philosufi

"Whoever Brought Me Here Will Have to Take Me Home": RumiFest 2010

  Coleman Barks (at far right) and two dervishes.

We were at RumiFest Saturday night. I thought it was an annual thing but it turns out this was the first one, organized by Nomans Land Productions. It was held in the sanctuary of Trinity-St. Paul's United Church, a beautiful, intimate space. We had pretty good balcony seats with a better view than I think we would have had on the floor. The event, emceed by Raheel Raza, was planned so that each performance was about 15-25 minutes and then the next one would be introduced. The main attractions were Rumi translator Coleman Barks, sitar hero Irshad Khan, guitarist Garo and some of his musician friends, and singers/musicians from the local Jerrahi Sufi order with two whirling dervishes from the US.

Coleman Barks, the person who has created the most popular English translations of Rumi, is a big man with a big personality. His particular southern accent (Barks was born in Tennessee) kept reminding me of Elvis (whose accent was a Mississippi/ Tennessee mix, I think). If you can imagine English translations of Rumi read by a tall bearded man with an accent like that, you've got the picture. His readings were accompanied by the music of cellist Anne Bourne, who also does what one reviewer describes as "otherworldly vocalizing" while she plays. Bourne was very good, but quite often far too loud; the volume of her music would vary dramatically, and drowned out Barks's lines several times. I found this extremely annoying and I bet was not alone. I wanted to go ask the sound guys to turn down her microphone (or turn Barks's up--but he was perfectly audible unless she started wailing).

I'm still not entirely sure the musical accompaniment was an improvement over speech alone. I've seen some videos online with Barks reading to other musical accompaninent, and they're okay, but I really think I'd prefer to be able to hear and concentrate on what Barks was saying. Certainly between his own stage presence and the poetry of one of the greatest poets in the history of the world, he can hold his own. He also told lots of funny personal anecdotes and some Mulla Nasruddin stories and read at least one of his own poems. Obviously an experienced speaker and performer; very comfortable on stage. I was delighted when, very early on, he read one of my favourites from his book The Essential Rumi, called "Who Says Words With My Mouth?" A few lines: "This drunkenness began in some other tavern. / When I get back around to that place, / I'll be completely sober." And later: "I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. / Whoever brought me here will have to take me home."

Irshad Khan rocked. Raza introduced him by noting he's often been called the Mozart of India but as I said to Neman after Khan had been playing for a bit, "More like the Eddie van Halen of India."   He's the consummate performer type: able to engage and educate the audience while he goes through the unavoidable process of retuning the sitar to various scales (Persian, Indian, Western). For this event, Khan had translated lines of three Rumi poems into English, and was singing them to sitar compositions that he said were about 90% improvised. His virtuosity elicited much enthusiastic applause mid-song. (You know you're good when people want to applaud before you're even done.) The evening was running a little behind schedule due to widespread traffic delays through the city, so a couple of minutes into the third song, the organizer gave Khan the "two minutes" gesture. I really wish they'd shortened up the previous performance, Garo and friends, which I think went on for at least twenty-five minutes. They were fine, but we really would have liked to have more of Irshad Khan. (And we didn't get any good pictures of him playing; they all came out blurry. Hence the stock photo.)

After the intermission, Barks read again, and then we got to the grand finale: the whirling dervishes and dhikr (devotional recitation of God's names) by the singers and musicians of the Toronto-based Jerrahi Order of Canada. The first time the dervishes whirled, Coleman Barks read some poetry along with a handful of musicians: a drummer, a ney player, and someone playing a stringed instrument I don't know the name of. Then it was full-on dervish time, with at least thirteen musicians on stage, playing and singing while the dervishes whirled. This, thankfully, was sufficiently attentuated to induce the more contemplative state which is the aim of all this artistic activity. (Neman would say it went on too long, but for me it was just barely long enough.) But it was only during this sequence that I sensed the majority of the audience was completely absorbed in the aesthetic and spiritual experience. It's kind of clichéd to say this, but it was genuinely mesmerizing. This Sufi order has regular gatherings on Saturday nights; they start at 8:00 p.m. with a traditional supper and continue until midnight. Admission is free and you can come and go whenever you like.

Quite an enjoyable evening, very reasonably priced with tickets at $20 and $30, and well-executed given that it was the first such event. Looking forward to more from Nomansland Productions.

Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam

How can we NOT love this film? We’re both in it. No, seriously, we are! Okay, just barely: you can see the backs of our heads in some of the scenes of Michael Muhammad Knight’s reading at The Gladstone in Toronto in early 2009. Director Omar Majeed was there, too, showing some scenes from the then-unfinished version of Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, a documentary that was released in late 2009. We were thrilled to see those scenes then and couldn’t wait to see the finished film, which we did last year.  It's gotten very strong, even stellar, reviews. It's still making the rounds on the festival circuit and tomorrow night, it premieres on the Documentary Channel.

Almost any discussion of this documentary has to start out by distinguishing this film from the very similarly-titled drama The Taqwacores: The Movie, which came out this year. That movie, directed by Eyad Zahra, is based on the 2003 novel The Taqwacores, by Michael Muhammad Knight, which imagined and then spawned a Muslim punk scene…which is what Canadian director Omar Majeed then made his documentary about. Got that? Good.

Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam looks at the very marginal subculture that sprung to life after Knight self-published his provocative novel, a book he says he wrote “from a place of extreme loneliness,” several years ago. Majeed focuses the film around the experiences of Knight and a band called The Kominas (“scumbags” in Punjabi). The first half of the film follows them as they set out on a old school bus to tour around the US, meeting up with the members of the widely scattered North American Muslim punk movement (Secret Trial Five, Al-Thawra, Diacritical, Vote Hezbollah) and doing shows on what was called The Taqwatour. The climax of the first half is their performance at an Islamic Society of North America annual conference, which is met mostly with the disapprobation of the organizers, although some of the audience members are receptive. The ISNA organizers object primarily to the performance of Secret Trial Five, whose lead singer is a woman, Sena Hussain. Apparently one of the main policies for musical performances at ISNA conferences is “no female singers” (whether or not they’re in hijab).  The ISNA people finally call in the police, and the bands choose to leave, chanting “Pigs are haram in Islam!” rather than get arrested.

In the film’s second half, Basim Usmani of the Kominas goes to Pakistan, and eventually Knight and Usmani's bandmate Shahjehan Khan haul themselves to Pakistan, too. Khan and Usmani start a band called Noble Drew and try to unleash their brand of punk in a Muslim country with varying results. They explore some of the many expressions of Islam in Pakistan (specifically, Lahore), visiting Sufi shrines and a Shi’a mosque, taking part in a ritual that I’m fairly sure is connected to the mourning of Ashura. Knight travels by himself back to Islamabad, to revisit the Faisal Mosque where he spent time as a teenage convert, getting enough Wahhabi indoctrination to push him almost completely out of the religion. In Lahore, Noble Drew tries to put on a concert that quickly gets shut down, and they struggle to figure out how to connect with audiences in Pakistan. A local friend explains, “In order to make a difference in someplace, you first have to be absorbed in it. That takes time.”

They finally decide to put on a free show on a rooftop overlooking both the beautiful Badshahi Mosque and Lahore’s red light district—one can hardly think of a more perfect location. It’s not easy to get people interested. Someone in the film describes the way musical appreciation tends to fall along class lines in Pakistan: pop music is for the rich people, traditional music is for the poor. And who even knows what the hell this Muslim punk thing is? Noble Drew and their supporters are trying to reach anybody/everybody, and it’s not easy. But they finally manage to attract a pretty enthusiastic crowd to the free concert, and give a really successful, well-received show, which forms the climax for this half.

The juxtaposition of the two very different cultures and worldviews works well, I think; on some level, it’s kind of amusing how uptight and/or ambivalent the North American ISNA scene is, contrasted with how receptive and open the Pakistani audience is. Everything and everyone in the film underlines how complex, how multifaceted, how diverse Islam really is—and you’re only seeing a small fragment of that diversity in this movie. There isn’t just one kind of Muslim, no matter what certain mullahs and media outlets would have you believe. There isn't only one right or good way to be Muslim. And no matter how much cognitive dissonance the notion of Muslim punk might evoke, it still exists. As Knight says at one point, people should understand that “in the so-called war of civilizations, we’re pointing the middle finger in both directions.” Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam looks at some of the challenges in getting that message out there.

The one criticism I think I would make of the film is that as a Muslim woman I would like to have seen and heard a little bit more from the women in the Muslim punk scene. Sena Hussain, the lead singer of Secret Trial Five, gets to talk and sing a bit, and I realize there aren't a ton of women putting out Muslim punk music, but we could have heard more from the female fans, especially the women at the basement concerts and so on. However transgressive it may be for the men involved in Muslim punk, it’s more transgressive for the women. I think there would have been room for it in the film; it’s certainly not overly long at 79 minutes and it’s consistently engaging.

Anyway. I’ve gone on a bit longer than I meant to, but I really enjoyed this film and I want to encourage you to see it. If you’ve got the Documentary Channel (US version), it’s on Saturday, October 23, at 8 p.m. Join the film’s Facebook page to be kept abreast of festival screenings and other opportunities to see it. As Knight says in the film, “There is a cool Islam. You just have to find it. You have to sift through all the other stuff, but it’s there.”

 

Music to Klear Out the Kobwebz: Gonjasufi

Here's a seriously weird and talented dude I'm happy to have discovered: Gonjasufi.

His given name is listed variously as Sumach Ecks or Sumach Valentine, and Wikipedia describes his heritage as Mexican, American, and Ethiopian. Gonjasufi is described as many things, among them: devout Muslim, musician, DJ, MC, music producer, Bikram yoga teacher, modern mystic, desert dweller, seeker.

And all that eclecticism and hybridity is reflected in the particular genius of his music, which fluidly combines more influences than the average listener could identify. Gonjasufi attributes his considerable ability to control and project his voice to yogic techniques and practice. Reviewers have drawn vocal comparisons to everyone from Leadbelly and Nina Simone to George Clinton and Captain Beefheart.  But probably nothing captures Gonjasufi's distinctive vocal quality better than the much-quoted description of his producer, Flying Lotus: "timeless, incredible filth."

Gonajsufi's first album, A Sufi & A Killer, was produced by Los Angeles DJ The Gaslamp Killer. Released earlier this year, it has garnered very positive reviews from many quarters. (For this article, I read more than a dozen reviews and couldn't find a single negative one.) Of the record, Gonjasufi said, "I wanted it to hurt a little bit. I wanted it to get into a spot in the head that hasn't been hit." And it does. His music has the sensibility of not just the dervish, but the shaman and the sadhu, too, all wrapped up in one evocative, addictive package.

The strong response to A Sufi & A Killer inspired a remix album called The Caliph's Tea Party, which was just released last week. (These are two of the best album titles I've heard in ages--especially A Sufi & A Killer.) The story behind the title of the remix, according to the website for his label, Warp:

Like the Caliphs of the Ummahs of the 7th century, orchestrating affairs from their palaces, Gonjasufi has assembled a collection of artists in his musical world and invited them to exchange ideas.  In this spirit, the symbolic and musical centerpiece of the album, as well as its namesake, is the result of the mutual admiration formed between Gonjasufi and Broadcast and The Focus Group.

While waiting for Amazon to send my copy of A Sufi & A Killer,  I've been listening to tracks on YouTube and wherever else I can find them. "Kowboys and Indians," a song that is nowhere near long enough, is my favourite. Here it is:

 

 (If you have any trouble with the video player, click here to watch it in a new window.)

Check him out. As Jeff Weiss wrote in his LA Times piece on Gonjasufi, "It’s the sort of album that jars you on first listen, but eventually wears itself into the grooves of your synapses, alternately bizarre, baleful and beautiful." Yeah.

• Lengthy and wide-ranging Clash Music interview
• Gonjasufi's Facebook page
• Gonjasufi on Twitter

The Taqwacores: Coming Soon to a Festival Near You

Hey! Good news: if you can be in Toronto this Saturday night, there are still tickets for Eyad Zahra's new film The Taqwacores. (Not to be confused with Omar Majeed's 2010 documentary, Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam -- also very worthwhile. You should see that, too.) Both films were inspired in different ways by Michael Muhammad Knight's self-published 2003 novel, The Taqwacores, which invented--and then spawned--an entire subculture of Muslim punk rock.

I'm really excited, because ever since I read the novel many years ago, I wanted to make this film. I knew I'd never manage to assemble the time, money, and skills to do so, though, so the next best thing was hoping that someone else would do a bang-up job. The film's been showing in festivals all over, and winning accolades, so I have high hopes.

Anyway, it's been recently included in this year's FILMI South Asian Film Festival in Toronto, and will be showing Saturday night (October 2) at the Revue Cinema on Roncesvalles. And one of the stars, Noureen DeWulf, will be there for a Q&A after the screening. Tickets are available online here. I'll be there, and I'll have Philosufi's review of the film for you soon.

Here's a current list of upcoming screenings:

• 2010 Ourense International Film Festival
  Ourense, Spain - Oct 1-9
• 2010 FILMI South Asian Film Festival
  Toronto, Canada - October 2nd
• 2010 Scottsdale International Film Festival
  Scottsdale, AZ - Oct 2nd & Oct 3rd
• 2010 Warsaw International Film Festival
  Warsaw, Poland - Oct 8-17
• 2010 BFI London Film Festival
  London, England - Oct 13-28
• 2010 Eastern Oregon Film Festival
  La Grande, Oregon - Oct 21-23
• 2010 San Diego Asian Film Festival
  San Diego, CA - Oct 26
• 2010 Virginia Film Festival
  Charlottesville, VA - Nov 5-8

Keep an eye on The Taqwacores website, or its Facebook page, for news and details. In the meantime, enjoy the trailer:

 

There Will Be Dervishes: RumiFest 2010

If you don’t already know, RumiFest 2010 is coming up soon in Toronto! It's happening Saturday, October 23, 2010, 6:30 p.m. at Trinity-St. Paul Centre in the Bloor-Spadina area of Toronto.

Coleman Barks , the preeminent English translator of Rumi will be there. Guitarist Garo Altinian will perform. There will be a special guest performance by sitar virtuoso Irshad Khan.  There will be an art exhibit. And there will be dervishes. The whirling kind, with Sufi music.

And we’ll be there, too, wearing—what else?—our Sufi winged heart T-shirt.  (We might even have a few extras on hand to sell.)

Tickets are available now online ($30 floor, $20 balcony.) Don't wait until that night to get yours. Should be a fantastic evening...let’s pack the place, people!

 

Rock the Casbah: The Iran Sound from Way Out

“Iran is not defined by a geographic boundary,
but by its cultural range.”
– Arash Sobhani of Kiosk

 Man, I’m dying to find me some Persian rap that samples “Rock the Casbah.” In the meantime, I’m happy to have stumbled across a podcast on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) called The Iran Sound from Way Out. It’s a new program devoted to the underground music scene in Iran.

It’s hosted by Payam Razi, the chief music producer of Radio Farda, RFE/RL’s Persian language branch. (And here’s a great story about how record numbers of Iranians, looking for accurate sources of news, are managing to visit the Radio Farda website through a proxy server.) Although it is subject to severe censorship, Radio Farda broadcasts 24/7 in just about every radio format and is one of the few remaining sources of independent information available in Iran.

Back to The Iran Sound from Way Out: there only seems to have been one episode so far (June 30). On this podcast, Razi features music from four musicians/bands: Yas, Gachpaj, Radio Tehran, and Kiosk. The RFE/RL page includes links to all the bands’ sites, where you can download or listen to lots of their music for free.

I downloaded all the songs from the Facebook page for Yas (“the first and only Iranian rapper legally releasing his music inside the country while touring internationally”) and have been listening to some of them while I write this piece. And, yup, I can imagine driving around Kitchener-Waterloo, blaring these songs out my car window. I feel like I hear a fair bit of Eminem’s influence, and probably Tupac's, too, although I don’t know his music as well. I like “Soldier Pose” the best so far, but I’ve only heard about eight of the 28 songs I grabbed. Will be burning a CD of these.

 Gachpaj seems to have prog-rock and improvisational/experimental influences. I really like both the "practice room" and  live versions of “Benzin” (in English: "Petrol"). Radio Tehran didn’t really grab me, but give’em a listen, you might like them.

Kiosk, a blues/rock/jazz band which started out in a Tehran basement and is now based in the US, has a fairly fleshed-out site with lots of photos, videos (some of which are directed by Ahmad Kiarostami, son of renowned filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami), interviews, etc. They're fresh off a big-deal gig at Yoshi's in San Francisco, a recording of which is their next album (and the cover of which is sure to make them more friends amongst Iranian authorities). There’s a good interview here with Kiosk founder Arash Sobhani, in which he recalls figuring out as a teenager that what the Iranian regime was really afraid of was not trends and fashion but social critique. Poke around on their site: there are other good interviews and interesting bits. Also, I have to say, the cover for their Global Zoo album makes me laugh and laugh. Whoever drew that caught Incurious George’s (™ Neman) expression perfectly.

Kiosk has upcoming shows in November in Toronto and Montreal. We’re on the lookout for more episodes of The Iran Sound from Way Out, and for more cool underground music from Muslim countries. If you know about any…post in the comments!

"Might Act Up But I Can Still Pass Dawah": Muslim Hip-Hop

Islam is hip-hop’s official religion. Yeah, I said it. But I’m not the first and won’t be the last. For years and years, a huge number of rap musicians and hip-hoppers have acknowledged the influence Islam has had on their lives and lyrics. Massive names from Mos Def (straight-up, practicing) to Ice Cube (a casual relationship he calls being a "natural Muslim") and God only knows how many in between, have declared some kind of affliation with the religion, be it proximity or practice. Jurassic 5, The Roots, Public Enemy, Napolean…the list has some pretty big names.

Not surprisingly, there’s a pretty large influence from Nation of Islam and the 5 Percenters, both of which associate Islam and black empowerment. This relationship prompts many orthodox Sunni types to say that these artists are not “true Muslims.” Whatever. I’m not keeping a scorecard; I’m interested in the pervasive-but-barely-acknowledged-in-the-mainstream-media idea of Islam’s influence in hip-hop. (For a wee taste, check these sampler medleys of Muslim rap artists: Muslim Rappers 2010 1, Muslim Rappers 2010 2, Muslim Rappers 2010 3.)

But now (speaking of mainstream) there’s actually a strong and burgeoning movement that’s got its core in Sunni Islam. This music is not born only of urban anger and rebellion, but also of love for life and faith. Check out the great introduction to this scene at Muslim Hip-Hop and MuslimRap. Plough through the categories – you might surprise yourself with how good some of the music is. Check out Blakstone, Mohammed Yahya, and more.

One thing I really appreciate is artists who have a strong faith but who (a) aren’t preachy, and (b) have more than one thing to sing about. The unifying thread may be that they’re Muslim, but they don’t have to sing about their love for God ALL THE TIME. (Thank you, Mos Def, Lupe Fiasco, and Jay-Z among others.) I’m Muslim (true story!), but that does not mean I need or want the constant preaching. There’s more.

I remember first hearing Flavor Flav belting out “Assalam-ul-aikum, and that’s the way we take ‘em” again and again in the tail end of “Gett Off My Back.” I still have no idea what he meant (of course, that’s true for most of what he says – anyone got a definitive explanation of “cold lamping”?) but it was soooo cool to hear something like that in the music I loved. Also awesome? When Jurassic 5 drops their little ilm-bombs? Oh yeah… wow. Acknowledgment. Sure wasn’t gonna come from KISS, yo. (Shalom Chaim!)

Since rap and hip-hop are by definition such verbal art forms, and you don’t need much more than a beat(box), I can’t think of a more perfect way to combine the contemporary frustration of growing up Muslim in a world that’s turned against you, and short-circuiting the “stringed instruments are haram” brigade.

We'll return to this subject for sure; for now, enjoy this short video of Mos Def freestyling the Muslim greeting and performing "Wahid" at this year's Takin' it to the Streets festival in Chicago:

(If you have any trouble with the video link, click here.)

"Alif Allah (Chambey Di Booty)"

Just stumbled across this absolutely wonderful song called "Alif Allah (Chambey Di Booty)" by esteemed Pakistani folk musician Arif Lohar and musician/model Meesha Shafi (lead singer of Overload, "the loudest band in Pakistan" -- note that you can download their whole album, Pichal Pairee, from that site for free). It was performed in June on a Pakistani TV program called Coke Studio (yes, it's sponsored by Coca-Cola Pakistan), a sort of south Asian version of MTV Unplugged featuring fusions of traditional and contemporary musical styles. The program, according to a blog called Haq's Musings, is part of Coca-Cola's attempt to grab some of Pepsi's massive market share in Pakistan.

This song knocked me out on the first listen; it's the best thing I've heard since Macy Gray's "Beauty in the World" was released a couple of months ago. It's so seriously groovy I'm willing to overlook the corporate sponsorship and the annoying branding all over the YouTube video. It's nearly nine minutes long but worth every second. Music like this is kryptonite for curmudgeonism.

(If you have any trouble with the video link, click here to open it in a new window.)

For those of us who aren't fluent in Urdu (maaf karo*), you can find the (fairly Sufi!) lyrics here in both Urdu and English. (There's also a subtitled version of the video, but I find that distracting.)

I'd love to hear other music in this vein; please let me know about it in the comments.

* "Sorry" (literally, "forgive me")

Another Fiqh in the Wall

It may just be a song, but it’s a powerful song with a long history. Released in 1979, "Another Brick In The Wall (Part II)" paints the picture of a most repressive regime – boarding school. It’s only fitting that Toronto’s Blurred Vision has used Pink Floyd's most well-known piece (with Roger Waters' blessing) to bring to our minds another repressive regime that got the world’s attention in the same year – Iran. Replacing the headmaster with an ayatollah, two Iranian brothers Sohl and Sepp (they don’t go by their full names for fear of government reprisals against other family members) drive the point home. I’m not going to ruin the whole thing for you. Watch it here:

BTW - half the proceeds from the song (purchase on iTunes) go to Amnesty International so you’ll be helping out in a big way.

(If the Flash above doesn't work, watch it on YouTube here.)

While it’s great to see Blurred Vision, U2, and others bringing attention to the repressive insanity that defines Iranian life, what struck me as particularly interesting is that in a recent Guardian interview with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (the head cheese), he quite casually asserts that music is halal. But: "Although music is halal, promoting and teaching it is not compatible with the highest values of the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic." I seem to recall my parents telling me that it wasn’t for us to make the halal haram, and vice-versa. (Mind you, that was because I was a vegetarian at the time. Still, the point holds.) Khamenei wants to encourage the yoots to take up sport or essential and useful things, like science. My favourite bit from the article:

Iran has rarely given permission to concerts, as it fears that the opposition might use it as an opportunity to express itself, said Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Iran's most prolific and popular classical vocalist.

"They are afraid of my concerts because of those moments before the concert is begun, when the whole hall is in silence and darkness when someone suddenly shouts 'death to dictator' and everybody accompanies and they are unable to identify that person," Shajarian said.

Telling, no?

I wonder exactly what kind of music Khamenei considers halal? Well-tuned screams from his torture chambers? According to his pre-revolutionary cellmate, Houshang Asadi, he’s always hated music, except for “revolutionary and religious anthems.” Guy sounds like a party.

Someone want to tell me why he’d hate music and love sport? Could it be because sport and other such behaviours can foster a pack mentality, and the us vs. them way of thinking that’s so common to paranoid types? Other than the obviously well-founded hate between the Mods and the Rockers, music doesn’t generally lead to us vs. them. Hmm... actually, I have always hated the Counting Crows. There goes my hypothesis.

Anyway, here’s hoping this is one piece of music that pushes the revolution to the next stage of evolution.