All posts by newsandnoise

“Open up your mind” – an interview with Dorsaf Hamdani

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‘Stemmerett og stemmeprakt!’ celebrates 100 years anniversary of women’s right to vote in Norway. To draw a line to the present, an encounter has been organized between the well-known Norwegian singers Berit Opheim and Unni Boksasp, together with prominent vocalists from countries of the “Arab spring”, Dorsaf Hamdani from Tunisia and Waed Bouhassoun from Syria. Norwegian folk and Arabic art music alternate and mingle. The performance with support from Fritt Ord took place at the Førde Festival, July this year. A few days before the concert there was a debate about the situation for female artists in countries in the “Arab spring”, with Samara Sallam, Dorsaf Hamdani and Fawzia Baba-Aissa. In the previous post you can find the interview with Samara Sallam. After the concert we asked Dorsaf Hamdani about the project and her work. This (short) interview is held in English.

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Russian oil industry new target Pussy Riot

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Two members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot are serving a two years sentence, but it doesn’t stop the band to keep on criticizing Putin. On the contrary, they just released a new video “Like a red prison” with the Russian Oil Industry as a new target. In the video they dance on an oil pipe and throw oil at a picture of Igor Sechin, chairman of state oil giant Rosneft.  Putin is compared to an Iranian ayatollah and the Roman Catholic church to the United Arab Emirates.

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Rapping about social troubles – an interview with Sadat El3almy

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In an evening lecture (Amsterdam, May 21st) organized by the North Africa and Middle East department of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the serious title, “Youth Unemployment, Counter-Culture and Instability”, we (Charlie Crooijmans and me) were surprised to see the name of the young Egyptian rapper Sadat among the speaker guests (young political activists and a professor economist). The young street rapper – a star in the new wave of Egyptian popular music called “mahragan” (rap on electronic music with heavy use of Auto-Tune ) – doesn’t speak English. Unfortunately did not get a chance to speak out in such a foreign and formal setting. However, in a 5 minutes rap at the end of the evening, he kind of wrapped it all up.

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Palestinian Assaf wins Arab Idol

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The winner of the pan-Arabic talent show ‘Arab Idol’ (held in Beirut, Lebanon) is Mohammed Assaf from Gaza.  Even though the people in Gaza are being confronted with strict morality rules of Hamas, the fundamental Islamic movement – on News and Noise! we had an article about this before – this student of 23-years old was determined to participate Arab Idol. He already got arrested a twenty times by the Hamas, because he was singing at weddings and family parties. The only way to get out of Gaza was bribing an Egyptian guard. Unfortunately he got stuck at the frontier for two days. When he got at the auditions, the doors were already closed. He climbed over a wall, and inside he started to sing in an extremely passionate way. That’s how he was allowed to join the show. Three months later, shortly before midnight on Saturday, he was the declared winner!

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The people of Super 11 are in distress – an interview with MPS Pilot

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The war in Mali brings a lot of  instability and poverty for many people. For the nomadic people like the Tuareg, the situation is even more complicated as we saw in the interview with Ousmane Ag Mossa of Tamikrest on News and Noise! This is also the case for the group Super Onze (or Super 11) from Gao, who is unlike Tinariwen, Tamikrest and others, unknown outside of Mali. They play just one rhythm, Takamba, on traditional instruments like the calebash and the n’goni. But the way they do it is amazingly raw and virtuoso. One of the most adventurous DJ’s in Holland MPS Pilot, aka Horst Timmers – active in the ‘cutting-edge World Music scene’ – got fascinated by Super 11 and found a way to work together with the group. Recently he released their second album on his label Two Speakers. I asked him some questions about how they met, their collaboration and how the situation in Mali affects Super 11.

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