 Fathy Salama, jack-of-all-trades in the world of Arabic music and beyond, arranged and produced Youssou N'Dour's critically acclaimed new release, Egypt. Afropop caught up with Fathy in Morocco at the 10th Fes Festival of World Sacred Music.
Fathy Salama: I would introduce myself as an Egyptian, musician, composer, and producer pushing the alternative scene in Egypt and the Arabic world.
Fathy Salama: It happened through a common friend in Paris called Berra Menguy, the manager of Group Xalam, a famous Senegalese group. It was Youssou who was looking for an Egyptian to make this project.
Fathy Salama: I come from a very traditional family originally, but I started playing the piano at the age of six, and I was also very much into the radio to listen to lots of different kinds of music. Through the radio I came to like jazz a lot. Much later I went to the States to study jazz in New York with Barry Harris, with Hal Gelber, with Sun Re, with different people. I have lots of friends in Europe who I always played with. In the 1980s, I produced lots of pop starts from the Arabic world, especially Egypt--I produced something like 2000 songs in the 80s. Then I started my own company and my own direction called Sharkiat, which was way out of the common scene with no support from anybody except from my friends in Egypt and abroad. I've done a project for the Berlin Jazz Festival with Malachi Favors from the Arts Ensemble of Chicago, Roman Bunka from Germany playing daoud, and some Egyptians. I've done some flamenco, some experimental things with electronic music right now. Also, I won the prize for the Arabic world for short film and for feature film, too. I've done theatre. Right now in Cairo I'm doing mostly the "off" scene that I call the "off-beat from Cairo." I'm very proud that now we perform in the Egyptian opera with my projects and in cultural centers. We got lots of audiences from different ages and backgrounds from very young to veiled women in their 60s and 70s. So, it's really spread all around and we have lots of bands working with us in their own direction--it's a whole movement.
Fathy Salama: I have listened to West African music since the early 80s, things from Mauritania, Senegal and Youssou in particular, Salif Keita--all of this I've been listening to for some time. I've always found this music to be somehow oriental, the way the scales are, the way they sing, the way they do their ornaments, like Youssou when he sings i mbalax, which is his own thing. Practically and theoretically it comes from the Arabic tradition. But add to this that they have their own culture, so it's more rhythmic. So I was always a big fan, and I always thought that something could be done with this music to make the connection.
Fathy Salama: It started with a phone call. I was in Cairo at the time and he called me from Dakar. And it really was a very beautiful surprise for me. Even right now to see it--it has been five years now since we started, I thought at one time it would never be released, because it had been finished for some time. But now I'm really happy to see it coming alive.
Fathy Salama: After I landed in Dakar, I started to ask how much it would cost to buy a flat there, to live there. I very much like the culture over there. It's a country with loads of music and fun, where people like to dance, to party, to stay out late. I really appreciate a lot the version of Islam they have over there because somehow it fits what I think myself about Islam. Islam as a word comes from silm or salaam, which is "peace." So it should be peaceful. Some people take it to a different level--although a minority, but affective somehow--and they make it fanatic and so on. But in Dakar I was very impressed that they still pray and they still have their mosques, but at the same time next door you will find a club with people dancing and enjoying their time. So for me it was like paradise of what I exactly like. There is a big misunderstanding of Islam. You have a minority seeking power for themselves, telling people what to do and what not to do, talking of music as haram--prohibited. Some people started talking about how if you play the daff frame drum it's okay, but if you play this or that it is not okay. For me this is totally stupid, because the source of our traditional music comes from the Qu'ran. The suras are the source for all maqam (scales). The Qu'ran itself is sung and is a point of attraction. So I really think it is idiotic, but it does exist, although not the majority in our country.
Fathy Salama: A lot of it has to do with Youssou. I really think he is an open artist--really open--he doesn't argue, he is a very good listener to what you say, and he sees and he feels. So it was a very mutual understanding. We didn't have very much argument at all. We started working in his own place on some melodies that were his and Kabou Guèye's, who was with us. We decided on forms, on which song was okay and which song was not okay. He was finding lyrics and fixing the lyrics with Kabou. We ended up in the studio recording a guide track. So it was more or less the work of the three of us, with no problems and complete understanding. They did not imagine where it might go; that was my part. So I took it back to Egypt. Funny enough, I started with writing the melody, which is very complicated because the melody is complicated and the language is different. The different accents of the language make the different divisions very complicated rhythmically. After this was done, I was helped by some friends to write exactly what Youssou was singing. I created a sort of "robot sound" from a synth, which emulates exactly what Youssou sang on top of the beat. At that time I was living in London, so I took it back there and I created the first version of four songs of what I imagined the arrangement would be on computer and with emulation of the real instruments. I sent it back to Youssou and he was very happy about it, so he called me and said: "go ahead--don't ask me any more."
Fathy Salama: "Tijaniyya" is in a 6/8 or 3/8 rhythm, which we have a lot in Arabic music. But this rhythm that they play on "Tijaniyya"--and here I'm talking about the African department--it sounds very much like the Arabic gulf rhythms. That was fascinating for me. Since Cairo is sort of the center of the Arabic world, we have lots of musicians from everywhere. We have a guy called Isir Malala, a master percussionist from the Arabic gulf, who is the one playing on that tune. So we ended up with a funny kind of rhythm combination that fits exactly together. There is an African part, but what you hear more is actually an Arabic gulf part. This song somehow reminds me a little bit of music from South American or Latin music, which how the bass line came [about]. The bass line is very much from something like Salsa. On top came the oriental violins and the melody that Youssou sang. I kept the arrangement of this song very simple for the strings. It's played with Arabic ornaments called tarab and is very much connected to Arabic traditions.
Fathy Salama: "Shukran Bamba" is a funny song, too, because it starts with the scale itself, a scale called bayeti or bayetin--meaning "double bayeti"--which has microtonal intervals. For me it was a surprise, because right away when I listened to this tune in Dakar for the very first time I said "does he [Youssou] really mean it" [to use this scale]. I asked Youssou and he said he didn't know what this scale was called but he could sing it perfectly, and Kabou too. The rhythm they did then is different from the rhythm you hear now. The rhythm you hear now is called maqsoom. It is the basic rhythm for pop music in Egypt but is an old rhythm, too. You have 70 to 80 percent of Arabic production in this rhythm. The rhythm they [the African percussionists] played before was very close to maqsoom but not exactly it. So I put the rhythms together and gave it a gay, happy, sort of nice and groovy feeling. We used a magruna, a double-reed instrument, and we used kawala (a Ney-like flute) and oud. We also used a big orchestra of strings, dubbing the melody but with a little bit of harmony on the cellos' part. A funny thing about [the Egyptians] who recorded this song. They asked "did you teach [Youssou] the scale or is this your melody?" I said "no, this is not my melody; this is coming from the Senegalese side." I didn't teach him anything, he just sang it perfectly. They were amazed because [bayeti] is a very old oriental scale, and especially the open part in the middle of the song called mahwe'el is typical Arabic tradition. For sure Youssou did it all alone in the first place and then we added the orchestra playing around him. In the final production it sounds very much like everybody is sitting in this room playing together, but it's not true--they've never seen each other, except here [in Fes].
Fathy Salama: They worked together beautifully. It happened because I'm a big fan of West African music as much as I am a fan of my own culture, and so I made it happen somehow. I'm not really creating something out of nothing. We have lots of the same roots in this music. It took me and Youssou and Kabou to bring it back to life.
Fathy Salama: This one is also in 6/8 but a different kind of 6/8. The arrangement is a bit complicated because it comes on different accents and the rhythm is also complicated. The Senegalese musicians count 6/8 differently from how we count 6/8, so we had to find away to write something in the middle, in between, to fit. I needed more string sections on this song so I used some Russians on the recording you hear, because in Egypt we have lots of Russian musicians in string symphonies. So along with the Egyptians it was a big section. When we finally recorded the whole thing, we found that when you put Youssou with the Egyptian and Russian section, he fits perfectly; when you put Youssou with the African section, he fits perfectly; but the two sections together were conflicting rhythmically a little bit. The reason was that the Senegalese were a little bit on top of the beat or rushing a little bit, and the Egyptians and Russians were a little bit "backwards" (laughs). So finally we solved it on Pro Tools by pushing the tracks to fit and adjusting a few frames. The percussion fits perfectly because my own projects work a lot on percussion, and so for my players it's nothing new. We even invited a sabar player to Cairo just last summer and he joined us for lots of concerts in project to join sabar with Arabic rhythms. The people who are here are all from different backgrounds. All these guys playing in the string section, even they are different, but more or less they are coming from the school. Some of them teach and many of them have doctorates from the conservatoire--some are more from the Arabic school of music and some are more in the academy of classical music. But the other sections, like the kawala player, he doesn't read music at all. He's a traditional musician. The oud player is a graduate and teacher from the Arabic music school, but he was already very talented before school. Also the percussion players--one guy normally plays lots of different things, like Afro-Cuban music, djembes, congas, douf. Another plays the darbouka--the Arabic or Egyptian tabla--and he's very traditional.
Fathy Salama: It's on a scale called rast that is like the major scale for the West. It's very much like the old sound of rast, and produced the same way as "Shukra Bamba."
Fathy Salama: For these musicians, Youssou N'Dour is not really known--except the song with Nenah Cherry, "Seven Seconds,"--and they didn't know much about African music. They are all studio musicians, so many of them record two or three songs everyday for different people, for the whole Arabic production world, for the big Algerian stars like Cheb Khaled, Cheb Mami, Rachid Taha, all of these people. But they've never heard this combination and they never even imagined how it would sound. But I should tell you that yesterday they were incredibly happy after the concert because they liked the place, they liked the vibes, and they liked the music once they could hear the whole "image" together and they've seen Youssou. And they very much liked the audience because they were really good listeners and very appreciating of us.
Fathy Salama: The few that have heard the record did love it a lot, but it is not released in Egypt. But whoever I play the record for in Cairo, they like in particular "Shukra Bamba," but they like the whole album. Although they don't understand a word, they love it. And they can relate it totally to oriental music.
Fathy Salama: I think they had no problem at all; they were amazing. But I should say that in my projects in Cairo we use these same two darbouka players. They are two of the best available and they've played with me for ten years now, so they're very used to different projects. They've played with flamenco musicians, they played with that sabar player last summer. The percussion player from Senegal fits perfectly. They were all having good time yesterday.
Fathy Salama: The kawala is different than they ney because the ney has one more hole in the back, while the kawala only has the holes in the front. The kawala is more "here," meaning you control everything with your lips more than the ney. It is a different sound. Abdallah plays both, but he's basically a kawala player. He's the best available. He cannot read music, as he comes from the countryside, but he's played with everybody abroad and in Cairo. He's really open, and he amazes even us the way he uses the scales. He has his very own way to use the scales that is very much not typical. Sometimes he goes very typical, and then all of the sudden he is like a crazy guy and goes two different ways, almost like jazzy or avant-garde. He has his own way.
Fathy Salama: Mamdouh El Gibally is the oud player. He is a composer himself and he composes lots of commercial pop songs. He is also a teacher in the Arabic music school where he composes a lot of traditional songs. He does solo concerts, too. What I like about him is that he is very educated but also very spontaneous. He has a traditional side and has known it for years since he was very young--he knows it perfectly. But also he has his own way of approaching this music like Abdallah, using all the scales and techniques in a special way. He still gives concerts in Cairo at the opera house, and is a studio musician as well. He plays a role on this project, for instance on "Allah," playing licks on the fade-out. He's got a very traditional touch in playing but also a very funky way of playing the oud, almost like the blues.
Fathy Salama: In Cairo right now we have a copy of MTV music, Arabic MTV. We have a few channels playing video clips 24 hours. They are copying the format of MTV and they are getting good at it. I'm sometimes amazed where the money comes from for this production; I think we have more songs than MTV! You see a crazy number of songs all the time. The fashion is that people are starting to use exactly the same stuff as they do in the West. More loops, less oriental instruments.
Fathy Salama: By "oriental" I mean using Arabic scales and Arabic instruments. This is a very open term. This happened due to Islam--when Islam came into this country that's how the Arabs were called. It is very closely connected to Iranian music, to Turkish music, even to Indian music. So with oriental music, you're getting this flavor that came from the East, those scales, and going up to al-Andalus. Also the tradition of Gnawa and more local, tribal music. Maybe the melody is oriental, but the whole form [of Arabic pop music] is very Western, with drum machines, with loops, etc. This is what we have right now in Egypt.
Fathy Salama: There's no problem at all. It's not about black and white, it's about class--rich and poor. The Nubian cultures are respected but not well-represented. They are represented musically through an artist called Mohammed Mounir who I used to work with a lot in the 1980s. He's Nubian and everybody loves him, black and white. But Nubians have their own language also, and this you wouldn't hear much in compositions.
Fathy Salama: There are some Jewish people but a very small number. Many of them left during Nasser's time. The Christians and Muslims get along well. However, although a Muslim can marry a Christian woman, a Muslim woman can not marry a Christian man.
Fathy Salama: It's interesting because I used to have an American saxophone player with me and it wasn't a problem at all. For sure, people are totally against America as the policy of America in the Middle East--totally--but they are not really against Americans as people. They are against the policy itself. They will ask you what you think of what Bush is doing, and if you agree with it than they will not like you for sure because they do not like the idea. But if you don't agree with it, there is no problem at all. People are very open.
Fathy Salama in Morocco, May 2004Interview by Banning Eyre and Sean Barlow Fes, Morocco,2004
Funding Partners:
Media Partners:
|
Banning Eyre: Tell us the story of how you actually met Youssou and what your reaction was like.
Banning Eyre: What was your visit with Youssou like? What's the story of the music?
Banning Eyre: What about the song "Shukran Bamba?"
Banning Eyre: Let me ask you about another song, "Cheikh Ibra Fall."
Banning Eyre: How have the Egyptian musicians reacted to the whole project, particularly after playing it live here in Fes?
Sean Barlow: What were your thoughts when placing the kawala in Youssou's composition?
Sean Barlow: What do you mean when you say "oriental"?