Project Skeleton: Mashrou’ Watermelon🍉مشروع بطيخ

 

Music in general regardless of the genre, has the ability to transcend a story and a memory, especially the ones that belong to struggling marginalized communities. It is a way to revolutionize or preserve aspects of our ethnic and communal identities, which makes up the cocktail of who we are as people; thus, music becomes a form of resistance, resistance to the orientalist. Since the advent of historical Western narratives, Palestinians have faced constant erasure. This plays into the narrative that Palestine existed only within the confines of biblical stories, or as a part of a colonial project. While Palestine/Filastin holds prominence in Christian and biblical narratives, it is essential to recognize the broader cultural and historical identity ethnic communities have to offer. Through art and music, I aim to challenge and expand this limited and shelled perspective. Furthermore, a diminished culture is planting its seeds to flourish on the grounds of the music industry, where there is less acceptance of the 'other'.

 In this project, I want to shed light on the Palestinian experience puzzled within contemporary Palestinian music, where artists weave hymns to enforce their existence and identity till it becomes embroidered on the surface. With that in mind, we witness how Palestinianism is utilized through modern instruments and popular genres to outline the framework of their movement. Palestinian artists often succumb when navigating the mainstream culture as the 'other' becoming suffocated by exclusion; constantly searching for an empty corner to exist in an already crowded room, where they are not meant to belong to.

 The tools of literature and the arts become a loophole to navigate such colorblind industry, by becoming weapons that fight the dismantling machines that make us [Palestinians] the ‘other’ instead of being merely a human; in this case, musicality stands against the dominant narrative and allows Palestinians to write against the dust that fills the chapters of their story as a collective. I have carefully picked each track in this collection of popular songs amongst the newer generations, to showcase layers of what it means to live with such identity, and tell the stories of Palestinians all over the world, each detailing the bitter sweetness of existing as you are.

I will leave you to the interlude and opener of this project “7arrir 3aqlak” by Zeyne; a track that takes the genre of spoken word poetry, and dives into the complexities of being a Palestinian Arab by quoting the poem “Write Down, I Am an Arab” by Mahmoud Darwish. Throughout the track, the speaker questions what it takes to be part of the ‘new tomorrow’, to be part of an upcoming standing that the young generation will entail. So, what will your new tomorrow be? Is it to erase the word ‘Arab’ from your face and voice?