On Sunday afternoon, the Grammy museum was hosting a conversation between Syrian artist Omar Souleyman and Henry Rollins, and knowing about the ex-Black Flag man’s passion for Souleyman’s music, I could not have missed this.
The Syrian-techno singer appeared with the exact same outfit he was wearing during his Santa Monica concert last week, and the one-hour conversation was very friendly however slowed down by a translator… It seems that Souleyman doesn’t speak any English at all, as he was turning himself toward the woman who was translating and not even attempting to understand Rollins. It is still amazing to see how much success Omar’s music has in the west, when you know about the language barrier and the modest origins of the guy: he grew up as a farmer surrounded by goats, and started to perform at small parties. After realizing he had a good voice, he became a part-time singer at weddings, still keeping his other jobs… but he got very successful. A wedding over there is a big deal and the singer is the MC who has to know the name of everybody in the party, explains Rollins, he has to improvise for sometimes 4-5 hours (if not all night), and Omar seriously enjoyed it: ‘As long as I have the mic, I’ll be singing!’ he said… Rollins wants to know how he prepares for this since the music is complex, the phrasing of the words complicated, and this is without mentioning that the prolific singer has composed tons and tons of songs! But Omar has once again a simple answer, he never rehearses, and just shows up at a party.
Even with the language barrier, the conversation was a love fest coming from Rollins, he was acting like a total fan boy who talked about the unusual and amazing hospitality he encountered when he visited Damascus. He considers this part of the world very interesting (despite the eternal conflicts), and presented Souleyman’s music as a convergence of multiple influences coming from Turkey, Iraq, and some very old influences he has modernized… ‘These driving beats plus traditional music? They astound me’ he says. Souleyman is a very quiet man, so cool and unanimated compared to buoyant Rollins. He just answers he wanted to take multiple influences from everybody to make everybody happy… Souleyman is a simple guy, who doesn’t even have a favorite American food (he eats whatever is put in front of him) but he travels with his own tea. He also doesn’t think he is purposely putting western influences in his music…He considers European or US styles too far from his own style, and he wants to stay true to where he comes from. He does not feel comfortable with sampling his music, because it is not his background,… however, he is open to work with other artists and did it with Bjork, on a remix. And about these multi-influences? He has a very metaphoric answer to explain his work: ‘Some singer sings in one color, but the land I am from belongs to multiple people so I try to sing in many colors to make everyone happy and the music as welcoming as possible’.
Of course, it was question of the language barrier, as most of western audience can’t understand a single word of what Omar sings…. Still emotion is there, not so much in the songs filled with dance beats that Omar performs at weddings, shows and festivals, but in the slower ones, which are different.
‘There is pain, a blues desire in the tone of the voice… Am I hearing this correctly?’ asked Rollins. The majority of the happy songs are about love and happiness but the slower ones are about unrequited love, arranged marriages, ‘Lots of my songs are about family disapproval and the feeling of the person who is rejected’ adds Omar, the tempo matches the lyrics… ‘It’s good to be right!’ triumphs Rollins who says he could hear the pain, sadness and loneliness in the voice.
There are more than 500 hundreds of cassettes of his recordings (especially of his wedding concerts and Souleyman owns all of them), which could form a wall says Rollins, ‘I wish it was my wall!’ he adds with excitement. ‘Anywhere in the world, if there is a record store I will go in!’ continues Rollins to explain he bought everything Souleyman when he was in a store in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ‘Every one in the place thought I was a total maniac’, he said while being thanked by Omar.
Souleyman has turned global, he performs all over the world, in Europe, Australia, and in a few days he will be in Washington DC, New York then Norway. Of course he had no idea this would ever happen, no idea he would be travelling all over the world, ‘As being successful doesn’t mean just having a good voice, it takes much more than this,…’ he adds, saying this has to do a lot with the content of his lyrics. But how is this possible when the western audiences do not understand? I am not sure, but US audiences have been very good to him, they ‘have fulfilled his wish’, ‘Everybody dance and is happy’…
And this sums up everything, despite the dangerous place he comes from, he just wants to make people happy. ‘What does music mean to you’ asks Rollins. ‘This is a good and important question,… People hear the music and dance’ answers Omar, ‘This is the power of music, I wish people would understand lyrics, they would be happier! Music is peace for everybody’. Amazingly, there is never question of war or fighting in the techno Syrian’s discourse.
