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It’s been a turbulent few years for dabke-techno king Omar Souleyman. In 2021 the Syrian singer was arrested in Urfa, town in southeastern Turkey the place he had been residing and operating a bakery since escaping Syria’s civil conflict in 2011. Accused of being a member of the Syrian Kurdish Folks’s Safety Items (YPG) militia, which authorities in Ankara contemplate a terrorist group and an extension of the Kurdistan Staff’ Social gathering (PKK), Souleyman was held for somewhat over 24 hours earlier than being launched with out prices.
Apart from referring to themes of exile on latest albums, Souleyman’s music has by no means been overtly political (a alternative that has typically drawn criticism from fellow Syrians). However rising up as a Sunni Arab in Syria’s culturally various al-Hasakah area, he absorbed Kurdish, Assyrian, and even Turkish and Iraqi influences, usually singing in Kurdish and collaborating with Kurdish artists, comparable to his former longtime keyboard participant Rizan Sa’id. Since leaving Turkey after his arrest, Souleyman has discovered a brand new residence in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish Area, and it’s to this historical metropolis—which, in distinction to the repressive regime in Turkey, supplied him solace amid its various cultural milieu—that he dedicates his fifth studio album.
Erbil, his third full-length for Diplo’s Mad First rate (and one in all over 500 albums total, should you imagine the lore), celebrates the brand new experiences and friendships that Souleyman encountered there. For non-Arabic audio system that’s onerous to know, as a result of the label provides no lyrics or translations—a notable omission, contemplating Souleyman’s worldwide viewers. However in a approach this follows the identical patterns which have characterised his trajectory since he was first plucked from relative obscurity in Syria and offered to the remainder of the world. For a lot of, Souleyman will be the solely dabke artist they ever come throughout. Decontextualized and inscrutable behind his darkish sun shades, he tasks an aura of unknowability and distance.
Since Souleyman’s worldwide breakthrough in 2007 with Chic Frequencies’ compilation Freeway to Hassake, he’s amassed lots of of thousands and thousands of YouTube views and grow to be the face of dabke within the Western world, collaborating with a diversified bunch of artists, from Björk to Gorillaz and 4 Tet. On Erbil, he sticks to the time-tested formulation that has propelled him to this point: his emotion-filled baritone gliding over a cascade of whirling saz traces, (largely) digital simulations of devices comparable to oud, mijwiz, and arghul, and rock-solid, trance-inducing beats.
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