Pop music is the aspirin of our times, assuring us that everything is going to be okay. It’s music that’s accessible, seemingly lighthearted, and immediately reflective of what’s going on in society at the time.
The universal language of pop music has the power to leave an impression – and then effect positive change. But, unfortunately, its sometimes trivial nature does it a disservice, as though it’s not wanting to be taken seriously.
To do so yourself would be to overlook all that is going on in the world of popular culture and the struggles of artists to have their voices and opinions heard.
For it is within this clamor for fame and fortune that lie the nuggets of truth in the lyrics that reveal more than just materialistic themes. Here, the universal messages of peace and love abound, messages in a bottle in a sea of global uncertainty.
Never has this sentiment been more true than with Palestinian pop music. Thanks to streaming platforms like Spotify, the spotlight on music originating from the West Bank and Gaza Strip is shining with sharper focus than ever before. Palestinian pop music is on the rise – determined to break the shackles of being dubbed ‘Arab music.’ Palestinian pop musicians are now being heard by a global audience as they share the sound of their struggle. So who’s out there?
Sounds of Palestine
Punch in the keyword ‘Palestine’ into Spotify, and you’ll get a mixed bag of curated playlists featuring everything from recordings of database (Palestinian work songs) and Sahjas (wedding songs) through to Palestinian hip hop artists such as DAM.
More contemporary and way more politically charged is Abe Batshon, with his straight-up, no BS titled song ‘Free Palestine.’ The song starts out like Kanye West’s ‘Blood on the Leaves’, reminiscent of his sample of Nina Simone’s ‘Strange Fruit’ – perhaps the greatest protest song of all time – with a woman crooning, “I feel like a motherless child, A long ways from home.”
Batshon pulls no punches with his heavy-hitting lyrics, with a chorus line (that is probably the mildest of all his sentiment) that catchily raps:
“I miss my mama Palestine, Palestine’s always on my mind.
Can you free my mama Palestine, she’s done nothing to deserve this crime.”
Abe Batshon is on the outside, though, looking in. Of Palestinian heritage, he grew up in California with a grandmother who’d play him videos of Arabic concerts. He’s gone on to launch the highly successful music platform BeatStars, working with artists and producers to create an online marketplace where musicians can buy and sell their beats.
Batshon has been quoted as saying, “If we can get these kids in Palestine thinking in a way of industry, in a way of possibility, then their art can take them anywhere.” His passion is evident, and he’s spoken of starting an on-the-ground music center in Palestine – the kind of work that Delia Arts Center is already doing.
Pop Goes The World
The push for change must come from all sides. Or rather, both from inside and out. As articulated by popular local rock band Osprey V, the situation in Palestine is more complicated in that access to basic recording equipment and studio time is limited, which means getting your music made is half the battle.
Uploading original Palestinian music to free streaming services such as Soundcloud and social media platforms like Facebook is the other half of the battle, in a land where stable internet is a luxury that sits alongside peace, running water, and electricity.
Slowly At First, Then Suddenly
To double back to the protest song ‘Strange Fruit’ to make a point about patience, politics, and the path forward for Palestinian music: written as a poem by a Jewish school teacher, Abel Meeropol, in 1937, the song was first performed at Café Society in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1939. Meeropol asked the owner if Billie Holliday (African American) would sing his poem.
The ‘strange fruit’ that Holliday was to sing about is an eerie visual reference to a Southern United States lynching, “black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze.” The song would become such a hit that Holliday was only allowed to perform it at NY nightclubs as the closing number at the end of the night.
Slavery was formally abolished in the US in 1867, and the racial segregation espoused in Jim Crow laws was to hang around in parts of the South for nearly another 100 years, until 1965. This is the same year that Nina Simone sampled Strange Fruit. Kanye West was to sample Nina Simone’s version in 2013 in his song’ Blood on the Leaves’, putting the song front and center in the pop universe once more.
Using the political weight of an anti-lynching protest song to sing about lost love, as Kanye West does, sums up pop music at its most powerful: acknowledging the past while remixing it to reflect your present.
Palestine Pop Music’s Time Will Come
The pop music and politics of Palestine will seep through into the global mainstream in the Soundclouds, Spotify’s, and then stadiums, given time. At the moment, Bashar Murad is flying the flag for Palestinian pop music with songs like ‘Intifada On The Dance Floor’ off his 2021 EP, Maskhara.
Watch the video for his song Antenne, and you’ll see pop music frivolity cleverly concealing heavier themes as he sings:
“Everything’s a blur; each day is miserable. There are no shapes and colors; we’re all lost in the midst of chaos. There’s no order nor any stability; we’re all just getting by.”
Billie Holliday died at 44 of liver cirrhosis, battling alcoholism and heroin addiction for most of her troubled life. She was chained to a hospital bed, withdrawing from methadone, with 70 cents to her name. Kanye West is alive and well, a certified Forbes billionaire.
“As with pop music, you can read between the lines to draw your own conclusions. Just as the Asian sound of K-Pop is now a global music phenomenon, pop music from Palestine will rise to the top of the charts in time as boundaries between people, countries, and even genres of music slowly fall away.
As John Lennon once sang, “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.”
