Arabic Music

I know we are starting the chapter on Middle Eastern music soon and I just thought i would share some songs with you. I am Arab-American so a lot of my family that still lives in the Middle East tends to share this kind of music with me. I focus more on the popular music like Amr Diab. This guy is pretty big over there as in pretty much everyone knows his music. It's not something I listen to everyday but I do enjoy his music. Also i enjoy Algerian Rai music. It is a youthful upbeat type of music as opposed to more traditional middle easter music. Rai is more of a fusion of French and Arab cultures. I used to listen to this rai song by 1 2 3 Soleil all the time growing up, its called Abdel Kader. One member of the group, Rachid Taha is another one of my favorites. As you can see in this song "Ya Rayah" there is heavy influence by chordophones in Middle Eastern and Arabic music. I do not normally listen to the traditional Middle Eastern music but I have heard of Umm Kulthum and her music is really good. It is very apparent that she has made a huge difference as you can see here between these two songs. The original "Enta Omry" by Umm Kulthum and then as remixed by Wyclef Jean for his intro in a song he released last year, "Hollywood Meets Bollywood". Well I just thought I would share this with you guys. Thanks for reading.

mo