The subtle seductiveness of Arabic music
Arabic songs are actually really sexy
In 1992 Madonna released her sexy hypnotic ethereal feverish epic of eros Erotica (her best album BTW). In the title track she introduces us to her dominatrix alter ego Dita, lulling and seducing listeners with her dark poetry climaxing to the orgasmic chorus: “Erotic erotic / Put your hands all over my body.” “Erotica” was a top ten hit in twenty countries and remains one of Madonna’s iconic songs, revealing a raw and edgier Madge at the height of her career. Then she got sued.
In the last iteration of the chorus, a lamenting melismatic vocal melody emerges superimposed over Madonna’s voice saying “All over me.” That voice which haunts this later section is none other than Lebanese superstar Fairuz, the most important Arabic cultural figure of the 20th century. Though Madonna and her producers never asked Fairuz for permission, they settled out of court for $2.5 million. However, the lawsuit was not the end of this scandal.
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“Al Yawm Oulliqa,” the sampled track taken from Fairuz’s 1962 Good Friday, Eastern Sacred Songs, is a Byzantine hymn detailing Jesus’ crucifixion, while Madonna sings about sexual submission, bondage, and giving into temptation. Erotica was thus banned in Lebanon (based af).
Much of Fairuz’s oeuvre is steeped in the Arabic Classical tradition,1 but as we’ll see, Arabic pop music establishes continuity with its older and more sophisticated musical systems, whereas Western pop music gave that up long ago.
Umm Kulthum: queen of Arabic music
We owe thanks to the Egyptian superstar and the absolute queen of Arabic music, Umm Kulthum. In fact, we owe her everything. Kulthum was the first female superstar of Arabic music, which made female performers less taboo. A devout Muslim, Kulthum memorized the whole Quran as a young child. Her father noticed her talent, and she began publicly performing with her family ensemble. Because of the taboo surrounding female performers, her father insisted she wear boys’ cloaks, which hid her identity. By sixteen she was noticed and her career took off.
Kulthum was a trailblazer not only for her role in shaping Arabic music’s acceptance of female performers, but also for the aesthetic development of Arabic music. She was widely popular all over the world throughout her fifty-year career and worked with the best Arabic poets and composers. Robert Plant, Maria Callas, and Bob Dylan have praised and admired her. Toward the end of her career, she managed to release her most iconic song, an earth-shattering epic of desire, “Enta Omry.”2
This is the beginning of Arabic popular music. Kulthum filled concert halls all over the world, was featured on television programs, and introduced a new sound to Arabic music. “Enta Omry” is about an old flame. All Arabic songs are love songs, but not always about people (more on this later). Kulthum sings about the love that changed her life, and the pain of departing, but she reconciles her feelings at the end of the song: “I forgave time because of you / With you I forgot my pains / Made amends with the days / And I forget with you, my misery.”
“Enta Omry” features some of the most fantastic poetry in Arabic music:
“My dreams found in the light of your eyes / Every happiness I longed for, before we met.”
Or: “You are my life which starts in the dawn of your light.” And of course: “Taste the love of my tender heart which longs for you / Bring your eyes so close that mine vanish in the life of your eyes / Draw our hands together that mine may rest in your touch.”
Watch a performance on YouTube.
Look at the audience. When the camera pans to them, notice their restlessness…how they can’t physically contain themselves. It’s typical for Arab audiences to shout “Allah!” during parts of performances in which they are filled with pure ecstasy. Where can one turn? What else can possibly be expressed after the epic eros of Umm Kulthum?
Fairuz
Thank Allah, we have a second Arab Queen. Fairuz was born into a Syriac Orthodox family in Beirut and sang in chorus as a child. She was discovered in her late teens and began working with the Rahbani brothers (she would later marry Assi Rahbani).3 One of Fairuz’s iconic songs is “Nassam alayna el hawa,” which was composed for her role in the 1968 film The Gaurd’s Daughter.
In the film’s most memorable scene, Fairuz goes to the ship docks to visit her father who was recently let off from his post as the town constable and who now lives onboard a vessel. The men are taken by her beauty and charm, and they break into song: “A breeze comes through the valley / with memories of home / For love, O breeze / take me back home.” The word for breeze, hawa, is also the poetic rendering of the word for love in Arabic. The Guard’s Daughter is not a progressive film. In an era where Hollywood began challenging social norms and European art cinema focused on psychosexual issues, radical politics, and the death of God, The Guard’s Daughter is remarkably reserved and sticks to old world gender roles: men and women know their place.
In the closing verses of “Nassam,” Fairuz and the shipmen sing of a longing for home, of a love of home. It is a pastoral song, honoring homelife and domesticity through poetic expression. In one scene, a Lebanese weddings occurs. In another, children fly their kites in a field, as Fairuz sings about how she too, feels like a child, and recalls her early youth as she watches the children play.4
There is one hit that stands out, however. “Kifak Inta” (How Are You) may well have been produced by the Bee Gees. It features a purely Western pop sound complete with piano riffs, a horn section, colorful strings and a typical pop drum beat. “Kifak Inta” was released in the late 80s, after Fairuz’s husband died, and her son Ziad Rahbani began producing her albums, marking and aesthetic shift toward funk, soul and jazz. Since then, Fairuz’s albums tend to feature this aesthetic, but she still performs her older music in live performances.
Abdel Halim Hafez
Egyptian composer, conductor, multi-instrumentalist and singer, Abdel Halim Hafez, was of the same generation as Fairuz. His short career was tragically cut short at the age of forty-seven due cirrhosis of the liver, a disease that long plagued him. Hafez wrote all of his songs and introduced the Arab world to many Western instruments. Like Kulthum, he performed and composed songs of long duration with lyrics from well known poets, but his own lyrics were composed in the shorter, modern style, like Fairuz.
One of Hafez’s biggest hits is in the older Egyptian style, and is still performed today by contemporary Arabic artists. “Zay El Hawa” (Like the Wind) is Hafez’s “Enta Omry.” Hafez composed the music to Mohamed Hamza’s poem, and remains a original and powerful creation.5 The song tells of two lovers expressing their love one evening, at home, alone. They “fill the house with roses, passions, love and songs,” and, candles. Hamza’s lyrical genius is most evident toward the end of the song: “We sang together a sweet song / And we melted with the candles wax, we melted together / And we tasted sweet love, we tasted together.”
Remember, hawa also means passion, or love. At the end of the song, the candles are blown out, and the female lover leaves, deciding against passion. In the closing verses the male lover, at the height of anticipation, is “holding love, holding passion” in his hands, and he is overcome, overcome by passion: “I can’t take it / I can’t take it, my sweet love.”
Need it be said many of these Arabic songs are actually really sexy?
Nancy Ajram
Contemporary Lebanese popstar Nancy Ajram follows in this tradition. In her hit song “Lawn Oyounak” (The Color of your Eyes) Ajram professes her undying love to a man she wants to be with forever. The song is known for using the rhythms of the traditional Lebanese wedding percussion procession. Taking it one step further, the music video features a Lebanese wedding, with Nancy donned in an elegant spaghetti-strap wedding dress. There is a moment in the video in which the newlyweds leave their wedding and run into a forest. Nancy leads the way, and her husband begins stripping away pieces of her dress as she spins and runs through the woods.
In the “Ah W Noss” (I Mean It) music video, a young village man tries to get the attention of Nancy, a young village maiden. The aesthetics of the video are meant to harken back to old, agrarian times. Nancy is not interested, but she has fun teasing him to get closer, only to tell him to back off (she means it). In one scene, she dries laundry outside as the young man watches her. She wears a worried expression, but then begins to laugh, to dance. At the end of the video Nancy is performing a belly dance in the back of a carriage surrounded by old tetas and little kids, while the young man rides after her on his motorcycle through mud which ultimately slows his trail.
Subtle seduction>Raunch
Like Fairuz, there is a domestic quality to Nancy’s aesthetic but also an undercurrent of erotic desire that we hear in Kulthum and Hafez. Some of Nancy’s videos have been banned and criticized for being too sexy (which they are). The “Akhasmak Ah” video features Nancy as a sexy bar owner prancing and dancing around in a strapless black dress. No nudity, no revealing. Tinder accounts are spicier than this. And that’s the problem.
Yes, we love it when Madonna said “I’d like to put you in a trance / take you from behind / Push myself into your mind,” but it’s not really sexy. The problem with raw depictions of sex is it’s performative; it doesn’t fully express erotic longing. It’s also why thirst-trapping is really boring. There’s nothing mysterious about a revealing pic.
This is not to be moralizing or to put down all erotic art. There’s truth in erotic art and pornography (especially when its done right). It’s forbidden in most Arab countries to write songs about sex, drugs, or alcohol, and so the music of this region is remarkably tame compared to the legions of diabolical pop artistry in the West.
2000s R&B/Hip Hop’s appropriation of Arabic Music
Beyoncé, in addition to frequently using Arabic scales and having sampled classical Arabic music, has performed dance routines to “Enta Omry.” Jay-Z sampled Hafez’s “Khosara Khosara” in his Timbaland-produced hit “Big-Pimpin,” which resulted in an eight year dispute (which Jay-Z won). Like Madonna, Jay-Z was accused of grossly using Hafez’s music and tarnishing his legacy.
The fact that Timbaland was hired to produce more tracks sampling Arabic songs after the success of “Big Pimpin” testifies to the simple truth that Western artists are deeply moved by this foreign music and seek to honor it on their own. Yet, there is something perverse about stripping Kulthum, Hafez and Fairuz away from their cultural contexts and placing them in a new one. We do not see the reverse. As we’ve heard, Kulthum and Hafez’s ensembles use Western instruments, but they integrate the sound into their aesthetics. Despite being a recent artist, nothing in Nancy’s music sounds Western. Sure, her producers use electronic dance beats and current engineering practices, but the beats and melodies are uniquely Arabic.6
Amr Diab
Take Amr Diab, who has become one of the best-selling artists from the Middle East, and more than any other Arab superstar his sound is more Western inspired. His biggest hit “Tamally Maak” (I’m Always with You) opens with a delicate melody played on the oud. Then the beat drops. No thunderous percussion, no darbuka and frame drums; but a smooth beat backed by lush harmonies and classical guitar. It’s Arabic soul.
“Tamally Maak” became a hit in several countries and has been covered throughout the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans. Other songs like “Nour El Ein” and “Amarain” contain elements of Spanish music. No doubt Diab’s global success is due to his global style. Again what we see is an artist who integrates. Soul/R&B was the Lingua Franca of early 2000s music and Diab was able to cultivate that aesthetic. His Spanish inspired songs use Phrygian harmonies and clave-like rhythms heard in the music styles of South America. To become the culture, you must cultivate.
Mohammed Assaf
I attended my cousin’s big fat Macedonian-Palestinian wedding some years back. Little did I know then that many of the songs the Arabic band performed that night were popular hits of Mohammed Assaf. Assaf was the 2013 winner of Arab Idol, and has been a Romantic figure for Palestinians (especially after the release of his biopic the next year). Indeed, he is well known and celebrated across the Arab world. Assaf sings tender love songs such as “Mahank Khaly” or “Mraytak.” His voice is clear and soulful like the Heavenly choirs of cherubim. He is beautiful, and sings another kind of love song, not about women, but his land.
On Arab Idol Assaf performed “Alyi El Kofiya” (Raise the Kofiya) which has since been rerecorded and become one of his many anthems. The kofiya is a Palestinian headdress historically worn by Palestinian farmers as protection from the sun, but became a political symbol in the 1930s during British resistance. It can be worn as a scarf, too. “Alyi El Kofiya” is an anthem of strength; he sings of Palestinian pain but also of triumph, of fighting on for Palestinian human rights.
“Ana Dammi Falastini” (My Blood is Palestinian) may be his most well known song and is lyrically similar to “Alyi El Kofiya.” In May of 2023 “Ana Dammi Falastini” was removed from Spotify, causing huge backlash. Spotify explained that it was not their choice but the distributor’s, yet two day later, the song was once again available for streaming. Kulthum and Hafez also performed and wrote patriotic songs, especially after Egypt’s Six Day War with Israel.
These patriotic songs are meant to unify people, and they did (and still do). Assaf’s love songs fuse Arabic and R&B sounds, while his patriotic songs are composed with the archetypes of Palestinian traditional music: roaring percussion, wailing bagpipes, dance rhythms, and elaborate microtonal melodies blasted through synthesizers. Indeed, Assaf is a kind of folk hero, delicately balancing between two portraits of an artist.
Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) ran a segment on Umm Kulthum in 2020 regarding her enduring popularity. Younger folk were interviewed in the video and interestingly, a fair amount disliked Kulthum as children but grew to admire her later on. You can watch the vid for yourself; unsurprisingly, there’s a nostalgia factor for some, but also, Kulthum is an icon.
Great art passes onto the new generations. No doubt you’ve seen younger zoomers wearing Prince, Hendrix or Whitney Houston t-shirts. Some of it is just aesthetic; they like the Purple Rain album cover. Nothing more. There’s always a faction of each generation that preserves older art.
In the West, it’s usually the artsy types. But what I see with my Arabic, Turkish, and Iranian friends is an appreciation, continuously handed down, of old media. Western pop has become a cult of decadence whereas Eastern pop preserves cultural spiritual and political memory. This is not to say that either side is good or bad; it’s just different.
Anyway, you should be listening to Arabic music. Here’s a playlist (sorry if you don’t have Spotify).
Traditional or Classical Arabic music (pre-20th century) is exclusively performed with Arabic instruments such as the oud, kanun, rhebab, buzuq, and percussion instruments like the riq, darbuka, and frame drums (note, the spellings and names of these instruments vary between regions). These days Western Classical strings can also be used in traditional Arabic musics. Taqsim (improvisation) might well be the most persevered style and approach to traditional music. Taqsims can be performed solo, or between multiple players. Often, groups of musicians who perform taqsim will nod to each other when they are done soloing.
All Arabic music is composed with maqams (modes). Much like the Western scales, maqams are series of pitches, each with their own unique character. Rast, for example, sounds very different from the maqam hijaz. We might describe rast as bright, and hijaz as dark. Or bayati, a very common maqam, as lamenting. But it must be noted that emotional responses to maqams is purely subjective, and performers of the taqsim tradition are not necessarily thinking of the emotional character of a maqam. Rather, they are focusing on the intervals themselves, on the different patterns and combinations of notes. The way Munir Bashir plays rast may be totally different from the way Nima Janmohammadi plays it.
Traditional Arabic music contains complex rhythmic patterns. Samai Bayati, a standard, if you will, of traditional Arabic music is in 10/8. The maqam used, also noted in title, is bayati. Here is Simon Shaheen, a master of Arabic music, performing a taqsim in hijaz. Notice that taqsims are less metered and rhythmically freer than the rhythmic style of the Arabic orchestra. Arabic music also uses different tuning systems than the West. You might hear some notes in Arabic music that sound “out of tune,” but what you’re hearing is a microtone, an interval smaller than a semitone (semitones are the smallest interval in Western Classical music). Even the most Western-inspired Arabic artists of today use microtones. Most don’t realize it, but microtones show up in Western pop music in interesting ways (Grunge guitarists in the early days were rarely in tune).
A typical performance of “Enta Omry” lasts at least forty minutes. The piece begins with a sparse, elegant, contemplative kanun solo. The maqam is segah, a mode similar to the Western Phrygian scale used widely in Greek Rebetika and Spanish Flamenco. In many live versions of “Enta Omry,” an electric guitar plays the new melody following the kanun solo, in addition to a large string section.
“Enta Omry” (You are my Life) is composed of three distinct musical sections: a meandering mournful opening, an ecstatic and passionate middle, and an ending which begins bright, joyful, but returns to the dark sonorities from earlier in the piece.
Aesthetically, Fairuz continues in the tradition of Kulthum; Fairuz’s songs are deep love poems, matched with melancholic and ecstatic melodies from her ensemble. Kulthum had a deep, rich alto voice, whereas Fairuz has much more range. Fairuz began performing in 50s, when the Egyptian style of Arabic was dominant. Most singers at the time where singing in the Egyptian dialect, like Kulthum, and sang songs that ranged around twenty to thirty minutes. Fairuz and the Rahabni brothers challenged those aesthetics by writing short three minute songs in their Lebanese dialect.
Fairuz’s many hits include the mournful “Saalouny El Nas,” the ecstatic and restless “Habaitak Ta Neseet Al Naoum,” the darkly resonant “Ya Rayt Mennon,”and a well known musical rendition of the old Arabic poem, which has been covered dozens of times all over the world because of her, “Lama Bada Yatathanna.”
The piece begins with alternating riffs between electric guitar and string section. After this short intro, there’s a percussion section comprised of darbuka (a staple of Egyptian music) and frame drums enter; a melody then emerges, soulful and heavily ornamented, played on the saxophone. Traditionally, this kind of melody would be played by a zurna, ney, or some other Eastern wind instrument, but Hafez introduces a new coloristic musical effect.
Reggaeton and Balkan Turbofolk are Western branches of popular music, but they exist in their own contexts, with their own unique sounds, which we would not consider either genres as typical of industry standards (here I mean American pop music).
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