There’s a deep rift running through the current music scene in the Lebanon and the Middle East, separating Arab disco from all other styles of music. This division is not only musical but also economic since the Arab disco sound has become the means of livelihood for the rich oil stars. Meanwhile, the major vocal traditions are slowly dying and those of the Gulf have disappeared completely. Lebanon, deprived of natural resources, has a rich natural environment, rain, sun, mountains, snow and sea. The musical styles have reflected life in the villages, the cities and the court but now music has turned into a commodity belonging to the highest bidder. A few Bedouin practices from the Arabian peninsula and the Gulf do survive while a thousand-year-old musical legacy from all the Arabian coastal towns is lying stranded in the bureaucratic red-tape of the Cultural Institutions.

Arab chansons are rapidly being reborn in showbiz styles. The key production-moguls, usually from the Arabian peninsula, prefer artists that come with a suitably flashy sound and image, and are turning many marvellous singers into performers only singing one to two melody lines with hardly any variations in rhythm. The essence of the Middle Eastern art of music has become transformed into the art of drawing an audience under the spell of sharp units of sound, bound in a continuous flux of sound and vision. The piercing loud sounds and tones traditionally meant for open spaces - unlike in nature but similar in function to the thudding of western techno - become fun for dancers, but a nuisance for listeners.

On Beirut’s waterfront many young people tend to make their own Saturday night’s dance-steps by mixing local moves with Aleppino, Kurdish, Eufratian, break-dance and hip hop steps - a spontaneous Narcissus hybridisation. It’s worth comparing Lebanese and Egyptian hip hop since the latter may be musically more authentic and convincing but the lyrics are exclusively about the trials of love; in Beirut, on the other hand, they’re about the impossibility of driving a car, talking freely, surviving the water shortages, the power cuts, and messed-up relationships. It’s a feeling neatly summed up in the name adopted by one of the groups - Aks’ser: No Entry.

Cairo hip-hop, though, traces its roots back to the traditional Egyptian songs used to conjure the spirits. The key figure in this scene is Ahmad Adawiya who, since 1970, has used his texts and image to cultivate an impression of ambivalent sexuality. The younger Cairo bands have become ever louder and apart from a few traditional percussive instruments electronics reign supreme. Nonetheless, their rhythms and melodies couldn’t be more traditional, just like their texts - all preoccupied with the torments of love. The alto voices have a quality reminiscent of western Renaissance music while the extremely nasal sound reflects a tonal colour only found in traditional religious chanting.

The prevalent feeling shared by all Arab people is that they lack a modern musical identity, and it has brought a need for new notions of music in its wake. As strange as it may sound, the Egyptian composer Hamid Al-Sha'iri turned the singer Amro Diab into a pop star using a style of music essentially retro-disco. It was this neo-musical identity that gave another composer, Sharnoubi, the idea of persuading the singer Warda, absolute master of the Cairene style since the death of the great Oum Kalthoum, to adopt a “sexy” recitative style - and made her into a pop star.

Nonetheless, the Arab world still has a ready audience for a classical music that, in many aspects, is inspirational. So let’s end by citing a positive example and briefly mention the work of the great film director Youssef Chahine: in his films, at least, you can hear simple musical ideals accompanied by the voice of … who else, but Mohamed Mounir.

by Toufic Kerbage