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pal1cam · 5 months

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Support Palestinian Musicians & Artists :

Here is a list of Palestinian musical artists, musical groups & bands, to make it easier for you to stop supporting musicians and artists who support genocide and occupation…

Faraj Sulieman : a solo musician who makes musical works that are very piano & jazz infused with a hint of rock n’ roll. He has performed in many countries in Europe and the Middle East. He has released 10 albums in the last 10 years, one of them being a children’s musical album called “Faheem” that found major success with the voices of the 2 kids, Faheem Abu Hilu and Hala Qassis, that were very dominant in the album alongside the sound of classical piano played by Faraj Sulieman himself. He also made the soundtrack for the Palestinian movie “200 meters” directed by Ameen Nayfeh. (Recommended Works : Better Than Berlin / Second Verse / Upright Piano)

DAM : a rap band founded in 1999 by the 2 brothers Tamer and Suhel Nafar along with their friend Mahmoud Jrere, the 3 rappers who came out of the city Lod [a mixed city that has indigenous Palestinian citizens & zionist Israeli settlers] make songs mostly about the inequality in the authorities’ treatment towards Palestinians, and songs criticizing the Palestinian society living in occupied territory under the Israeli Government… They primarily rap in Arabic, yet they sometimes use English & Hebrew as well. In recent years the female artist Maysa Daw has joined the band replacing Suhel Nafar and adding a feminine perspective to the band’s niche. It’s also important to mention that DAM was the first ever hip-hop band in the entirety of the Middle East. (Recommended Works : Ben Haana Wa Maana / i don’t have freedom)

Tamer Nafar : as mentioned before, he is a Palestinian rapper and actor and one of the founding members of DAM. Besides his works with DAM he also produces music under his own name, sometimes collaborating with various Palestinian & international artists. He also participated in making the soundtrack for the film ‘Junction 48’. (Recommended Works : The Beat Never Goes Off / Johnnie Mashi)

Maysa Daw : a solo musician, singer & songwriter, and as mentioned before the freshest and newest member of the band DAM, and a member of the newly formed female group called Kallemi, She was featured in Vogue Arabia 2019 as one of 5 Arab stars setting the world of art, culture and entertainment. She is also the daughter of the actor and director Salim Daw. (Recommended Works : Asli Barri / Between City Walls)

47SOUL : a group of four men who are all originally from Palestine that have created a new music genre called “Shamstep” which is an electronic dance movement mixed with the sound of Palestinian & Middle Eastern folklore. The musical group was formed back in 2013, and since then they’ve become pioneers in that unique style of theirs and have been on tours all over the world from the US to the UK and of course the Middle East. They’ve performed in NPR’s tiny desk in 2019 which helped them gain even more international recognition. (Recommended Works : Shamstep / Semitics / Shireen)

El far3i : he is a Palestinian-Jordanian rapper, singer, songwriter, and percussionist. He is currently a member of the Shamstep band 47Soul, and was formerly a member of the Arabic rock band El Morabba3. He started his career in 2012, and has since released six solo albums. (Recommended Works : Tghayarti)

Shabjdeed : Straight out of the restless town of Kufr Aqab, Palestine, emerged a talent by the name of Abu Othaina. With his controversial takes and raw skills Shabjdeed was an instant addition to the Palestinian rap scene. After gaining traction from his self-titled track, he caught the attention of Al Nather, a local producer, and worked with him to create the alter-ego Shabjdeed; an act that can easily be considered one of the most influential and popular in the region. The duo developed their own niche dark hip-hop and trap style combining Shabjdeed’s nihilistic and daringly personal delivery style with Al Nather’s colourful and rhythmic instrumentals. From the beginning they have been able to build a dedicated fanbase, grossing over 1.5 million total streams on Soundcloud across two years whilst only relying on word-of-mouth advertisement. The duo have created together a record label and named it BLTNM Records which was brought to it’s biggest success with the release of Shabjdeed’s first full length album called “Sindibad el Ward”. And today Shabjdeed’s music is the modern voice for not only the Palestinian revolution, yet for the entire revolution in the Middle East caused by youth that dream of a better future and go against their capitalist and money hungry governments. (Recommended Works : Fi Harb / Aadi / inn ann / Ko7ol w 3atme)

Daboor : A Jerusalemite rapper to the bone, Daboor’s debut single “Liter Black'' was released in 2020 to much fanfare and critical acclaim. His unique style and raw talent cemented his status in the rap scene and he was soon signed to BLTNM Records. Daboor’s words touch on the violence of the occupation, and his delivery mimics it with brutal bursts of staccato. (Recommended Works : Inn Ann / Dolab)

Lina Makhoul : an independent American-born Palestinian singer-songwriter & producer. She was raised in the city of Acre in occupied Palestine since the age of 4 and according to her she has showed interest in music and dance since a young age. She started her career in 2012 and has since released 1 full length album as well as a number of hit singles, She also opened for Queen+ Adam Lambert in 2016 and toured with Little Mix in 2017. (Recommended Works : Shway Shway / Fish Masari / 3 sneen)

Elyanna : a Palestinian-Chilean singer-songwriter who started her career in 2018 and has since released 1 full length album and a number of singles, and she has collaborated with artists with significant recognition such as Massari. She performed in Coachella 2023 to become the 1st ever Middle Eastern & Palestinian artist to perform in Coachella in Arabic. (Recommended Works : Ana Lahale / Ghareeb Alay)

Noel Kharman : She is best known for doing mashup covers where she mixes Middle Eastern and Western music, creating a unique bridge between these two worlds through her powerful and angelic voice. She started her career on Youtube with covers of viral songs, but her big breakthrough happened in 2015 when she published her first mash-up cover which was a mix of ‘Hello’ by Adele with Fairuz. The cover went viral overnight and since then, she became an instant internet sensation. The cover has gained over 30 million views on YouTube. Today she has released many songs of her own after being signed to a record label and has collaborated with various artists and went on tour in many cities in the Middle Eastern region. (Recommended Works : Ya Lali)

The Synaptik : This Palestinian-Jordanian artist based in Palestine started making music at the age of 17. The Synaptik studied medicine for 7 years and graduated. His stage name is derived from his fascination with the nervous system, neurotransmitters and his personal experience with ADHD, which led to calling himself The Synaptik: “…because that’s where things happen.” The Synaptik has pioneered a new wave of sound for the Arab youth. His honest and potent lyrics are highlighted by his songwriting style that merges singing and rapping effortlessly. With a tsunami of a first album under his belt, dozens of local, regional, and international shows and a much-anticipated second album, The Synaptik has cemented his status as one of the pillars in the Hip Hop scene in the region. The Synaptik has collaborated with numerous artists from all over the Middle East such as rap superstars Abyusif, Wegz, Marwan Mousa, Chyno with a Why?, Shabjdeed and more. (Recommended Works : Sabelek)

Apo & The Apostles : Apo & the Apostles started out late 2013 in Jerusalem-Bethlehem with their first release in March 2014. Since then, they've been taking their music to whoever and wherever they are welcomed. The band is known for their energetic performances that turn to parties and after-parties. (Recommended Works : Baji Wenek)

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mariacallous · 5 months

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Out of 8 billion people on the planet, there are only 16 million Jews—but far, far more anti-Semites. I sometimes joke that if I had fewer scruples, I wouldn’t report on anti-Jewish prejudice; I’d contract myself out to the more numerous and better-resourced bigots, and help them get away with it. Because in more than a decade covering anti-Semitism, I have become a reluctant expert in all the ways that anti-Jewish activists obfuscate their hate.

People must learn to recognize and reject these tactics, because too many communities have developed ways to excuse or otherwise ignore anti-Semitism. Today, such prejudice is growing in high and low places because powerful people around the world are running the same playbook to launder their hate into the public sphere.

Here’s how they do it:

1. They become too big to fail. Over the past six months, Elon Musk has publicly affirmed the deadliest anti-Semitic conspiracy theory in recent American history, claimed that Jews and Jewish organizations cause anti-Semitism, and echoed extremist conspiracy theories about the Jewish financier George Soros. As a result, the billionaire has lost a few advertisers on his social-media platform, and even got rapped by the White House. But as The New York Times reported, even as the U.S. government criticized Musk, it continued to buy things from him.

In fact, in recent months, Musk has raked in Pentagon cash, including more than $1 billion in exchange for launching spy satellites and other intelligence assets into orbit through his lucrative space-exploration venture, SpaceX. In September, days after Musk attacked the Anti-Defamation League and suggested that Jews cause anti-Semitism, he met with a bipartisan group of senators to discuss artificial intelligence. The magnate subsequently signed a deal worth up to $70 million to provide the U.S. government with a secure satellite communications system. “Rarely has the U.S. government so depended on the technology provided by a single technologist,” the Times wrote. Meanwhile, diverse actors ranging from the ADL to Representative Ilhan Omar keep advertising on Musk’s social-media site, his rich friends continue to defend him, and, last week, he was featured at a Times event.

Musk has similarly been wooed by Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government, who—like Ukraine’s leadership—want to stay on the entrepreneur’s good side so that he doesn’t use technology like his Starlink satellite internet to harm their war efforts. Precisely because Musk plays a leading role in so many industries that are essential to humanity’s future—electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, space technology—no country can quit him, not even one as powerful as the United States or as Jewish as Israel. Likewise, no matter how many dinners Donald Trump has with anti-Semites such as Ye (formerly Kanye West) and Holocaust deniers such as Nick Fuentes, he will not be penalized for it by Republicans, because he is too essential to their party to be discarded.

This characteristic is what separates the big-league bigots who get away with it from those who don’t. Ye’s mistake was that he invested his talents in producing music and sneakers rather than something more indispensable to human flourishing, such as precision-guided ballistic missiles.

2. They don’t say the quiet part out loud. Those who want to fulminate about the Jews but lack the singular clout of Elon Musk still have plenty of options. They just need to be slightly more subtle about their prejudice. Take Tucker Carlson, once the most-watched man on cable news, who used his show to popularize a sanitized version of the same “Great Replacement” theory that Musk recently endorsed, which posits that Jewish elites are plotting to supplant the white race through the mass immigration of brown people. This white-supremacist fantasy motivated the 2018 massacre of worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, among other recent attacks. How did Carlson get such an unhinged idea on television? He repeated the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory—“They’re trying to change the population of the United States, and they hate it when you say that because it’s true, but that’s exactly what they’re doing”—but left out the word Jews and let the audience fill in the blank.

This time-honored technique provides even the most pointed prejudice with plausible deniability. In particular, whenever you see politicians or celebrities darkly ruminating about an amorphous “they” covertly controlling events, chances are good that you are seeing this strategy in action. Consider Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has led Turkey, a member of NATO, since 2003. In 2014, he began darkly referring to a “mastermind” behind the country’s ills:

Don’t be misled. Don’t think that these operations are against my persona, our government, our party. Friends, these operations are rather directed against Turkey itself—its unity, its peace, its economy, its independence. And as I have said before, behind all these steps there is a mastermind. People ask me, “Who is this mastermind?” Well, you have to figure that out. And actually, you know what it is.

Erdoğan was not talking about the Amish. His allies subsequently produced a movie titled The Mastermind, which aired on pro-government TV stations and helpfully opened with an image of a Star of David. “At every stage,” the Turkish commentator Mustafa Akyol wrote at the time, “the film reminds us how the Judaic ‘mastermind’ has oppressed humanity for thousands of years.” As Erdoğan has consolidated his essentially unchecked power, he has become more forthright in his anti-Semitism, and faced no international consequences.

3. They replace Jew with Zionist. In 1934, Representative Louis McFadden of Pennsylvania took to the floor of Congress to complain about Jewish control of the American financial system. “Is it not true,” he bemoaned, “that, in the United States today, the gentiles have the slips of paper while the Jews have the gold?” Today, this sort of rhetoric is frowned upon in polite society, but aspiring anti-Semites have a work-around: substituting each instance of Jews with Zionists or Israelis. Then: The Jews control the world. Now: The Zionists control the world.

With this simple switch, prejudice magically becomes mere criticism of Israel. Social-media companies won’t moderate it, and many activists will defend it. People can even make their anti-Semitic argument live on CNN, as Pakistan’s foreign minister did in 2021, when he claimed that Israel controls the media. In this manner, an ancient conspiracy theory is updated to appeal to partisans in the 21st century, many of whom will insist that they don’t have an anti-Semitic bone in their body. Of course, Zionism warrants critique like any other political ideology, but conspiracism is not criticism. This is what Martin Luther King Jr. was referring to when he said, “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism.”

One person who has mastered this maneuver is the supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, the man responsible for the most anti-Jewish violence in the world today. In 2021, he posted on social media: “The Zionists have always been a plague, even before establishing the fraudulent Zionist regime. Even then, Zionist capitalists were a plague for the whole world. Now they’re a plague especially for the world of Islam.”

In case the references to rapacious capitalists and comparisons of people to disease didn’t give it away, Khamenei was also not talking about the Amish. He was taking garden-variety anti-Semitism, replacing the word Jews with Zionists, and relying on his audience being too dense or partisan to care. Similarly, when the Republican politician Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia posted a video on her Facebook page declaring that “Zionist supremacists” were “breeding us out of existence in our own homelands,” she was drawing from the same poisoned well. Coded language has always served to smuggle bigotry into the public discourse, and anti-Semitism is no exception.

4. They say they were just “supporting Palestine.” Earlier this month, the actor Susan Sarandon was dropped by her talent agency. It was a mostly symbolic gesture, because the celebrated performer continues to get work and others will be happy to represent her. But almost immediately, viral posts on social media viewed more than 50 million times claimed that she had been punished for her pro-Palestinian advocacy. This popular narrative had only one small flaw: It was false.

As Deadline reported, the words that got Sarandon in trouble were not about Palestinians or Israelis. At a rally in New York, home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel, the actor referred to rising anti-Semitism in America and declared, “There are a lot of people that are afraid, afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country.” In reality, since the FBI began tracking hate crimes, Jews have been subjected to more anti-religious attacks than all other groups combined, despite constituting just 2 percent of the American population. This includes the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, multiple synagogue shootings in California, and a Texas congregation being taken hostage in 2022. Erasing anti-Semitism and attempting to pit American Jews and Muslims against each other in some sort of debased oppression Olympics is not “support for Palestine.” It’s ignorance at best and malice at worst, which is why Deadline accurately headlined its story “UTA Drops Susan Sarandon as Client Following Recent Antisemitic Remarks She Made at a Rally in New York.”

On social media, none of this mattered. Sarandon was misleadingly cast as a martyr for the Palestinian cause and celebrated by a diverse array of notables, including the journalist Glenn Greenwald, the presidential candidate Cornel West, several prominent progressive activists, and even the head of a human-rights group. None of these people linked to or acknowledged the actual substance of Sarandon’s remarks, even when confronted by commenters who raised them. None has corrected their claims.

Sarandon apologized on Friday, two weeks after her original statement. But the sleight of hand others used to defend her—in which apologetics for anti-Jewish violence are disingenuously recast as Palestinian advocacy—is endemic to our current discourse. Last month, an activist told a public-radio journalist that he’d been receiving “50 hate calls an hour” over a pro-Palestinian speech he delivered at an October 8 rally. But what he actually did was explicitly cheer the murder of civilians and declare, “I salute Hamas—a job well done.” This fact appeared nowhere in the published story, which said only that he “spoke in support of Palestine.”

Pro-Palestinian activism is not the same as anti-Semitism, which is why it’s important that when people say bigoted things about Jews or support violence against them, their words should not be conflated with Palestinian advocacy. But unfortunately, too many anti-Semites wrap themselves in the Palestinian cause, and too many partisans are happy to let them do so. This does not help any Palestinians, as it tends to tar their cause with prejudice, but it does insulate a fair number of anti-Semites from the consequences of their words or actions. That’s why in recent weeks, many bigots have attempted to use the Palestinian plight as their alibi, vandalizing Jewish institutions around the world, including synagogues and kosher restaurants, with “Free Palestine” and related slogans.

Every community has biases—toward the rich and powerful, toward ideological allies—that lead it to excuse bad behavior it would otherwise repudiate. But such excuses for prejudice work only because we allow them to. Covert anti-Semitism tends to turn into overt anti-Semitism. Until we start seriously confronting the former, we can expect more of the latter.

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houseofpurplestars · 1 month

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Join Eyewitness Palestine on Wednesday, March 27th at 12PM ET for our Live from Lyd webinar, featuring a special virtual delegation led by Tamer Nafar (see interview below with EP staff member Moureen), who will take us around Lyd on a custom tour of the city. Lyd, like many Palestinian cities, is an ancient city that's been home to multiple civilizations over its 5,000-year history. It was the site of one of the most grueling massacres of the Nakba and remains haunted by the injustices brought on to it. Today, the community of Lyd--one of the few cities with an integrated Palestinian and zionist population--is marred by addiction and gun violence. We'll hear from Lyd residents about the resilience and struggles they face in the community.

By Moureen Kaki

Tamer Nafar wears many creative hats—he’s a hip-hop artist, a screenwriter, and actor. Nafar is probably most well known as a member and founder of the first and still-leading Palestinian rap band, DAM. Readers should know that the Son of Palestinian Hip-Hop doesn't give very many interviews. He says what he needs to say through his arts: "I chose hip-hop because it gives me a verse of 64 lines," he says. Nafar and the band have released well over 100 songs through single-releases and three albums. They primarily rap in Arabic but will often integrate English and Hebrew. They’re not just known for their music, though, but the resistance-nature of their work. DAM’s music is riddled with themes of Palestinian identity, resistance, and culture. According to Nafar, the band’s founder, the music itself is less a form of resistance and more “resistance-adjacent.”

"Well, nowadays when you have more than 30,000 people killed and art is not stopping it, I'd say that art's role is documenting. I don't think it rescues lives, but I think it's documenting--it's the soundtrack of a revolution. I try to document my life and the lives of Palestinians like me. When you say 'Palestine,' people think of Gaza or the West Bank, but not a lot of people understand what life is like for Palestinians who have an Israeli ID, so I took the initiative to document us. Art is a medicine, but like Advil. It's a certain kind of medicine. It can help but it cannot cure. But to create real change is an economic thing, a power thing, it's a militant thing and lobbying this. This is where change happens. If revolution were a movie, I think art would be mentioned in the credits, not as the main force of change."

If Nafar is right and the arts are indeed more of a method of documentation than resistance, then it might be fair to call Nafar a sort-of experiential historian, too. Beyond the work of DAM, his solo work and film experience tell the many stories of Palestinians in Lyd and beyond. Nafar stars in Junction 48, for which he also did the screenwriting. Junction 48 tells the story of Palestinian rapper from Lyd who’s trying to “make it” in the industry, crossed with the unique struggle of being treated like an outsider in your own homeland, as all Palestinians are treated in Lyd by the Israeli majority. It incorporates challenges that are unique to Lyd: identity crisis and confusion, gun violence, and drug trade and addiction. Those familiar with Nafar personally would be forgiven for thinking the story was loosely based on his own life as a Lyd-based Palestinian rapper. But the film captures a narrative much bigger than any one person. It tells Lyd's unique story of the generational consequences of Zionism in Palestine.

In a different world, one in which Palestine was never colonized, Nafar would have likely never been a Lyd resident. His father's family fled there in 1948 when they were exiled from Yaffa by Zionist militias. They were supposed to leave for Jordan but found what they thought would be temporary refuge in Lyd. The family stayed and eventually, Nafar was born into the Lyd scene. Nafar succinctly and concisely defined Lyd and its possibilities: "[Lyd] would have been the best, most beautiful salad in the world if the chef weren't racist." The effects of that kind of systemic racism are apparent in Lyd's massive drug market and related gun violence. Its history and socio-economic problems often compared with the systemic destruction of Black American communities throughout the United States. Nafar, like many others, has lost community members, including his cousin, to gun violence.

On top of the gang-related violence in Lyd, Palestinians are doubly threatened by armed settlers and the state. Because of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, tensions are particularly high in the mixed Palestinian-Jewish city. Nafar says that the current situation reminds him of 2021, when Occupation Forces attacked Gaza during the Great Return March. But coupled with the increased rise of the extreme Israeli right-wing and power of settlers this time, he says, feels slightly different, "you feel it with the silence. Something that is not tangible. We're not used to the silence." While the situation remains grim, Nafar says that there's only one way for him to find solace.

"With what is happening now in Gaza and the way they managed to silence the Palestinians in Israel, and with the rise of the extreme [Israeli] right-wing, and me losing my cousin, I'm too emotional right now to give you a thoughtful message for good or bad. I know that people want a happy, optimistic view, but our comfort now is just acknowledging the darkness. All of our comfort now is just finding people to sit with us in the darkness. This is my aim now, just finding people in the darkness to share that moment with. I personally don't want to feel good. My people are dying. Why the f**k should I feel good?"

Nafar's blunt honesty goes further. When asked about the future of Lyd his response is succinct: "khara," the Arabic word for sh*t. Sure, it might be pessimistic, but to Nafar's point, many Palestinians, the rapper included, are exhausted by a life dictated by Zionism. It feels unreasonable to expect a rosy, hopeful outlook on the future when so much of Palestinian life is rife with injustice. Nafar lost his cousin to gun violence in Lyd. His family lost his ancestral home. Even the landscape of his life is riddled with these reminders. When shooting a music video for his song, the Son of Lyd, Israeli police stopped him and the video crew six different times while they were trying to record all because they were using a Palestinian flag as a video prop. Nafar explained that he had to go out of his way to cut scenes in the video to ensure that the police did not make too much of the final cut because he wants viewers to know that there is more to Lyd than the drug market and violence.

"There were two videos released [for the Son of Lyd song]. In the 'Making of the Son of Lyd' video, what we did is we attached a Palestinian flag to a motorcycle and I got stopped six times by the cops. You can see it. It's all documented. And the funniest part is that while the cops were busy pulling me over, there were drug deals happening around us and they didn't give a f**k. They were so obsessed with the flag. The second time we were stopped and [the police were] issuing me a ticket and had the police car with the lights flashing. So, I used the moment to record for the video and that ended up being the main part of the video--the part with me rapping to the police car with lights in the background and we set a release date and I loved that video. But I had that weird feeling that I wasn't happy about it and I didn't know why. A day or two before the release, I canceled the release. I realized that the police took over my video and that's what bothered me. So now in Lyd, the city I wanted to show--my city that I wanted to represent, it's all about police and crime and this is not what I wanted. Yes, the police are part of my city, but there's a huge identity that I wanted to show that was missing, so I reduced the police presence in the video and replaced it with a way to show my love for the city. I don't want to romanticize my city, and say there's a 'beautiful struggle' here, but it is a unique place with a unique struggle."

#tamer nafar #DAM #palestinian music #palestinian art #lyd #free palestine #free gaza #gaza #palestine #i stand with palestine

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edenfenixblogs · 4 months

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Hello Eden (is it okay to call you that?)

Do you have any current favourite songs? What kind of music do you generally listen to?

And do you have any favourite books? What kind of books do you like to read?

If you are okay with sharing, no pressure.

Sending you love and strength ❤️

Ah!!! Thanks for this ask @sunnenfinster! What a lovely change of pace.

Eden is fine!!!!!

Ok, so I love music and books!

Of all broad genres of entertainment media, music is probably what I follow least closely. It’s not that I don’t like it; I just am always behind the curve in my tastes. I love listening to most confessional singer/songwriters. I love folk, rock, pop, and rap. I also get a lot of music I like from the background of media like TV, Movies, and podcasts. In general, I love confessional singer-songwriters from any genre.

Fave singers (and the albums I’d recommend from them: songs I’d recommend from that album [notes]):

Jem (Finally Woken: Come on Closer, Falling for You, Just a Ride). All songs on this album rock, to me.

Sheryl Crow (Sheryl Crow: A Change Would Do You Good, [about choosing love over anger and stopping gun violence], Redemption Day [about the Bosnian war], Maybe Angels [could be about aliens or being in a cult idk but it’s a good song about misplaced belief] I love every song on this album tbh. Wall-to-wall bangers.

Missy Elliot (Under Construction: Gossip Folks, Work it)

Suzanne Vega (99.9 F: 99.9 F, Blood Makes Noise, Rock in the Pocket, When Heroes Go Down)

Artists and songs I like in general: Aimee Mann (her voice is like butter and I could listen to her sing forever); Eliza Rickman: Pretty Little Head; Sims: Icarus; Dessa: Call Off Your Ghost; Sifu Hotman: Matches (I know no other songs by this artist but I LOVE this one so much. I’m gonna go listen to it right now); Lorde: Yellow Flicker Beat; Björk: Human Behavior; G Flip: Hyperfine, Gay 4 Me, Killing My Time; Aimee Mann: That’s Just What You Are [I love Aimee’s voice and could listen to her sing the phone book. All songs off her Magnolia Album are amazing too]

And gosh. So many more…

As for books!!!! OMG! I love books so much. I love so many different kinds of books. Some fave genres include: Classic Lit, Magical Realism, Sci-fi/Fantasy/Speculative Fiction; Engaging YA Series, Historical Fiction; Culinary History and Analysis; and Mythological Retellings

Classic Lit Faves:

“To The Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf [This contains my fave quote in all of literature. This could also never be adequately adapted into a movie. It’s a fascinating look into how people think and how we all process internal thoughts. Must be comfortable with long sentences, semicolons, and allowing sentence clauses to wash over you like ocean waves in order to enjoy this book]

“Cider with Rosie” by Laurie Lee

“All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque

“The Portable Dorothy Parker” by Dorothy Parker

“The Odyssey” by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

“The Iliad” by Homer — both Emily Wilson’s Translation and Stanley Lombardo’s Translation

Magical Realism

“The House of the Spirits” by Isabelle Allende

“Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter” by Mario Vargas Llosa

“Bless Me Última” by Rudolfo Anaya

“Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel

SFF Faves:

“An Absolutely Remarkable Thing” and “A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor” by Hank Green

“The Martian” by Andy Weir

The Tiffany Aching line of the Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett (“The Wee Free Men,” “I Shall Wear Midnight,” “A Hat Full of Sky,” and “Wintersmith”)

“The Locked Tomb” Series by Tamsyn Muir (“Gideon the Ninth,” “Harrow the Ninth,” “Nona the Ninth” so far)

Engaging YA

“The Hunger Games” Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

“Grishaverse” Series by Leigh Bardugo

“Shadow and Bone Triogy” (related to the Grishaverse) by Leigh Bardugo [note: I didn’t know until making this list that Leigh Bardugo is an Israeli Jew! Very cool]

Historical Fiction:

“Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe” by Fannie Flagg [the associated cookbook is very good. Also, you’ll never eat ribs the same again]

“Tracks” by Louise Erdrich [one of the most interestingly written books I’ve ever read. Has two dueling narrators. This is part of a series of books but can be read as a standalone]

Culinary Analysis History

Bree Wilson’s books (“First Bite: How We Learn to Eat,” “Consider the Fork,” and “The Way We Eat Now,” specifically) are some of the best out there. [I didn’t realize until a couple weeks ago that Bee Wilson and the classicist translator Emily Wilson are sisters! They are both extremely smart, engaging writers.]

“Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan

“An Edible History of Humanity” by Tom Standage

“Food: A Cultural Culinary History” by Ken Albala (this one is a Great Courses course, so not technically a book. But it’s available most places you can get audiobooks. And it’s what got me fascinated with this subject)

Mythological Retellings

“Circe” and “The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

“The Silence of the Girls” and “The Women of Troy” by Pat Barker [TW Rape]

“Norse Mythology” by Neil Gaiman

Genre Defy-ers

(These are some of my All Time Faves that can’t really be confined to any genre)

The “Outlander” Series by Diana Gabaldon [and the related “Lord John” Series by the same author] (TW: for Rape)

“The Anthropocene Reviewed” by John Green

Just Finished Reading

“Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Truman Capote (Wow it was so good. I haven’t seen the movie in a while but I seriously doubt they adapted it faithfully. It was so surprising!!!)

Currently Reading

“Murder on the Orient Express” by Agatha Christie

Selections From My To Be Read List

“The City of Brass” by S.A. Chakraborty

“Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus

“The Source” by James Michener

“The Secret of Cooking” by Bee Wilson

“Equal Rites” by Terry Pratchett

“A Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England” by Ian Mortimer

“What You Are Looking For Is In The Library” by Michiko Aoyama

“The Doomsday Book” by Connie Willis

I also love to read cookbooks from various cultures to gain insight into those cultures in a very tactile way.

Sending you love and gratitude! 💜💜💜💜

I’m always down to discuss books!

#about me #books #lit #book Recs #culinary history #historical fiction #YA #Classic Lit #Queer Lit #book worm #reading #reader #mythological Retellings #ask me stuff

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popculturerobots · 10 months

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Digimon: The Movie

It's fuckin' wild. Can we talk about it? It was my introduction to Digimon (which is why I use the dub names for everyone, sorry not sorry), and it means a lot to me. There's so much dumb shit that I still love about it. The ridiculous story linking three films using a one-off character from the third one. Kari narrating everything (actually pretty cute). All the bad jokes used to "localize". The gag that Tai and Kari's mother can't cook. Tai apologizing for throwing up in Sora's hat. You've Got Mail!

I know this has already been done to Hell, but I just want to focus in on the soundtrack. So stick with me for a bit.

I rewatched the movie not too long ago and was surprised by how much of the soundtrack I just didn't remember. (like "Rockafeller Skank", what?) I knew the songs, but they just kind of blended into a vague sort of nostalgia. A lot of it probably had to do with how short the song drops were.

There's the "All Star" drop at the end with Endigomon where Willis calls him tone deaf (ouch), and a few other songs drop during battles. I want to point out "Nowhere Near" by Summercamp because T.K. wears shirts with the band name in tri. I also want to shout out "All My Best Friends Are Metalheads" by Less Than Jake because it's a great song by a great band. Ska punk forever.

It's probably a good thing I don't remember the "Digi Rap" because it's...not great. The "Digimon Theme", however, still gets stuck in my head to this day. It rules. Digimon are the champions. The main motif is also repeated during intense moments by the brass section throughout the score (performed by the Israel Philharmonic, I guess because Saban was US-Israeli). This movie is for sure one of the reasons I'm such a basic bitch for a brass line. That being said, I still prefer Butter-Fly (tri. all cast version best version).

"One Week" by Barenaked Ladies. Yeah, the meme song. It starts playing when Tai's apology email to Sora fails to send and continues through the exposition of where the other DigiDestined are. I thought this drop was so clever when I was younger. Unashamed to say this is a good song that I can sing entirely from memory.

And now the best drop of the entire movie. "The Impression That I Get" by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Good song, still in my rotation. It plays when Sora gets Tai's email and forgives him (or is implied to, at least) with the opening lines "have you ever been close to tragedy". Yes. And then it cuts to the missile poking out of the water. It tips over to the lyrics "so heavy you collapse". Again, yes. But the lyrics say "no". It's so dumb, and it makes me big dumb smile.

But the wildest part of all this is "Kids in America". Because the DigiDestined are kids and they go to America. Sure, makes sense. But it’s covered by Len. You know, the "Steal My Sunshine" band? Remember them? Well I remember them for the music video at the end of the VHS where the band members go to the premiere of Digimon: The Movie. I vividly remember this thing. The animation that was so bad compared to the movie it followed. The monkey playing congas. The band members sitting in the theatre with Tai and Greymon. Greymon trying to steal popcorn. I don't know who thought this was a good idea, but I hope they're doing well.

Thanks for reading. Now go listen.

#if anyone can get me a high quality version of that music video #i will do unspeakable things for you #digimon #digimon the movie #anime #music #rant

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hasdrubal-gisco · 1 month

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eurovision '24 semifinal 1 early review

content and spoiler warning for croatia, cyprus, ireland, lithuania, poland, serbia, ukraine, australia, azerbaijan, finland, iceland, luxembourg, moldova, portugal, slovenia, germany, sweden, united kingdom

croatia - it's not easy going first but this is a bad way to do it regardless. already the woke agenda has us singing about anxiety attacks. if you are prone to anxiety get off the stage and let real warriors conquer the hearts of evropa. "my presence fades to black" yeah i wish it would. qorban/10

cyprus - many have said this before but i think cypriots should launch missiles at ankara just to see what would happen. singer is very serbian looking with the ironed long hair, very 2008 romcom looking music video (complimentary), forgettable song, thus has got to be someone's niece. mid/10

ireland - thank you god for making our enemies this embarrassing. i just know she had a self harm tumblr blog in 2013. very sincerely sending this to eurovision is comparable in national humiliation to the treaties of trianon and versailles. 30 year old antisemitic pagan themlet/10

lithuania - this is nothing. lithuania/10

poland - kinda of a normal pop song, i can see myself hearing this on the radio while stuck at a red light. good to see a weird looking woman. jeszcze polska nie zginęła/10

serbia - #JUSTICE FOR BRESKVICA. zorja or zejna or breskvica would have mopped the floor with her. this will lose and it will deserve it, hopefully all the PZE jury members including sajsi will be executed in a public square. bad/10

ukraine - hate to say it but the loathsome ruthenians have once again sent a good contestant. if my last name was Shemaieva i would simply not use Heil as an artistic name. i can hardly believe i'm saying this but i think it would be better without the fat girl rapping. critical support for ruthenian autonomous oblast/10

australia - my opinion is colored by the fact that i was viewing the music video, which is a consistent two and a half minute face closeup of the white guy cumming. the song itself is not bad, but i could do without the white guy cumming, actually. australia gets a pass this year/10

azerbaijan - you can always count on the iranic people to sneak in subtle references to sun-worship. oldest trick in the book. considering this was the last song picked, this was maybe not worth the wait. don't want to doxx anyone but one of the backup dancers looks like a beloved tumblr user. eeh/10

finland - random xD WAFFLES. the "what does the fox say" candidate of the year, and of course its from the turbo-autistic finns. total opposite of tact and taste. the west has fallen to its far-easternmost asiatic enemy (the mongols (finns)). beyond repair/10

iceland - based for sending an older woman. this is pretty good, nothing much to add. will maybe listen to the icelandic version. top quartile/10

luxembourg - israeli broad with skinny arms singing in french ? *wiping the sweat from my brow*. finally something worthwhile out of europe's last grand duchy. am yisroel chai/10

moldova - pleasant surprise out of the illegitimate romanian province of moldova. dignified in an atmosphere where others have been deliberately embarrassing. not impaling anyone's heart/10

portugal - this is nothing. portugal would benefit from being brazil's european vassal state. meu curaçao :(/10

slovenia - the best of the three of this exact performer that we've seen, not that that's very high praise. eeh/10

germany - pleasant surprise in an otherwise very mid year. not the worst guderian i know. germany/10

sweden - i can feel the martin x marcus x reader spam in the tags already. usually they at least send something that's listenable under normal circumstances but not eurovision-material,but not even that this time around. as always, marg bar sweden/10

united kingdom - (watching the official music video) lol that's probably 4k/mo in london. nobody cares about the failstate of the united cringedom, they should have been excised from the contest when they left the eu. nice trainspotting references in the clip tho. bleh/10

final conclusion - overall very disappointing year, luxembourg stands in a separate category, even without the ethnonarcissism. germany, moldova, iceland, ukraine are okay but nothing to be thrilled about. the plague of appealing to jury votes at the cost of anything interesting is crushing this competition. seeing what got passed up in serbia instead of teya dora makes one wonder what the situation is like in other countries. help me, zejna. zejna, help me. i hope semi 2 will be better but there's not many heavy hitters

#esc24

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etirabys · 1 year

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Unexpected development: I am obsessed with a musician I found via a TV show whose music people were too enthusiastic about stuffing their indie playlist into random scenes. The musician is Noga Erez. My guess based on that name, her voice and accent, and style would have been “half Asian half white person who grew up listening to rap on the west coast US”. But she’s... Israeli!

Also, when I generate a Spotify radio based on the song I like most (Cipi) I think everything in the playlist except the original sounds bad in the particular direction I’d think Noga Erez was bad if not for the thing where she somehow sounds very good to me. Very alive, willing to throw surprises at you

#rambl #music #note that my music taste is bad

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atcostmag · 1 year

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Mirèle - Obedient

An under two-minute acceleration of focused club energy, Mirèle shares her invigorated single for “Obedient”. Providing a to-the-point snapshot of the Russian-Israeli artist who has inhabited her many online personalities, Mirèle’s Eva Gurari flickers past her different many façades. Working with a number of high-profile collaborators in Russia’s indie circuit, the track sees its beatwork laid out by Artem Shumno, and its creative direction by Moscow-based creative agency and promotional company System 108. Speaking how she operates with a close network of fans and friends who resonate within her wavelengths, Mirèle had this to say:

“I have a super-friendly community with whom I share my demos like with friends and get the first feedback on releases. All changes in music and images happen absolutely naturally, along with me, my team and mood. It seems to me that experiments are my style”

Riding along to its clunky rhythms, “Obedient” juxtaposes in its exhilaration Mirele’s sugar-sweet vocals which contrast with her dry-deadpan raps that coincide with an early club-rap aesthetic. Interpolating from its lyrics, the track is not one to be taken literal, and offers the tongue-in-cheek groundwork to be Gurari’s one and only.

You can check out the track and video below:

youtube

#mirèle #eva gurari #Israel #russia #music

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biglisbonnews · 1 year

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Saint Levant Signs His Political Message 'From Gaza, With Love' Marwan Abdelhamid, the 22-year-old trilingual singer who records as Saint Levant (French for “holy rising”), released his debut EP From Gaza, With Love earlier this month. You may know the young artist from a viral snippet on TikTok that caught the attention of nearly 14 million viewers. The sultry rap clip features his 2022 single “Very Few Friends” and its seductive, baritone hook: "I wanna take you to Paris and spoil you," transforming Saint Levant's muscle-tank-and-mustached brand into one that relied heavily on sex symbols, both visually and sonically. Saint Levant, a child of the Palestinian diaspora, set out to prove that his artistic identity encompasses more than the flesh and blood carnality of his fans' favorite TikToks. "From Gaza, With Love is an ode to the place where I spent the first seven years of my life, a beautiful city by the sea filled with love, memories and unfortunately great pain, suffering and oppression," Abdelhamid tells PAPER.As the son of a French-Algerian mother and a Palestinian-Serbian father, the Gen-Z heartthrob spent his early childhood in Gaza before fleeing to Jordan with his family. He explains: "We are much more than the dehumanizing images you see in Western media. This song is a message to the world, and I sign it with love."Drawing on early-2000s R&B, Arabic trap music and Franco-Arabic rap, Saint Levant's title track "From Gaza, With Love" is a heartfelt homage to his culture with danceable, Middle Eastern flair that infuses the hook and song's thesis — “I came from Gaza with love/ (But I’d feel like a tourist if I ever went back)" — with multicultural soul. The project uses the chameleonic powers of his trilingual upbringing — having spoken English at school, French at home and Arabic in a Palestinian refugee camp — to invite global listeners to embrace the sensuous riches of his Middle Eastern culture.While advocating for Israeli-Palestinian peace has situated him at times within the sticky, no-win arena of public controversy, Abdelhamid invariably handles his politics with love and empathy. Abdelhamid doesn't shy away from imbuing his art with a political message. Check out the PAPER premiere of the "From Gaza, With Love" music video below, where Saint Levant serenades his viewers against a backdrop reminiscent of 1980s public access television. Photos courtesy of Saint Levant https://www.papermag.com/saint-levant-gaza-with-love-2659651735.html

#From gaza with love #Israeli-palestinian conflict #Marwan abdelhamid #Very few friends #Viral tiktok #Music video premiere #Saint levant #Alessandra Schade #PAPER

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paulinedorchester · 2 years

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Jewish singers of Western classical music

Compiling this list — the last in this series for the foreseeable future, although I’m well aware that there are others that I could do — has been a frustrating experience.

What I’m looking for, ultimately, is self-identification, which isn’t always forthcoming. And you can��t always trust Encyclopedia Judaica, which follows Israeli policy in determining Jewish status, i.e., one Jewish grandparent makes you Jewish, no matter what. (This is settled law in Israel, and it’s caused no end of trouble.)

Also, I’m not willing to knowingly include here the likes of Alma Gluck, who was a practicing Christian Scientist for most of her adult life, nor Richard Tauber, a life-long, if largely nominal, Roman Catholic who was bewildered to learn, in 1933, that he did in fact have a Jewish grand-parent. Since I’ve tended to err on the side of caution, there may be artists who should be on this list but aren’t.

You also won’t find here a number of artists whom my instincts tell me must be Jewish, but who are being, or were in their time, insufferably coy about it. (Jake Arditti, Beniamino Gigli, Jonas Kaufman, Selma Kurtz, Margarete Matzenauer, Jakub Józef Orliński, Annie Rosen, Regina Sarfaty: I’m looking at all of you.)

I’ve had to be vague about birthplaces in some cases, because some of these singers were born in jurisdictions that either no longer exist or whose names have changed. (Poland didn’t exist as a nation when Rosa Raisa was born there, and I don’t know what part of Poland — Austrian, German, or Russian — she came from.)

What applies to the earlier lists also applies here: I’ve included many of the younger ones solely on the basis of reputation, without having heard them. Not all are or were A-listers, but they are all people who sing or sang Western classical music for a living, or taught others to do so, or a combination of the two.

And finally, I should point out that while stage names are now a rare phenomenon in classical music, they were fairly common in the past — especially for singers! (Richard Tucker was born Reuben Ticker, for example.)

Mario Ancona (1860-1931), baritone, Italy

Rafael Arie (1922-1988), bass, Bulgaria

Sharon Azrieli, soprano, Canada

Richard Bernstein, bass, USA

Rachel Blaustein, soprano, USA

John Braham (ca. 1775-1856), tenor, UK

Lucienne Bréval (1869-1935), soprano, Switzerland

Katharine Carlisle (Kitty Carlisle Hart; 1910-2007), soprano, USA

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, counter-tenor, USA

Netanya Davrath (1931-1987), soprano, USSR

Shannon Delijani, mezzo-soprano, USA

Jeanne Diamond, soprano, USA

Pauline Donalda (1882-1970), soprano, Canada

Edis de Philippe (1918-1978), soprano, USA

Daryl Freedman, mezzo-soprano, USA

Rachel Frenkel, mezzo-soprano, Israel

Blake Friedman, tenor, USA

Allan Glassman, tenor, USA

Hannah Goodman, soprano, USA

Oren Gradus, bass, USA

Sheri Greenawald, soprano, USA

Hermann Jadlowker (1878–1953), tenor, Latvia

Cheri Rose Katz, mezzo-soprano, USA

Solomon Khromchenko (1907-2002), tenor, Russia

Alexander Kipnis (1891–1978), bass-baritone, Russia

Nina Koshetz (1894–1965), soprano, Russia

Isa Kremer (1887-1956), soprano, Russia

Maya Lahyani, mezzo-soprano, Israel

Evelyn Lear (1926-2012), soprano, USA

Adèle Leigh (1928-2004), soprano, UK

Samuel Levine, tenor, USA

Brenda Lewis (1921-2017), soprano, USA

Assaf Levitin, baritone, Israel

Estelle Liebling (1880-1970), soprano, USA

Emanuel List (1888-1967), bass, Austria

George London (1920-1985), bass, Canada

Channa Malkin, soprano, Netherlands

Jeffrey Mandelbaum, counter-tenor, USA

Mikhail Medvedev (1852-1925), tenor, Russia

Robert Merrill (1917-2004), baritone, USA

Ottilie Metzger (1878-1943), contralto, Germany

Rinnat Moriah, soprano, Israel

Andrew Morstein, tenor, USA

Rosa Pauly (1894–1975), soprano, Austro-Hungarian Empire

Jan Peerce (1904-1984), tenor, USA

Roberta Peters (1930-2017), soprano, USA

Ian Pomerantz, bass-baritone, USA

Rosa Raisa (1893–1963), soprano, Poland

Miriam Rap-Janowska (also known as Miriam Janowsky; 1891-1992), soprano, Latvia

Judith Raskin (1928-1984), soprano, USA

Spencer Reichman, baritone, USA

Chen Reiss, soprano, Israel

Regina Resnik (1923-2013), mezzo-soprano, USA

Neil Rosenshine, tenor, USA

Aaron Marko Rothmuller (1908-1993), baritone, Yugoslavia

Charlotte de Rothschild, soprano, UK

Arieh Sacke, tenor, Canada

Gidon Saks, bass-baritone, Israel

Dalia Schaechter, mezzo-soprano, Israel

Doron Schleifer, counter-tenor, Israel

Joseph Schmidt (1904-1942), tenor, Romania

Friedrich Schorr (1888–1953), bass-baritone, Austro-Hungary

Rinat Shaham, mezzo-soprano, Israel

Neil Shicoff, tenor, USA

Beverly Sills (1929-2007), soprano, USA

Julia Sitkovetsky, soprano, UK

Wiliam Socolof, bass-baritone, USA

Daniel Sutin, baritone, USA

Jennie Tourel (1910-1973), mezzo-soprano, Canada

Richard Tucker (1913-1975), tenor, USA

Sandra Warfield (1921-2009), mezzo-soprano, USA

Nofar Yacobi, soprano, Israel

Jennifer Zetlan, soprano, USA

#classical vocal music

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andronetalks · 2 months

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Israeli rappers appear to call for deaths of Dua Lipa, Bella Hadid in chart-topping song

New York Post By Emily CranePublished Feb. 15, 2024, 12:30 p.m. ET Two Israeli rappers have appeared to call for the murder of singer Dua Lipa, model Bella Hadid, and ex-porn star Mia Khalifa in a chart-topping song that has become an unofficial soundtrack for the Israel-Hamas war. The drill rap by Israeli duo, Ness and Stilla, has exploded since it was released three months ago — with the music…

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#Crime #Entertainment #Music #News #Politics #World

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timmaddocks-blog · 2 months

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ice spice rigged the super bowl: part two

I’m not saying Ice Spice terminally bad at rap or a bad performer and that she can't hang with Taylor Swift. I’m just tellingyouthis iswhatisaw when I had clicked on one or two videos of the Annie-hair rapper doing raps! she was real bad at it… And if she can't chug… and she can't pretend to care .. and my wife keeps yelling at me from the bedroom. It’s a scam. This is all cover! And Israel’s using taylor swift as distraction to finish their genocide!! … And Joe Biden cherk our cherbs! I don’t know. But look, you can see why I woke up monday morning and decided to read Travis Kelce's statistics — I don't know anything! -- and i'll tell you truly I didn’t want to think about Gaza or genocide. But I’m seeing images instead of Joe Biden doing darth red-eye, going dark brandon, terminator eyes — his superbowl message to the country. Why is this whitehouse tweeting like this during this Super Bowl? Is this connected to U.S. sponsored bombs bombing of the refugee camps in Rafah? Is this why Taylor Swift chugs beer? As it turns out, that guy — Travis Kelce — is really good at football. Statistically, he does all the catching and scoring and winning. three times, he's won super bowls, and three times he's caught 100-plus catches in a season. Israel, by the way, killed 100-plus people in rafah on the night of the sunday's SuperBowl. (they've done it more than three times tho!) But seriously, is Ice Spice okay? she didn’t look happy me. may be it's just hard to stack up. statistically, taylor swift has all the stats. she's like tom brady of spotify. Travis Kelce, for example, holds the record for the most receiving yards by a TE in a single season with 1,416. but taylor swift is a billionaire in music. astronomical stats. Taylor Swift holds the record for most streams, 26 billion streams. She’s sold 114 million album units worldwide. (whatever an album unit is...) I don’t know how these numbers compare. it's like Israel v. Gaza. Like how Israel suffered just over 300 war fatalities -- Kelce-esque numbers. but! in the same time, Gaza's got more than 6,779 fatalities. Palestinians, you see, are the taylor swifts of dying dead in Israel. Either that or Israel is the Taylor Swift of bombing palestinians dead. IDK. Apparently, however, two israeli hostages were released/rescued on Sunday night. which is great. Those are like Ice spice numbers maybe. unless of course, she's counting herself *as* hostage. Idk. like i said none of this is *for* me. If--ice spice is a captive tho, I do hope they negotiate for her release soon! would really suck if they just started bombing carte blanche.

#palestine #travis kelce #taylor swift #swifties #ice spice #free gaza

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