HOW IS DETROIT BEIRUT

A SOUND DECLARATION 

This music is rhythm from rebellions and resistance, for empowerment and progression.  Through audio imaging, history is sampled onto the future, terrorific stereotypes are rejected, a slandered heritage is reclaimed, the ruins of a city are rebuilt. Sound and visions express the struggles and share the beauty of Detroit, Beirut.

"Think of the line that starts with Napoleon, continues with the rise of Oriental studies and the takeover of North Africa, and goes on in similar undertakings in Vietnam, in Egypt, in Palestine and, during the entire 20th century in the struggle over oil and strategic control in the Gulf, in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and Afghanistan. Then think of the rise of anti-colonial nationalism, through the short period of liberal independence, the era of military coups, of insurgency, civil war, religious fanaticism, irrational struggle and uncompromising brutality against the latest bunch of "natives". Each of these phases and eras produces its own distorted knowledge of the other, each its own reductive images, its own disputatious polemics."

-from "Preface to Orientalism" by Edward Said

Think of this when your read the headlines, watch the news, and listen to this music.

ON THE RHYTHM

In Arabic, the drummer is simply refered to as el-iqaa (rhythm).

Rhythm is all.

This music was made with live drums, with samples from old 45's and new mp3's, with a mixer and a mic, Michael's Moog, technics and technique, some claps and snaps, a g4, pro tools, sticks on cymbals from Istanbul, fingers on a Kevork riq, masking tape, kahwa araby, sweat, pride and love (infused with a little camoon).