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Muslim convert (from atheism) AR Rahman is up for another Oscar.
Indian composer AR Rahman has been shortlisted for an Oscar nomination for his Tamil song NaNa from the Hollywood film, Couples Retreat.
….The composer is often called the Mozart of India.
Hear it here. He previously received two Oscars for his work on Slumdog Millionaire.
If scientists wrote nasheeds about outer space.
Weird things you find wandering on-line: The Carl Sagan/Stephen Hawkings rap/techno/emo remix.
Palestinians in Lebanese refugee camps to be introduced to ‘turntablism.’
“Turntables are in fact musical instruments,” Danish turntablist Martin Jakobsen explains at his Gemmayze flat the night before the start of a series of DJ workshops for Palestinian youth called: “Turntables in the Camps.”
“This is our first time in Lebanon, and Den Sorte Skole – the three-man DJ crew that I’m repping – we want to introduce the idea that there is this global DJ culture that Palestinian youth can take part in; a culture that doesn’t exclude them in the ways that they are excluded from Lebanese society, and that through turntablism, we can teach them to use sounds from their own lives to create music.”
Jakobsen told NOW Lebanon he was not sure what to expect out of the process, but he said, “I am realistic – I know that it’s not going to save anyone – but these workshops are a way of saying to them – ‘Hey, everyone can be a DJ – and, ‘You don’t need all this fancy shit’ – especially if we’re investing the equipment for them to come and experiment on from time to time.”
Jakobsen’s compatriot, Simon Dokkedal, the crew’s scratch specialist, waxes a little more street on the matter. “We training the next generation of sound pirates!” adding, “Hopefully we’ll plant the seeds here, and from this we can create a new generation of hip-hop DJ’s here in the camps.”
‘Punk Islam’ documentary debuting in North America. Trailer here.
Kanye West’s oafishness distracted from something very important at the VMAs this year.
Greenday’s anti-war anthem 21 Guns won song of the year.
Do you know what’s worth fighting for?
When it’s not worth dying for?
Does it take your breath away
And you feel yourself suffocating?Does the pain weigh out the pride?
And you look for a place to hide?
Did someone break your heart inside?
You’re in ruinsOne, 21 guns
Lay down your arms, give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky, you and I
Music is part of our contemporary Ars Poetica.
And I think American public sentiment is turning against warfare….like perhaps in the sixties?
I wasn’t around. 
I think this means Obama is probably not going to be sending many more bodies to the Graveyard of Empires.
Sorry, Buzz.
Beyonce won’t be ‘naughty girl’ at Malaysia show.
Beyonce Knowles has sung about partying like a “naughty girl,” but Malaysians can expect her to be on her best behavior for a concert in this Muslim-majority country next month, the event’s organizer said Thursday.
The R&B superstar has attracted criticism in recent days from the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, the country’s largest opposition group, which wants authorities to scrap the Oct. 25 show because it would promote “Western sexy performances.”
….Entertainment company Marctensia, the concert’s Malaysian organizer, said Knowles should be regarded as a “role model” and “embodiment of success” because of her heavy involvement in philanthropy work, including campaigns against poverty and domestic violence.
The company also allayed concerns that Knowles would wear inappropriate outfits, saying “all parties have come to an amicable understanding” about stage costumes at the stadium concert in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s largest city.
An article about the alternative rock and rap music scene in Azerbaijan, a country in the South Caucasus region. Azerbaijan is about 95 percent Muslim – mostly Shiite. Recent music has tended to be nationalist in theme, but the alternative voices are reported to be taking a contemporary, “progressive” (read ‘Western’) slant.
Or are they? I noticed in this youtube video from the group HOST Alliance that the first line of this song is the first line of al-Fatihah (which is all I could recognize since I don’t speak Azerbaijani). Could a movement that mashes up Western protest music forms with elements of Islamic identity be forming where the Western reporter would recognize the former but be oblivious to the latter?
Anyway, here’s some more on HOST Alliance:
Of course, the authorities are also well aware of the potential for change that alternative music brings with it. Last month, for example, one Azeri newspaper reported that fans of another rap band, H.O.S.T Alliance, were being intimidated by national security service agents in the Azeri exclave of Nakhichevan. Fifteen youth were detained for eight hours by National Security Ministry operatives and instructed not to listen to the band’s music which they reportedly claimed was “subversive.”
The band too has not been spared from unwanted attention from the authorities. Although it released its first album in 2007, H.O.S.T Alliance has not been able to sell it openly in Azerbaijan. Instead, the music has been distributed freely from person to person. H.O.S.T Alliance too has also been detained and warned not to write any more “anti-State” songs while the police are known to demand fans they encounter delete the band’s music off their mobile phones.
More videos from HOST Alliance here, here, and in English, here.
Feature on Pakistani rapper Adil Omar, who at 18, is working with A-list rappers like B-Real of Cypress Hill, and who is reported to be on the edge of A-list breakout himself.
A “docu-music-video” from Detroit MC Invincible for her song “People Not Places.”
Adam Horowitz writes, “The video, like the song, is a powerful indictment of both the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people, and attempts to shield young American Jews from this reality through programs like Birthright.” Check it out.
Oxford educated rapper, actor and all-round cool dude Riz MC, who launched his musical career with the satirical Post 9/11 Blues, has released a new song/video on the post 7/7 legacy.
A sore point on the part of some about the response of the Muslim community to Michael Jackson’s rumored conversion:
When a famous person becomes Muslim, it becomes permissible to celebrate their achievements which are haram upon everyone else. Upon the death of Michael Jackson, we are seeing Muslim leaders celebrating his music as if no one has ever said that music is haram. No, that is not true anymore. Those regular people who gave up their musical instruments were imagining things.
This is a fair observation, and in the comments SB catches a few for whom this resonates:
I can understand this post 100%. I was a guitar player before becoming Muslim and was told to ditch it. Now these people are actually promoting people that play music. That stinks.
Also, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) is back making music again.
There seems to be a lack of clarity about whether there is a prohibition on music. Here are the sources – one Quranic, one from the hadiths – that are said to fix its ‘haramness’:
The Iranian music artist response to the protests there is being covered by Mark Levine. She has comments from a number of heavy metal and hip hop artists in that country.
If ‘Westoxification’ makes you see red, you’ll really be burned by this segment from CBC News last month.
Says the correspondent:
If you want to see what a modern Muslim revolution really looks like, you have to come here, to Iran.
The piece is titled “Iran’s Young Rebels” and described thusly:
In an exclusive investigation, we go inside Iran to explore the secret underground world of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll.
Objectively, there is some segment of Iranian youth culture that is keying off of American youth culture.
It’s really disappointing to think of how if the protesters prevail, the West and the US will probably continue to turn a cold shoulder while demanding that the Iranians prove an unprovable negative (that they aren’t secretly developing nuclear weapons).
On the heels of Obama’s historic speech, Muslim musicians gather in NYC to celebrate, finding their freedom to do so within Islam itself. http://bit.ly/xLqwB
Another ‘Satanist’ bust, this time in Iran. It was some kind of rock music gathering.
Concert goers are accused of “sucking blood” and “bowing to Satan.”
Pakistani headbangers want you to know they are not terrorists.
I don’t know. Heavy metal terrorizes my ears.
Big week on Inside Islam: a radio show on the Eco-Islam movement (with a detailed reading list). Also, an update on heavy metal band Acrassicauda and a post about hip-hop. And as for me, well I’ll be checking out dialogues about Islam on Second Life if you need need me.
Lupe Fiasco and Halal hip-hop, at Inside Islam.
Benazir Bhutto’s daughter raps. About her mother.
Saudi Arabia – land of Death (Metal)
also, the Religious Police like to go bowling once in a while.
Ramadan mubarak! If you have kids, they might like this little Ramadan song I put together for my kids (tune shamelessly cribbed from an old 80’s song). My kids love it; hope yours do too.
This week on MMW, we reported on a new collection of Egypt’s first feminist writings, the sexism in Nawal el Zoghbi’s newest music video, played the Devil’s advocate in arguing about news coverage of Muslim women, and presented another incomparable link list.
Here’s a bit of Sunday levity: a song called “If I Wasn’t Muslim” by Damir Niksic.
Scott MacLeod recalls 100 years of Umm Khalsoum, the famous Egyptian singer.
Question: in your opinion, how important are the musical scales in which the Qur’an is typically recited? (They’re quite ancient, and like most Middle Eastern music use a lot of quarter notes not found in modern Western music. My musical scholar husband thinks some of them may have originally been Coptic, an in turn ancient Egyptian.) I’ve been experimenting with reciting Quran in scales used for Irish and Benedictine chants, which feel less culturally alien to me. (I’ve also noticed that when I recite Fatiha in a Benedictine scale, the rhyme ‘pops’ more in my ears.)
What think you? Halal? Haram? Shall we consult Sheikh ul Nice Cars of the Unbelievers?
Per the request of the music director of SXSW (that’s “South by Southwest” for the acronymically-challenged – it’s one of the largest music-related events in the USA), I’m organizing a lineup of Muslim bands of all genres for next year’s SXSW, to be held in Austin in March 2009.
The audience will be mostly non-Muslim indie music fans (and possibly more than a few record label folks), so the artists we select need to have the talent and the crossover appeal to pull it off (i.e., I think we’ll have to pass on bubblegum pop like the 786 Boys). Would prefer unsigned artists to give them a shot at visibility.
Any suggestions for artists we should court? I’d like to see Kareem Salama, Liza Garza, and Tyson, for starters.
I think they want to call it “Allahpalooza”. Not sure if that will fly.