Nordeuropas store festivaler og musikken fra det globale syd – interview med Abadir fra Roskilde festival

Tekst og foto: Mathias Schønberg. 

Under Roskilde festival i år 2024 mødtes jeg med den elektroniske musiker Abadir, inden hans koncert på Gloria sammen med percussionisten Hogir. Jeg var interesseret i at få hans perspektiv på, hvilke spændinger der i lyset af forholdet mellem det såkaldt globale syd og nord kan være, når Nordens største festival præsenterer musik fra arabisktalende regioner og mange andre steder udenfor Nordeuropa.

Jeg mødtes i pressecenteret bag Gloria-scenen med Rami Abadir – en kunstner med et stort katalog af elektronisk musik, ambient og klubmusik. Abadir er en utroligt flink og reflekteret fyr fra Cairos eksperimenterende musikscene, for tiden bosat i Berlin. Han arbejder også som musikjournalist og kritisk tænker med en masse interessante perspektiver på musik og politik. Jeg var derfor interesseret i at høre netop hans perspektiv på det spørgsmål, som jeg selv brugte min Roskilde festival i år på at undersøge: Hvordan arbejder store festivaler i Nordeuropa med repræsentation af kunstnere fra dele af verden, som historisk er underlagt vestlig politisk, økonomisk og kulturel dominans?

Spørgsmålet synes i lyset af den igangværende eskalering af Vestens og Israels overgreb i Palæstina mere relevant end nogensinde i vores tid, og Roskilde festival havde i dele af deres Arts & Activism-program også valgt at lægge fokus på netop dette med bl.a. en Human Banner Action og et mad- og dansearrangement arrangeret af Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke.

Fra ”verdensmusik” til en globaliseret musikscene

Roskilde Festival har en efterhånden lang tradition for at se længere end til Sjællands kyster, og også i år var der som altid repræsenteret kunstnere fra mange forskellige dele af verden udover Europa og Nordamerika. Førhen i 00’erne havde Roskilde Festival en scene dedikeret til verdensmusik. Indenfor blot de sidste fem-seks år er der skabt konsensus i det meste af musikverden om at afskaffe brugen af denne forfærdelige betegnelse, der lagde al musik fra andre steder end UK og USA sammen i én kategori, og som i måske sympatisk nok begejstring for ikke-vestlige kulturer har opretholdt et fordummet og eurocentrisk blik på resten af verden. Som David Byrne allerede i 1999 udtalte til New York Times i kronikken I Hate World Music dynger betegnelsen musik sammen, der intet har med hinanden at gøre, lige fra Bulgarsk kormusik, Hindi filmmusik, Selena- og Ricky Martin-albums og mexicanske Nortena-sange.

Det gav ingen mening, men det var under alle omstændigheder en ”genre” for rigtig mange publikummer i Europa, som gav den gas til alt fra malinesisk ”ørken-rock” til, ja, elektronisk musik fra arabisktalende regioner.

Betegnelsen er cancelled, men publikum er der stadig – dem, der elsker at høre musik fra andre steder end den vestlige industri (mig selv inklusiv), og Roskilde har stadig et bredt globalt udsyn. Men hvordan er dette udsyn ændret i lyset af de nødvendige og retfærdige opgør, der har været med verdensmusikbegrebet, kulturel appropriation og eksotisering? Og vigtigere endnu, hvordan er det som kunstner fra et andet sted end Europa at komme og spille her?

“You can spend your life listening to all this music on the internet – but seeing other artists performing their music in real life, meeting and connecting with them, exchanging conversations, building friendships, it’s always inspiring for me.”

– Abadir

At spille med sin kulturelle baggrund

For at få et førstehåndsudsagn spurgte jeg Abadir om netop sin oplevelse af at blive præsenteret på festivaler som Roskilde. Han beskrev, at festivaler som denne først og fremmest udgør en værdifuld platform for at møde ligesindede kunstnere fra andre steder:

Abadir: I think it’s inspiring. As you mentioned in the introduction, I’m also working as a music journalist, and I’m also a DJ so I’m following a lot of record labels and a lot of artists. You can spend your life listening to all this music on the internet – but seeing other artists performing their music in real life, meeting and connecting with them, exchanging conversations, building friendships, it’s always inspiring for me.

Abadir har også spillet Primavera, CTM og andre store festivaler, der ligesom Roskilde booker globalt bredt, og jeg spurgte derfor opfølgende, om der er noget særligt, der binder ham sammen med andre kunstnere, der også spiller disse festivaler. Et kunstnerisk motiv eller en metode inspireret af regionale traditioner? Måske en ideologisk tilgang eller andet?

Abadir: No, it depends on the acts, always. Like, of course, the way that I’m going to see artists from Pan or from Nyege Nyege is totally different than seeing other artists, like big artists, I don’t know, some rapper from the US or some rock band or whatever. I think it’s always inspiring somehow to witness anything from very small stages to the biggest one.

Han svar var ledsaget af en lidt kritisk spørgende rynke i panden, og jeg blev derfor lidt nervøs for, om jeg selv var i færd med at dynge ham sammen med andre kunstnere fra andre regioner i en fælles kategori, især da jeg stillede næste spørgsmål, om hvordan han bruger elementer fra sin kulturelle baggrund i musikken:

Abadir: Well, as you also mentioned during the introduction, my scope is very wide. Sometimes I’m working with a clubby sound, sometimes more cinematic, more experimental, more adventurous or whatever. Sometimes I can go very ambient. I’m also working on a new project called Kitbashing with Nicolò Cervello, a visual artist friend of mine, that has nothing to do with my cultural heritage but is inspired by digital media.

But one of my approaches is doing music inspired by my cultural surroundings, and this opens many, many directions. Cultural surroundings could mean rhythmic patterns that exist in the Arab region. I really can’t count the number of rhythmic patterns that we have. I only know a few, like 15 different rhythmic patterns, and I think there are hundreds. So, I’m still discovering, learning and listening a lot.

One of the very famous rhythmic patterns in Egypt is Maasoum. You’d listen to it everywhere. In the streets, at home, in public transport, cafes, everywhere. So as one of my technical approaches, I would try to mess with it or play with it.

Inden jeg når at spørge videre ind til dette, hæver han blikket mod et fjernt sted i de grå skyer over festivalen og fortsætter:  

Abadir: But most of my themes are inspired by memory. Memory is a major factor with cultural influences, cultural artifacts. My album Ison that I released last year on SBKVLT was inspired by the Christian culture that I grew up with in Egypt.

My mother is Catholic, and my father is Orthodox Coptic, so when I was young I had the chance to go to a different church every week, depending on the mood or which church was going to be more crowded on which Sunday. And I was listening to a lot of choirs. I really like Christian choir, especially the Greek Orthodox choir, so I made a lot of field recordings. I ripped and downloaded hymns or chants or masses that I’m familiar with or recorded them in a church. And I used them as a source material to make what I would call “a contemporary Sunday mass”.

Jeg spurgte fordi, det er min oplevelse, at elektronisk musik udvikler sig rigtig meget i disse år – en udvikling i høj grad drevet af kunstnere fra eller med baggrund i arabisktalende regioner som Abadir selv. Flere andre, bl.a. mediet Scene Noise peger også på i deres udmærkede overbliksartikel over kollektiver i Europa, der præsenterer såkaldt SWANA-musik* (hvori også københavnske Bukhar nævnes), at regionernes musikmiljøer er i markant vækst og udveksling med en ”politisk progressiv diaspora i Europa”.

Blandt kunstnere i denne kategori, må endelig også nævnes tunesiske Deena Abdelwaheed, som også spillede på Roskilde 2024 og gav interview med kollektivet Bukhar i festivalens live-studie, som de delte med The Lake radio og Drift radio.

(Hør hele Bukhars interview med Deena Abdelwaheed her.)

“The UK is not the crazy hub for producers like in the 90s or maybe in the 2000s. It’s changing, and who knows what the next hub is going to be?”

– Abadir

Fremtiden er ikke afblæst udenfor UK

Abadir har tidligere udtalt til Cairo Scene, at han synes, at fusioner mellem traditionel og moderne musik og retro club-edits er en forfærdelig og uautentisk ting. F.eks. det at lægge et house-beat hen over egyptisk pop fra 70’erne er ifølge ham ”som at smide to ting i en blender, der skiller ad igen lige efter”.

Da jeg præsenterer ham for dette citat, fortæller han, at han udover musik har en baggrund som kemiingeniør, og at han tænker på fusioner som ”at blande olie og vand”. Det kan ikke lade sig gøre, de kan ikke hænge sammen. Men somme tider, under de rette omstændigheder, kan der opstå noget ganske nyt:

Abadir: It can happen. Under high temperatures, using catalysts and stuff, it can happen. The thing is that the two elements you want to put together will have to mutate or melt completely to create a new product that doesn’t have anything to do with the source materials. Then you can create something new.

But if you are just layering two audio tracks on top of each other in Ableton, you may get the perfect club-edit and this nice nostalgic feeling, but it is very temporary. It doesn’t push anything forward; it doesn’t move the scene forward.

Dette får mig til at spørge ind til, hvordan han tænker over forholdet mellem nostalgi og nyskabelse. Jeg ved, at Abadir selv har været optaget af den populære kulturteoretiker Mark Fisher, som berømt har skrevet, at fremtiden langsomt er blevet aflyst siden tiden omkring årtusindeskiftet i en nostalgisk gentagelse af kulturelle loops pga. omstændigheder i den kapitalistiske verden, der gør det umuligt at forestille sig en bedre verden. Abadir har derimod andetsteds udtalt, at, ”The future has been completely uncancelled in music”.

Abadir: Yeah, okay, I really appreciate the writings of Mark Fisher. He’s amazing, inspiring, and very critical. Reading the first chapter, I think, of Ghost of My Life, he was reflecting about the idea of the canceled future. And he was right. He gave very valid examples in post-punk, revivals and some pop artists. And he was 100% right.

When you listen to this music, it’s not giving any indication about the time that it was produced in, because it was based on retro aesthetics. If you listened to a jungle track in the mid 90s, you would have had this feeling og ‘future shock’ and you would notice a huge difference between the music produced in the mid 90s and the late 80s. But in like 2005, rock bands were trying to create music that could have been easily made in the beginning of the 80s.

However, this completely changed during the last decade, I think. If you listen to, I don’t know even music from the label PC Music and Charlie XCX, you would never dare to claim that this could have been produced during the 90s. All the “quote unquote” experimental music being produced by big labels like Pan or SVBKVLT, and the status of the ambient music happening five years ago, has already completely morphed to something new with new aesthetics that we never heard before so yeah, it’s not valid anymore.

I totally appreciate Fisher’s idea but maybe he focused a little too hard on the UK alone. And that’s a thing with many of the so-called critical thinkers coming from leftist accelerationism. Many of them are very British-centric and Eurocentric, and what’s happening now is that everything is becoming more global in a positive way. The UK is not the crazy hub for producers that it was in the 90s or maybe in the 2000s. It’s changing, and who knows what the next hub is going to be?

A lot of things are coming from the Arab region, amazing stuff. If you listen to tracks from ZULI or from 3phaz for instance, I think this is how the future has been uncancelled. Especially if we are speaking about the more adventurous electronic music, there is crazy stuff coming out of the Arab region and East Africa, and a lot of crazy stuff coming from East Asia, and from Central America or South America, scenes are happening and blowing up from everywhere, and that’s amazing. So that’s pushing us to move from the British focus.

“if you trace the origin of that mentality and the way to deal with artists from the “exotic” regions, I think it has something to do with liberal politics. it. It’s a colonial mindset. Like sucking all the resources from some regions until you’re done with it and you’re switching to another region.”

– Abadir

Hvis jeg var grov, ville jeg kalde det kolonialistisk mentalitet  

Jeg spørger Abadir, hvilken betydning det har for disse kunstnere og scener i så høj grad at blive ført frem på de europæiske festivaler og scener. Jeg er interesseret, fordi de steder, han nævner, har været kolonialiseret af bl.a. netop Storbritannien (Egypten, hvor han selv kommer fra, indtil 1956), og der er en lang arv for i højere grad at udstille kulturelle artefakter herfra end at repræsentere kunstnere som ligeværdige.

Abadir: If you look at a lot of the curation of many of the festivals, I think it’s good that they are looking around, not focused only on Europe or the States or UK. Before, we maybe didn’t have any platform. But with many festivals, and I don’t want to drop any names, the case is, okay, they check what’s hyped, what has been in the end-of-year-lists on Resident Advisor or The Wire, and they focus on these artists because they are hyped now. And then they book the artist, and a curator from another festival comes to this festival and they see what’s happening and go “oh, okay. I like him. I like her. I like them. Okay, let’s book them.” And then another curator goes to their festival, the second festival, and so on.

So, it’s a cycle, but a very short cycle, where they are consuming a bunch of artists for a very limited period of time and then they switch to other artists until they suck all the artists from this specific country or this specific region and then switch to another region. So, it’s a bit extractivist in some way.

I have like 10 artists in mind from my region that share exactly the same point of view, so I’m not coming up with this out of the blue, and, though I hate the word representation, it somehow represents what we think about.

And I think if you trace the origin of that mentality and the way to deal with artists from the “exotic” regions, it has something to do with liberal politics. And if I would be mean, I would say colonial mindset. But I don’t regret it. It’s like sucking all the resources from some regions until you’re done with it and you’re switching to another region.

If you look at what was big in 2016, 2017, and even a bit before, there was baile funk. These artists, many friends of mine, from all over South America were huge in Europe. It took them a couple of years and then it died. They were hyped in a good way, but only for one year, and then… Rest in peace.

To say that “we booked this artist from the desert”, “from the forest”, “from the middle of nowhere”, or if you have an artist that is bringing the weird 250 BPM dance music, you write a good text and you hype them. And then you extract the resources, and you leave them nowhere. This is no good, consuming artists one after the other.

It seems a lot of curators are just checking boxes like, “we have balanced gender, we have balanced regions, we have balanced colors. We did our homework; we follow the rules we have to follow for our funding. Check. Check. Check. Okay. We’re good. Let’s go.”– Thank you, but no, it’s more than that. They need to engage more with the artists’ development and at least study the region’s music.

“Speaking about festivals in general and how they work with curation, I think it’s tricky because on one side, it’s good to see artists from everywhere, but also, I think the approach to how curators are studying the works and the culture of the artists… There is a sense of laziness. A lack of curiosity.”

– Abadir

Lad bageren bage brødet

Det virker som om, Abadir har en hel del at sige om netop dette, da han taler i et øget tempo og med et klarere fokus end tidligere i vores samtale. Jeg spørger ham derfor, hvad han mener, festivaler som Roskilde bør gøre mere af for at overkomme denne i hans ord “ressourceudvinding” af kunstnere: 

Abadir: I think festivals and curators need to push this potential to something bigger. Not only to rely on a single booking. The approach is what makes the difference. If an artist has been booked, it means that this artist has potential. I think there must be a good way to develop this artist more and more. I have a lot of ideas on how you can develop the potential of an artist.

Give them more platform. Make them grow. Pair artists together or invite artists for residences and stuff. Once you see potential, push the artist to go out of their comfort zone and stimulate their growth. It would be a good credit to the festival and the curator.

Speaking about festivals in general and how they work with curation, I think it’s tricky because on one side, it’s good to see artists from everywhere, but also, I think the approach to how curators are studying the works and the culture of the artists… There is a sense of laziness. A lack of curiosity.

Based on what exactly artists are being booked? Do bookers always have the skills to see “talent”? I don’t like the word talent, but I can’t find a replacement right now. Hard worker. Innovative in their scene. Or are just making club edits?

My friends in the Egyptian scene and I can easily differentiate between a good and a bad jungle track, a good and a bad Jersey, or dubstep track. You name the genre. But when it comes to the other way around, like a critic or a curator from Europe, or from the UK, they cannot always differentiate between a good or a more humble track or even between two artists. Why? Because they didn’t study the scene well. They didn’t study this culture well. But why did we go deep inside dubstep or jungle? Why do we know that history? We know when it sounded terrible, when it sounded kitschy, when it sounded good; but when it’s the other way around, is it just music from the Arab region?

And if the festivals don’t want to do this work and study the scenes well, I think it’s a very good idea to give a part of the curation to artists from this region. Give the curation to other people. There is a funny saying in Arabic, that goes: “Give the bread dough to its bakery” [or: Let the baker bake the bread] – meaning that of course the person with the right tools and knowledge will do it better than you would yourself at home. And definitely you would have a stronger curation when the curator is really involved in the culture of the region from where the festival is making the booking.

I hvilken grad Roskilde allerede gør tiltag præcis som disse, har jeg ikke direkte indsigt i. Men man kan i hvert fald konstatere i programmet en villighed til at give plads til andres stemmer, bl.a. i hallen foran Gloria Scenen med et kollektivt installationsværk af bl.a. aktivist og kunstner Banaan Al-Nasser, som havde inviteret den palæstinensiske gadekunstner og kalligraf Salim Assi til at lave en genfortolkning af FN-logoet med en vandmelon som symbol på denne frihedskamp.

Du kan ikke forbruge kulturen uden at acceptere dens politik

Da jeg endeligt spørger Abadir, om der er andet, han gerne vil bruge interviewet til at sige, vender uden min opfordring blikket mod netop det igangværende overgreb på Palæstina.

Roskilde festival har trods et par voldsomme udslag med armene fra højrefløjspolitikere holdt en stille hånd i debatten på en ganske anden måde, end det har været tilfældet andre steder i Nordeuropa især siden 7. oktober, hvor klubber og platforme har lukket voldsomt ned for kritiske, palæstinenske eller blot arabiske stemmer. Jeg tænker her på bl.a. Berghains aflysning af Arabian Panther, og om hvordan platformen Hör har censureret artister, bl.a. i København for at optræde med palæstinensiske flag. Ligesom de mange, mange sympatierklæringer fra scenerne og palæstinensiske flag ved koncerter på Roskilde festival havde været helt utænkelige i Tyskland, hvor den slags er forbudt ved lov og bliver straffet ret hårdt. (læs her en overbliksartikel med udtalelser fra flere tyske klubber.)

“Now, we have our own politics, which are valid. And you cannot consume the culture of some people without accepting their politics, otherwise don’t consume it.”

– Abadir

Abadir: Since I already mentioned liberal politics and colonial mindsets, one of the things I’m thinking a lot about is about the politics of the region and how it is sometimes received in Europe. This became clearer and clearer after the 7th of October and what’s happening in Gaza. The amount of silencing of artists from the Arab region and from allies from Europe is crazy.

Do you mean like restrictions on flying the Palestinian flag?

Abadir: Yeah, stuff like that or even even speaking about it, or sharing what’s happening on social media and being censored in venues and having performances canceled.

When you book artists from the Arab region, we will speak our case. We don’t need to put aside what has happened during the colonial era. In Africa when German, British, French, or people from Belgium were colonizing those regions, they loved the food, the music, the style – they liked everything, but when it came to politics, “oh no, you have to follow us”. And somehow this is happening now but more in a polished way.

Artists are being booked but without accepting their politics. So, this is really colonial. This is what I call it, when you like the food, you like the music, the dance, the fashion, but when it comes to the politics, it’s: “Shut up, you cannot say this, you cannot say that”. But how can you have the audacity to be consuming the food and playing the music and then when it comes to the politics, say no? Now, we have our own politics, which are valid. And you cannot consume the culture of some people without accepting their politics, otherwise don’t consume it. Take it all, it’s only one package.

Ovenpå denne afsluttende pointe fra Abadir takker vi hinanden for en god og lang samtale og går ud på festivalen. Man kan måske godt forstå hans afsluttende pointe i lyset af de heftige diskussioner og aflysninger af koncerter, der har været især i Tyskland. Men i modsætning til andre festivaler i Europa såvel som foredrag på universiteter og lignende blev det ikke forbudt af ledelsen, straffet af kulturelitens toneangivere og politiet, men blev derimod givet plads. Det er svært at klandre festivalen for en lignende tilgang, og mit spørgsmål om, hvordan festivalen bedst kan præsentere musik fra steder, der historisk er i ulige forhold til Nordeuropa, er mere end blevet besvaret.

*SWANA står for South West Asia and North Africa og er et forsøg på en mere korrekt betegnelse for områderne end ”Mellemøsten”, der placerer Sydvestasien ”østligt” for Europa og således udtrykker et eurocentrisk verdensbillede. Jeg brugte selv betegnelsen SWANA i mit interview med Abadir, som dagen efter postede på Instagram, at han var træt af denne ”cute, polerede kolonialistiske betegnelse” og opfordrede til i stedet at bruge ”den arabiske region”. Jeg diskuterede senere samme dag dette med en ven med baggrund dels i Marokko, som påpegede, at dette også var problematisk, fordi der i regionerne også er oprindelige, ikke-arabiske folk, som f.eks. Amazigh [tidligere kaldt ”berbere” fra det oldgræsk stammende ord ”barbar”]. Jeg har derfor i denne artikel valgt at bruge betegnelsen ”arabisktalende regioner”.