orientalist ideas in music, as the subtitle «Beyond the Seraglio» implies. The biennial festival, which puts Mozart operas in a contemporary context, commissioned Norient to curate a multimedia-exhibition. The videos should have been presented on huge screens in a dark, tunnel-like bunker under the National Theater Mannheim, but because of the Corona pandemic the festival has been cancelled. However, thanks to the designers from Rugwind, the exhibition could move to the Internet and is accessible until summer 2021: www.norient-disorient.com.

For the curation of the virtual exhibition and the writing of the texts for the Norient Special, seven international curators and authors from the Norient network came together. They are active between pop culture, visual arts, academia, and music, each with transcultural biographies: The cultural anthropologist Daniyal Ahmed lives in Karachi, but has studied in Heidelberg (Germany). Basak Senova is a curator and designer from Istanbul and currently holds a guest professorship in Vienna. Curator Neil van der Linden from Amsterdam specializes on the cultural exchange with Europe and the Gulf-states. Artist and activist Georgy Mamedow looks from Bishkek (Kirgystan) on the subject. Ali Sayah from Teheran lives in Berlin, and author Nermin Abbassi from Tunesia lives in Freiburg (Germany), while curator Berit Schuck from Berlin, for a long period, was active in Alexandria.

Overcoming Pitfalls

The Norient Special discusses Orientalism by introducing six selections with music videos from specific regions – we believe that in order to start a profound discourse, we need a critical amount of material. The «DisOrient» Special also decodes specific music videos and dares to talk about the complex phenomenon of «self-Orientalization». Norient reflects on the topic also via a pure artistic approach: sound artist Rehab Hazgui has exclusively composed a track in which she uses the Orientalist midi-melodies of the computer game Prince of Persia and turns them into a surrealist soundtrack.

Despite the multi-local and multi-perspective design of the project, we encountered some complex ethical questions along the way.

1) The project is based on the initial assumption that musicians and music video directors in the Middle East (and beyond) are actually engaging with the topic of Orientalism. Do we nourish the Western construction of the «Orient» with such an assumption, or possibly even make it more meaningful? Is the topic of de-Orientalization as relevant as we think outside Europe and the U.S.?

2) We have asked our curators to research music videos that criticize Orientalism. Does this task direct the research implicitly towards traditional and «local» sounds? That’s something Norient tries to avoid since it has been founded in 2002.

3) Can we escape the power of the imageries and musical norms at all? If a music video deconstructs or parodies stereotypes of the «Orient», does the same video affirm and reproduce them at the same time?

A Disorienting Experience

Yes, Orientalism and its counter-narratives is a tricky topic indeed. And that’s why, when approaching it, contextualization, subjectivity, transparency, and differentiation are extremely important. The team behind this Norient Special followed these values: in the six-part series «Challenging Orientalism», every selected clip is accompanied by commentary from the curator, some of whom even make appearances in personal video statements.

During the research process, every curator and author followed their own definition of which artistic strategies actually lead to the critique of Orientalism – or which can be read as such. The presented music videos are pleas for dissolving the (supposed) static poles of East vs. West. They parody the accusation of backwardness and relieve themselves from the power of Western interpretation. They unmask Orientalist stereotypes as empty or exaggerate them into subversive kitsch, or they turn the tables by Orientalizing the West.

By following these very different and very new perspectives, we suddenly find ourselves in the middle of a hall of mirrors. The powerful, sophisticated, and humorous artistic self-representations – and their distinct and endless interpretations – hold a mirror up to ourselves. They distort our self-images, let us feel dizzy until we are surprised about ourseves. And that’s the goal of this Norient Special: When we lose orientation, the focus will be sharpened.

List of References

Binas-Preisendörfer, Susanne. 2012. «Mozart, Sting und Marsimoto. Zur Bedeutung klanglicher Repräsentationen des ‹Orients› in ‹westlicher› Musik». In Transkulturalität und Musikvermittlung. Möglichkeiten und Herausforderungen in Forschung, Kulturpolitik und musikpädagogischer Praxis, edited by Susanne Binas-Preisendörfer and Melanie Unseld. (Musik und Gesellschaft 33). 21–41. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. (https://uol.de/fileadmin/user_upload/musik-medien/Mozart__Sting_und_Marsimoto_-_Zur_Bedeutung_klanglicher_Repraesentationen_des_Orients.pdf).

Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

This editorial has been written in the context of «DisOrient: Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors». A virtual music video exhibition by Norient for Mannheimer Sommer (July 12–22, 2020). Because of the Corona pandemic, the festival took place as a virtual event.

Biography

Theresa Beyer gehört seit 2011 als Editorin, Kuratorin und Mitherausgeberin des Buches «Seismographic Sounds – Visions of a New World» zum Kernteam von Norient und beschäftigt sich mit Themen wie Queeren Musikkulturen, experimenteller Musik in Städten wie Belgrad oder Neu Delhi, und reflektiert in Vorträgen über die Chancen des multilokalen Kuratierens. Neben ihrer Norient-Identität ist sie Musikredaktorin bei Radio SRF 2 Kultur. Follow her on LinkedIn.

Biography

Dara Shikoh Channa is a multidisciplinary audiovisual artist and musician from Pakistan who majored in Anthropology and History at the University College Freiburg. His final research focused on how migration trends since 2015 have been changing the soundscape of Freiburg and why they must be studied better. Follow him on LinkedIn.

Published on July 21, 2020

Last updated on September 18, 2023

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Challenging Orientalism Pt. 4

Playlist

by Ali Sayah

Six international curators from the Norient community have researched contemporary music videos that re-imagine, parody, or deconstruct Orientalism. The final selection is presented in the virtual exhibition «DisOrient: Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors», which is part of the German festival Mannheimer Sommer. Here is the shortlist curated by artist and musician Ali Sayah, who focuses on the Iranian indie scene. It’s going to be dark, surreal, and very spatial...

Music: Otagh Band
Video: Bamdad Afshar
Track: The Dead Are Selfish (Iran, 2019)

This video shows many of the stereotypical components of Orientalist paintings. It deconstructs the Orientalist perspective by contradicting the associated expectations of its viewers. A mechanical, skeleton-like hand plays something on the keyboard of a simple self-made instrument and each note that we hear is distorted. Next we see a setting that we are familiar with through a number of Orientalist paintings: a girl with a headscarf in an exotic building. Despite the familiar structure, this setting shows no sign of the usual eroticism and exoticism of Orientalist paintings: the girl is dressed very plainly, her movements are mechanical, and she is neither charming nor seductive. Finally, the building is a ruin. The video shows many of the components of Orientalist paintings and by contradicting the interconnected expectations, it deconstructs the Orientalist perspective.

Pool in a Harem, painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1875

Music: Mentrix
Video: Gilles Esteve
Track: Walk (Iran, 2020)

«Walk» is a music video by Iran-born and Berlin-based artist Samar Rad, who leads the band Mentrix. In this video you see the sights of a deserted city, concrete buildings with Persian architecture, shops, and neon light signs. In front, you can see young girls wearing hijab (veil) performing or standing still with a cold look staring at the camera; girls who somehow seem to rebel. It looks as though they are on a journey (odyssey) from the hurt of the desert to utopia (maybe). Again, similar images can be seen in Orientalist paintings: Oriental charm of girls wearing hijab being in imaginary and exotic places in the absence of men. Self-Orientalization is what you can see in this video. The same thing is happening in the music somehow as the daf, a Persian frame drum, is used to make the rhythm and is mixed with English lyrics. The tune and melody belong to Iranian music and evoke elements of prayer rituals and Sufi music.

Music: Elemaun
Video: Pooyan Ranjbar
Track: Endelah (Iran, 2017)

Richard Taruskin is a U.S. musicologist who considers Orientalism in romantic Russian music as «having melodies full of close little ornaments and melismas» (Taruskin 1997, 156), chromatic accompanying lines, and drone bass. The track «Endelah» is doing exactly that. It begins with a drone sound with consecutive and repetitive notes. Next, a Balochi melody1 with lots of close little ornaments and melismas is added. The way this is done sounds exotic, even for Iranians. The camera enters the bright courtyard of a mosque from a dark water reservoir underneath. We follow someone whose face cannot be seen due to the high black and white contrast when filming the atmosphere of Iranian architecture. This makes the video even more mysterious.

Music: Jalboat
Video: Mehrdad Motejali
Track: Darvag (Iran, 2020)

Jalboat’s track «Darvag» is based on a poem by the well-known Iranian poet Nimā a Youushij (1897–1960). The entire poem is a conversation between Yushij and a tree frog called «Darvag». The poet asks the frog about the time when it’s going to rain and he starts with this sentence: «My farm has become dry alongside the neighbor’s farm.» In comparison with the former Iranian neighbor the Soviet Union, this means that Iran lacks social change. Seyyed Rahim Moosavinia, Nozar Niazi, and Ahmad Ghaforianas have summarized it as follows: «Orientalism is affiliated with the representation of the Self or Occident and the Other or Orient in which the Self is privileged and has the upper hand to define, reconstruct the passive, silent and weak Other» (Moosavinia, Niazi and Ghaforianas 2011, 103). In Jalboat’s video, we see a strange, alien-like creature, who performs weird movements in an abandoned and ruined place. A fusion style music can be heard, a combination of folk music from South Iran and rock, creating an unfamiliar atmosphere.

Music and Video: Ali Sayah
Track: TA'ZIEH (Germany, 2016)

Ta’zieh, primarily known from the Persian tradition, is a Shiite ritual (Condolence Theater or Passion Play) that reenacts the death of Hussein (prophet Muhammad’s grandson), his male children, and his companions in a brutal massacre on the plains of Karbala, Iraq, in the year 680 A.D. My video «TA’ZIEH» is a combination of film footage from different Ta’zieh representations, a mourning ritual for Husayn ibn Ali, the third imam of Shi’ism, and a procession from the same context. The video narrates linearly the «Battle of Karbala». The remixed rituals involve a distinct music with particular rhythm, instruments, and chant. The music of «TA’ZIEH» relies on these elements within the genre of electro-acoustic drum ’n’ bass.

In his book Islamic Liberation Theology, the Iranian philosopher Hamid Dabashi contextualizes Ta’zieh from a contemporary perspective:

Today, it is impossible to understand Ta’ziyeh outside its Islamic and Shi’i context. To exoticize it as «traditional theater», the way classical Orientalism has done it, to isolate and sever it from the rest of the creative culture that generates and sustains it, the way contemporary anthropology has done it, or else to assimilate it backward to its possible Iranian roots in Seyavashan, as the Iranian nativist reading is wont to do, all rob Ta’ziyeh of its integral location in the entirety of its immediate cultural universe. Above all else, Ta’ziyeh is a communal act of collective redemption – its performative, dramatic, mimetic, and dramaturgical dimensions all integral to this its most defining significance. (Dabashi 2008, 187)

In conclusion, the music video «TA’ZIEH» creates a symbolic narrative of a historical ritual.

1. The Baloch are an Iranian people, mainly living in the Southeast of Iran.

List of References

Dabashi, Hamid. 2008. Islamic Liberation Theology. New York: Routledge.

Taruskin, Richard. 1997. Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Moosavinia, Seyyed Rahim, Nozar Niazi, and Ahmad Ghaforianas. 2011. «Edward Said’s Orientalism and the Study of the Self and the Other in Orwell’s Burmese Days». Studies in Literature and Language 2 (1): 103–13. (http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/sll/article/view/j.sll.1923156320110201.002).

This playlist has been compiled in the context of «DisOrient: Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors». A virtual music video exhibition by Norient for Mannheimer Sommer (July 12–22, 2020). Because of the Corona pandemic, the festival took place as a virtual event.

Biography

Ali Sayah is a visual artist and musician from Tehran based in Berlin. After studying art at the science and culture University of Tehran, he worked in design in various studios and has collaborated with The Mucker and Easteacan, both indie rock bands, and Sarv, an Iranian music ensemble. He is currently studying at Weissensee Kunsthochschule Berlin and has had several exhibitions in Berlin and Palermo. His work is related to the relationship between traditional Iranian culture and contemporary developments in culture. His last project was an interactive installation about the connection of Persian music, architecture, and geometry, and he is currently working on the influence of media on people’s perception of music, using multimedia and research methods from social science.

Links

Nermin Abbassi: «Self-Orientalism in Arab Pop Music» (Norient)

Published on June 22, 2020

Last updated on August 21, 2020

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