Various Artists

streetmusic arabe
Various Artists
2004

"Street music" is a term that is often applied to music that reflects everyday lived experience, and that responds to the multiple cultural influences at play in contemporary life. It is a fluid genre, present in many guises in different parts of the world, from dancehall reggae in Kingston to hiphop in New York, UK garage in London and rai in Algiers. These musics, however, are not defined by place; they intermix, like the cultures and sub-cultures that created them, blurring into and affecting each-other, with influences flowing back and forth.

streetmusic arabe is the download of this everyday experience, celebrating the sharing of traditions and new forms, exchanges between East and West. The raw beauty of Nass El Ghiwane's poetic, militant lyrics, vibrant rhythms and melodic trance meets the sublime cultural soundclash of DJ/Rupture's three-turntable mix. Nettle reinvents abstract electronic music through traditional Arabic song structures, whilst Clotaire K shifts rap’s urban agenda from the streets of New York to the complex political and social situation of everyday Arabic life. Infectious, beautiful and brutal, streetmusic is an irresistible strike against segregation, cultural purity and imperialism.