توت أرض – Toot Ard: Music from the Occupied Golan Heights
I first became familiar with Toot Ard, a reggae band from the Occupied Golan Heights, a few months ago when a Syrian friend introduced me to them.
Let me tell you, Arabic and reggae is really trippy. Combine that with the socio-political realities of the Arab-Israeli war, 80′s cartoon-themed music, and vintage Arabic tunes and you get something you can only hear in a Toot Ard track.
Toot Ard performed at the closing event for the Ard o Karamah, the Amman chapter of the Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), which aims to educate about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns.
Over 480 people attended the kick-ass performance at Masrah El-Balad, jumping for hours in a trance-like state thanks to TootArd’s awesome stage presence. It’s amazing how engaged the audience was: they knew the lyrics, were making song requests, and were going absolutely nuts.
Video from the Amman perfomance:
I have a feeling these guys are going to be the next Mashrou Leila.
Some of their songs (you can hear the rest on their MySpace page):
Related: Other Music from the Arab World
Jordanian Band Torabyeh: Ghorbah
Alaa Wardi: Gash3arteeni Lama 7akeiti…
JadaL – Bye Bye 3azizi جدل – باي باي عزيزي
Alaa Wardi’s Latest: Wenti Mastaneti
Akher Zapheer: The end of it is a melancholy tune – اخرتو لحن حزين
Risalet Salam – JEEL (Music Video) رسالة سلام – جيل
Bath Bayakha: Ahlan Ramadan
Good Jordanian Musician: Alaa Wardi
Tareq Abu Kwaik and Alfar3i
Roba Al-Assi
March 28, 2012 @ 2:31 pm
This is the second year for IAW Amman :) I’ll have to blog about the event…
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