I watch the first 30 seconds and it's just a traditional Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) wedding, some guy is singing an offtune song to a happy family etc... boring, not worth my time.
BUT !
the quality of the video was professional, so I mustered up some faith and kept watch, and that's when I was surprise; The groom breaks into a mix of arabic and english rap.
Many have tried and failed at this english/arabic rapping mix, they sound too tryhard, thier english is horrendous etc... but this was quite good ! The overlapping mix of arabic (Saudi) and western (American) cultural terms and features was very smooth, it actually worked.
The fact that it tackled a wholesome topic such a marriage did not lessen its hipness. I loved the fact that they did not use sex or cursing to commercialise thier art. Also, they did not use music ! and if I hadn't told you, you woudln't have noticed ! MAD !
The crazy thing is that it's Saudis. I did not take saudis to be so .... artistic, so I'm quite impressed by that as we..
I checked out thier other songs through through facebook group (f#@%ing facebook!) and they were ok but not that great, and they contained the usually tryhard with swearing rap stuff so that was a bit of a let down. Through I'm still impressed and in love with this wedding rap.
I think that maybe to pass the song through Saudi Arabia's stringent censorship laws. because this song is devoid of anything that could pass as immoral. It would have even been played on TaliTV (the Taliban's official TV station-if there was such a thing).
Now I'm going to take on my friend's role of the dark attitude basher guy towards these things (friend=person I can't name).
1- Westernization, if this guy is a Saudi, how the heck did he have such a better than average command of american singing style and terminology ? How much TV did he watch ? How has this affected his morals and ideals ?
2- Well to be honest I can't think of a numebr 2. Something about American hegemony, but I've already spoke too much.
done...
1 comment:
wow! this was so interesting. As a non-Arab, I'm always fascinated by the singing at weddings & didn't find the first bit boring at all.
I don't think the video was of a real wedding though, but just a video for a song. I laughed at 'my history with girls' In Saudi??
and found it strange that after the wedding the bride posed in pics without hijab-took away authenticity.
But I certainly enjoyed watching this-& Jeddah Legends certainly did a good job
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