Your busy mind will wander, your distracted feet will take over, you will find yourself climbing a previously unknown stairwell and opening the heavy metal door at the top. Through that door you will behold a society above society making their lives across the rooftops of the City of Refuge.
Up there, the air is alive with a mix of ginger and saffron and barbecue smoke and bargaining and laughter and song. The street below is quiet, the people down there going about their day distractedly on rails. Up here, everyone is electric, speaking with their hands and seemingly in perpetual motion even while at rest. Where there is continuity on the ground, there is diversity on the roof; where one city exists solely in a preoccupied present, this one treads fearlessly upon the multi-threaded tapestry of the past.
You will step through the door and make your way from roof to roof, crossing the makeshift bridges of wire and ladder, guided by curiosity. You will gain a sense that this culture — perhaps foreign, perhaps familiar — welcomes all in its disregard of differences. Here is a market stall of incenses and oils. Here, a hot griddle upon which egg and black pepper is mixed with minced cabbage to wrap falafel garnished with a smoky curry aioli. Here are cages of ornamental birds. Here an entire rooftop dedicated to a public garden, where figures in various states of repose bask in the wash of profound oud mastery mixing flawlessly with acid bass.
In your wanderings, a storyteller will catch your ears. Visions will arise of mystical dangers: confidence men who will swindle you of your shadow, sirens who will sing you to sleep and make a nest in your dreams. You will laugh, though: there is nothing to fear up here. The people are wealthy in spirit and generous with their comradery. There is no want of food or drink or companionship or art. It stretches on forever, as far as one can see and beyond, all the while invisible from the ground below.
Tasting Notes
I’ve probably said before that I use music as a means of travel. This is my ticket to a very distant place, a lightning trip through North Africa and the Middle East, picking up the various intriguing pieces I can as I go. I understand almost none of what is said here, but I feel at home.
I’m very new to this world of acid Arab, Arabian pop, or any of what’s here, really. This is exciting to me and I’m looking forward to unwrapping more as I dive into these artists. Of note here:
This whole playlist started as something else, but quickly spun in a different direction when I ended up blasting Zenobia’s Ksr Ksr Ksr, which thumps a little too hard to not take over the space it’s in.
Zeid Hamdan is all over the place… at least 3 cuts here (under his own name, Bedouin Burger, and Soapkills).
I tried to steer clear of the (excellent) Habibi Funk offerings because I’m already familiar but The Free Music and Zohra snuck in. I’m not sorry.
TAXI KEBAB was a pleasant surprise and then I found out they’ve split up and I’m a little too late to the party.
There are some notable digressions from the theme but a Justice/Thundercat collab is a bit too hard to ignore…
…as is the absolutely scorching Jai Paul Institute graduate Fabiana Palladino.
That’s really scratching the surface of what’s here. I hope you have as much fun with this as I did! And if you know a little bit more about this than I do, I’d love to hear about it!
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Also, I’m pleased to announce that I’m putting AI playlist art to the side, at least for the summer while I can grab a slice of my daughter’s vibrant talent. I’m really in love of what she crafted when I said “I need a picture of a society that lives on an infinite rooftop in an eternal sunset.”