I enjoy listening to Amr Diab, known as the greatest pop singer of Egypt. The first song that got me acquainted with his music was the world famous, "Tamally Maak", which means "always with you". I was not an avid listener of his music until recently. I enjoyed his other music pieces notably, "Amarain", "Wala ala balo", "Nour el ain", "Qusad ainy", "Khalik Maaya" "Khatfoony". I kept listening to these and enjoying these over and over. I kept admiring his voice and wondered how come he is consistently churning out melodies event relevant for this day and age.
Today I was listening to his song and wondered he must not be the only one there must be other arabic music legends that I should discovered. I searched, "Top Arabic artists of all time".
I got top three hits, "Umm Kulthum", "Feiruz", "Warda". I listen to those three and wondered if their tone texture is any different. I listened to Umm Kulthum, I saw an old black and white video where there was an orchestra setting with a lot of violinists were producing arabic sounding tunes and in the middle was Umm Kulthum taking her time slowly warming up to the melody, taking her time between phrases and then eventually soaring her voice to express the emotions behind the poetry she was performing.
I listened to Feiruz. There was no video just had a thumbnail with a beautiful picture of Feiruz. I was not much impressed. It almost sounded like Umm voice and not very much discernable. I listened to "Warda" next and she had a bit of a shril but soothing voice and it was a fun number with warda wearing a bejeweled long blue gown which I admired.
I was not satisfied with the song that I had listened of Feiruz and I was curious if there any other number that will interest me. I listened to, "Ana la habibi" and that stopped the time for me. I was feeling down this morning and the music somehow resonated with the low feeling of mine and drifted me away into a different world. The world of the song where winter is slowly fading away and spring is showing its signs with new leaves, doves coming back. Where a lover calls another lover to come out of the house to enjoy the advent of spring, knocking on her dewy door. Where the lover speaks to the white bird and claims she belongs to her lover and her lover belongs to her. I kept listening to the song feeling a mix of fantasy, gloominess and longing.
I listened to her other songs and allowed myself to get lost in her melodious voice. I was interested in her. I researched about her in Wikipedia. She is 90 years old, Maronite Christian from Lebanon. She keeps to herself and very little is known about her personal life and has produced over 12-15k records. I observed she had an uncanny resemblance with Cher. I always thought Lebanon was an Islamic country. Little did I know, it had Christian population as well. That led to me read more about Lebanon.
I looked at Lebanese traditional dance videos of Dabake. It is a awkward dance I felt I would not enjoy it very much, I thought. I looked at lebanese food videos, learnt about their parsley salad, shawarma, tahini and humus.
I learnt about Lebanese history. They have seen Roman, Islamic, Ottoman and French rule. Hence, they have a diverse diaspora of Shia and Sunni Muslims, Maronite Christians. They have also seen a lot civil unrests as well between the communities. Their economy is ever dwindling with all these internal unrests and now they are involved with war with Israel adding on to more distress to the Lebanese. With dilapidated and shell bombed buildings, dwindling economy and political unrest Mount Lebanon still stands as a witness to all those era of culture assimilation and unrest. I wonder how must have been the experience of Feiruz living in Lebanon that inspired her to sing those timeless soulful songs.
