“Don’t Tell Me Underground”: The Politics of Joy and Melancholy in Jordan’s Alternative Arabic Music
Munk, Liza N. F, University of California, Jun 2021, Santa Barbara ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,
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“Jordan has among the lowest rates in the world of women who work outside of the home, making any women working in Amman’s alternative scene major norm breakers in their country (Kasoolu et al. 2019:4). Over the course of my research from 2016-2019, Hana Malhas was the only Jordan-based woman I saw perform professionally in Amman’s alternative scene.”
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“I demonstrate how people who have been limited and silenced to various degrees by broader power structures outside of their control can use music as an avenue of expression. Each of these case studies demonstrates that alternative Arabic music enables participants to express that their challenges have not defeated them. It provides an avenue for sharing a fuller spectrum of identity I highlight the agency of musicians by emphasizing that they actively choose to perform in ways that represent themselves and others complexly. Among the complex affects that these musicians express, I focus on identifying the ways that they foster melancholy, joy, and lyrical ambiguity (by which I mean the purposeful creation and performance of lyrics that can be interpreted in multiple ways).”
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"Alternative Arabic Music in Jordan: Despite its relatively small size, Jordan holds an outsized place in alternative Arabic music across the MENA region today. For example, the 2020 inaugural Middle East Music Event (MEME), held in Cairo’s Zed Park from January 9-11, featured five Jordanian bands out of the twenty that performed: Autostrad, Akher Zapheer (Akhir Zafīr ) [Last Exhalation], Jadal (Jadal) [Controversy], Ayloul, and one named for its lead singer and keyboardist, Aziz Maraka (ʿAzīz Maraqa ) (Adel 2019). Jordan’s alternative music is also commonly found represented on top-ten lists in music journalism. Saudi Arabia’s Arab News included four bands founded in Jordan on their list of the top ten alternative albums from the Arab world of 2018: Nuun (Nūn )10 by Albaitil Ashwai (al-Bayt al-ʿAshwā ʾī ) [Random House]; Balfron Promise by 47Soul; Umm El Mawjat (Umm al-Mawjāt) [Mother of All Waves] by The Synaptik; and Nasi (Nāsī ) [My People] by Hana Malhas (Hanāʾ Malḥ as) (Preradovic 2018).
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“In my interview with Malhas, she agreed with my assessment that Jordan holds an outsized place in the region’s alternative music for such a small country and scene. Malhas called Lebanon and Egypt the other two current hubs, with a slow increase from Saudi Arabia, though she noted that most Saudi artists relocate to Dubai (pers. comm., May 26, 2019). In order to provide a context for the more narrowly-focused case studies in this dissertation, I offer here a brief overview of alternative music in Jordan, and look forward to future scholarship dedicated to the country’s diverse music histories”
- "Additionally, Alyoul performed for BalaFeesh, a live concert series founded by Hana Malhas (Hanāʾ Malḥ as), a singer- songwriter in Amman. On January 7, 2016, the BalaFeesh YouTube channel shared a
selection from Ayloul’s performance as well."