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Mashrou' Leila
Mashrou Leila at Dartmouth
Hopkins Center for the Arts
4 E Wheelock St
Hanover, NH 03755
Sep 28, 2019
7:30 PM EDT
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About this concert
Founded 10 years ago by students at American Beirut University, Mashrou’ Leila challenges the status quo in the Middle East and busts Arab stereotypes in the rest of the world. Born in 2008 out of a late night/early morning jam session at the American University of Beirut, Mashrou' Leila (whose name roughly translates to Overnight Project) fill their live performances with some of the most bittersweet ballads and raucous anthems you're likely to hear. The band's music works on two fronts: tackling subjects that are considered taboo in the Arab world and breaking the Arab image out of its orientalist mold. Their lyrics, in Arabic, are outspoken: “My life spent with rights mortgaged off to your sentiments / My history erased from our books like they were yours to claim,” Sinno sings in their song Tayf (Ghost), a solemn but defiant tribute to a Beirut gay bar that was shut down by Lebanese authorities in 2013.
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Mashrou' Leila Biography
Mashrou' Leila are a four piece indie band based in Beirut. Their rousing, sensual electro- pop anthems about political freedoms, LGBT rights, race, religion and modern Arabic identity have challenged the status quo of the Middle-Eastern pop industry. The loose collective of students who began jamming together in 2008 at the American University of Beirut has gradually focused into a an ambitious, fiercely articulate quartet: vocalist/lyricist Hamed Sinno, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Firas Abou Fakher, violinist Haig Papazian, and drummer Carl Gerges. And the music they make has focused, too, into a charged, atmospheric version of pop that is geographically impossible to place.
The lyrics draw on their collective experiences, which the band shares with the youth of the Middle East, and addresses the need for self-expression and a judgment free culture— a notion often stifled in a conservative society. Through their relevant and charged lyrics, their music has resonated with fans all over the globe, gaining international recognition for the band. CNN has described Mashrou’ Leila as “The voice of their generation” while the Financial Times have called them “The Arab world’s most influential independent band”. Mashrou’ Leila are currently working on their fifth studio album.
Read MoreThe lyrics draw on their collective experiences, which the band shares with the youth of the Middle East, and addresses the need for self-expression and a judgment free culture— a notion often stifled in a conservative society. Through their relevant and charged lyrics, their music has resonated with fans all over the globe, gaining international recognition for the band. CNN has described Mashrou’ Leila as “The voice of their generation” while the Financial Times have called them “The Arab world’s most influential independent band”. Mashrou’ Leila are currently working on their fifth studio album.
Indie Pop
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