Boogie down Middle East

No, not block parties in Dubai nor battle rapping in Riyadh, but little-by-little the sounds of the Arab world and the Indian sub-continent have filtered through the sample options of the genres creative producers. Sounds of sitars and quirky Arabic strings indeed haven’t found their way through, say, Timbaland’s repertoire but further underground it is definitely having influence as could be heard in last year’s unique and engaging Dr. No’s Oxperiments’ Lebanese/Greek/Turkish mash-up or indeed his older brother Madlib’s Beat Konducta India (utilising dusty & ancient Bollywood soundtracks) where exotic sound bytes are layered on top of straight forward beats and loops. Think of a Turkish Jimi Hendrix jamming with James Brown or Ravi Shankar providing music for Rakim and you’ll get a vague idea of what I’m talking about.


Although moves like this can be seen as borderline pretentious, I see it as a step forward in this post 9/11 world as rap as a genre will always rely to some degree on sampling as its creative force and although the vinyl crates filled with funk and soul will always be available, sound samples from various parts of the world are and will further be exploited to enrich the sounds of this 20 year old genre. It’s also quite refreshing to see US artists embracing the culture and sounds of the unknown instead of running scared from it.