OMAR SOULEYMAN
WITH HELP FROM FOUR TET, OMAR SOULEYMAN’S RELENTLESSLY POSITIVE VOICE IS DRIFTING TOWARD WESTERN EARS
You might have heard the near-fabled story of Omar Souleyman, the wedding singer who has accumulated over 750 releases from the thousands of parties he’s performed at around his home in Northern Syria. He’s famed for his relentless take on a style of rural Arabic dance music named ‘dabke’, and characterised by his poker face expression as he chain smokes cigarettes under his aviators and his traditional jalabiya/keffiyeh dress. But if you hadn’t heard of him, Omar Souleyman is basically the coolest guy on the planet, and his story is as intriguing as it sounds.
“I could have never imagined what would happen to my singing career in Syria and our region and further in the West” Souleyman relays from Turkey over a crowded Skype connection including him, his manager, and a translator. While growing up in his rural hometown of Ra’s al- ‘Ayn in North Eastern Syria, Souleyman started singing when he was seven, but it wasn’t until 1994 that he started performing professionally. Souleyman admits that he would’ve continued to be a farmer – the staple profession of his hometown – if drought hadn’t crippled the trade and music not led him down a different path.
“I have met many people from different parts of the world, and been influenced by many people throughout my life, but music and in particular ‘love music’ is my passion. I can’t see myself doing any thing else.” The ‘love music’ that Souleyman mentions is referring to the romantic songs he has been performing at weddings for the past 20 years. His hometown’s cultural melting pot of Kurdish, Ashuri, Turkish and Iraqi nationalities is what led to the amalgamation of Arabic styles which form his bespoke and ‘technofied’ style of ‘dabke’.
Specifically, he merged Iraqi-style Choubi music with Kurdish lyricism and upped the tempo dramatically. “It was a trend throughout our region that started with keyboards replacing the live instruments, because they could all have samples and exist within the keyboards. Mine is different in that I wanted the speed raised to the maximum possible dance speed.” Performances are a simple set up. Souleyman’s revolving crew of musicians currently include keyboard player Rizan Sa’id, who effortlessly commandeers the disorientating synth from behind his Yamaha with seamless precision, alongside Ali Shaker on electric saz. As they carry a whirlwind collection of influences, Souleyman weighs in over this frenetic sound with his signature yearning vocals. Throughout his expansive collection of works, Souleyman sounds at once like the most self-assured and the most heartbroken man in the world.
“In the beginning, I would get 10 minutes to sing at a wedding. And I did many of those, but soon enough I started to receive offers to sing the entire wedding party, and that way my fame in the region grew.” From then until 2000, Souleyman found he had a party gig literally every day. As demand grew, his meteoric rise saw him ascend to fame throughout his region and throughout the Middle East, until he had recorded over 750 cassettes. Or so the press releases say. “I have done more than that. I recorded a cassette at every wedding. Sometimes two. All new and original songs, all about courtship, love and marriage, and I work with many poets to get new words all the time”. These tapes are recordings – or dubs – from weddings, to be given as a souvenir to the bride and groom.
When Mark Gergis stumbled across some of his tapes in a bundle picked up at a Damascus market, he was particularly impressed by Souleyman’s signature dizzying, beat driven brand of dabke. Gergis approached Seattle label Sublime Frequencies in 2006, and by introducing him to the radical imprint that released lo-fi ‘world music’ collages such as Choubi Choubi! Folk And Pop Songs From Iraq and Radio Pyongyang: Commie Funk And Agit Pop From The Hermit Kingdom – both during the Bush administration – Gergis has since admitted that while he passed on the tapes for their musical merit, he also felt the release called to humanise a nation that has suffered years of demonisation.
Releasing Highway To Hassake: Folk and Pop songs of Syria through Sublime Frequencies showcased Souleyman’s music to a new, Western audience. Remix work with Bjork and Four Tet quickly helped generate a large fan base – one that some might accuse of cultural tourism (and perhaps reductively describe as ‘drunk white hipsters’ or ‘Brooklyn’s pot-smoking alt kids’). In the midst of this, Souleyman sees himself as something of an anomaly; “This type of Arabic music, it is new to the Western audience.” He diverges, “The West did not used to listen to Arabic music. I was introduced to the Western scene while singing in festivals to much praise, and sometimes I was asked to do more songs on stage. This proves that they like Arabic music.”
Souleyman recently released Wenu Wenu, his first album to be recorded in a studio, which sees production work from revered British electronic musician Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet), who subtly adapted the chaotic style to the Western ear. “I did not know Kieran before I was introduced to him by Nina (Tosti, Souleyman’s manager), but Kieran was excellent with using modern technology in ways that were new to me.” Wenu Wenu presents seven tracks of tender love songs channeled through wildly colourful techno. The album’s title track, which translates as ‘Where is she, where is she’, tells of a lost love who “kills with her beautiful eyes”.
Through intricate whirlwinds of nasal synth and pounding rhythms on warp speed, the album encapsulates the trance-inducing, hypnotic energy that forms the bedrock of Omar Souleyman’s music. With only the most gentile of touches from Hebden, the end result is a delightfully endearing pandemonium that it’s hard not to love. Although letting a producer he had no prior knowledge of arrange the building blocks of his Domino Records debut seems like a leap of faith, Souleyman is quick to praise their collaboration; “I would like to thank him and wish him well. I hope we can do more of the same again.”
Despite his impenetrable stance, the thread running through Souleyman’s guise is one of endless positivity. And after touring extensively and performing at some of the world’s largest festivals, the experience all seems a bit of a blur. “I can’t think of any specific ones, but I enjoy a big, happy audience.” When asked what makes his voice so tender yet so powerful, he simply claims, “I sing my songs always from the heart.”
Souleyman is wary of talking about the devastating ongoing situation in his home country. What he does relay, when asked how the situation at home has affected his experience as a performer, is “Yes it has influenced and affected my work in Syria. But moreover it has influenced the lives of many people in Syria and beyond. Because the situation has reached a terrible state of affairs.”
As Syria’s increasingly complex sectarian conflict continues as the backdrop to our lives, Souleyman ensures us that he wishes to spread music’s universal tenets alongside those of love and kinship, as his music finds its way to larger audiences. “The Western audience are dancing to the music and know I am singing about love and marriage.” He continues, “I do not sing about hate nor politics; only love.”
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Wenu Wenu is out now via Domino Recordings
Words: Anna Tehabsim
Illustration: James Wilson
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