Alsarah & The Nubatones / Love & Revenge Live @Trainstation

Curated by renowned Lebanese hip-hop pioneer Wael Kodeih aka Rayess Bek, Beirut & Beyond 2016 will take place in Beirut from Thursday 8 to Sunday 11 December. Three different venues will host celebrated and yet to be discovered artists from Lebanon, the Arab region and beyond.

Night Program: 

Alsarah & The Nubatones (Sudan)
If we listen closely, we find that the strange is often quite familiar. This valuable insight came to Alsarah through her work as an ethnomusicologist, and has been a guiding principle that she brought out in full bloom with Alsarah & The Nubatones.
Habibi Taal is a case in point. The languorous opening track from band’s debut, Silt, is a traditional Sudanese wedding song - usually sung by women - that is much maligned by the Sudanese elite. With her rendition of it, Alsarah proves that this music, considered by many to be odd and unworthy, will reward the attentive listener with much beauty and grace.
Although Alsarah has been living in Brooklyn since 1994, she still feels like a Sudanese in New York. This may as well explain why Silt - with its gorgeous Oud-solos and arresting vocals - sounds like a musical time capsule dating back to the Nubian sixties rather than 2014 New York. But if 2014 New York is what you’re after, you will find that her club-ready remix of Silt makes the point that the past need not necessarily be incongruous.

Love & Revenge [La Mirza & Rayess Bek] (Lebanon)
“Love and Revenge” is the project of Lebanese hip-hop pioneer and Beirut & Beyond 2016 curator Rayess Bek and visual artist Randa Mirza. It is a musical reflection on identity and dual culture, aiming to give a second life to old Arabic popular songs and movies, by adapting them to the patterns and aesthetics of modern music. Influenced by the writings of Edward Said and Amin Maalouf on identity, “Love and Revenge” consists of the meeting of two hermetically sealed universes, the fractured beats of Western electronic production and the traditional folk music of the Orient. The goal of this creation is to introduce traditional Arabic music to a new audience, whether Arab-speaking or not, as well as to a new generation of young listeners