We'll Play till We Die Journeys across a Decade of Revolutionary Music in the Muslim World
Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Mark LeVine is a Guggenheim-winning musician who has recorded and toured with acclaimed performers, including Mick Jagger, Chuck D, Dr. John, Ozomatli, Hassan Hakmoun, Seun and Femi Kuti, and other leading Middle Eastern and African artists. His recording on Ozomatli's album Street Signs won a Grammy in 2005. He is also Professor of Middle Eastern and African Histories at the University of California, Irvine. His many books include Twilight of Empire, coedited with Viggo Mortensen. He is also author of Overthrowing Geography and coeditor of One Land, Two States.<p>"Seen from one angle, Mark LeVine is a respected professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of California, Irvine, not far from Los Angeles. . . . But LeVine is also a rock guitarist gifted enough to perform in the shadow of Mick Jagger or Doctor John. . . . In fact, LeVine combines his academic methods and his passion for music in his solid investigations of the alternative scene in the Middle East . . . His last book, <i>We'll Play Till We Die,</i> deals with material gathered during, as the book's subtitle puts it, his <i>Journeys across a Decade of Revolutionary Music in the Muslim World</i>."</p>
Le Monde
"The fresh and original perspective LeVine shows in Heavy Metal Islam and We’ll Play Till We Die opens our eyes to the power of music to create an audience, engage it and encourage it to act."
Oriente Moderno
"<i>We'll Play till We Die</i> offers readers a much anticipated sequel to his groundbreaking, ethnographic travelogue<i> Heavy Metal Islam</i> (2008). . . What emerges is a nuanced demonstration of the processes through which subcultures, countercultures, and revolutionary cultures develop and respond to state oppression and authoritarianism. Through the lens of popular music and culture LeVine and his coauthors provide a deeply personal testimony to a decade of ongoing revolution in the Islamic world."
International Journal of Middle East Studies
We'll Play till We Die dives into the revolutionary music cultures of the Middle East and larger Muslim world before, during, and beyond the waves of resistance that shook the region from Morocco to Pakistan. This sequel to Mark LeVine's celebrated Heavy Metal Islam shows how some of the world's most extreme music not only helped inspire and define region-wide protests, but also exemplifies the beauty and diversity of youth cultures throughout the Muslim world.
Two years after Heavy Metal Islam was published in 2008, uprisings and revolutions spread like wildfire. The young people organizing and protesting on the streets—in dozens of cities from Casablanca to Karachi—included the very musicians and fans LeVine spotlighted in that book. We'll Play till We Die revisits the groundbreaking stories he originally explored, sharing what has happened to these musicians, their music, their politics, and their societies since then. The book covers a stunning array of developments, not just in metal and hip hop scenes, but with emo in Baghdad, mahraganat in Egypt, techno in Beirut, and more. LeVine also reveals how artists have used global platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud to achieve unprecedented circulation of their music outside corporate or government control. The first collective ethnography and biography of the post-2010 generation, We'll Play till We Die explains and amplifies the radical possibilities of music as a revolutionary force for change.
List of Illustrations
Author’s Note: Revolutionary Auras and Phantasms
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration
Introduction
From Uprisings to Plagues
1 • Morocco
Finding Harmonies in a Land of Dissidence
2 • Yalla, “Let’s Play!”
Egypt from the Pharaoh to the General
3 • Palestine/Israel
Uprisings in Music
4 • Lebanon
Remixed but Never Remastered
5 • Iran
Living in the Upside Down and Inside Out
6 • Pakistan
Shredding the Funk from the Valleys to the Sea
By Way of an Epilogue
The Joys of Resistance
References by Chapter
List of Contributors
Index
"What does revolution sound like? LeVine knows. He is that rare music writer who is not afraid of politics; a scholar-musician not afraid to play. He gave us a glimpse of revolution in his astonishing Heavy Metal Islam and now has followed up with a thrilling, explosive, finely grained exploration of the Muslim underground music scene in the wake of the Arab Spring. As with any collaborative mixtape, read this book from beginning to end, and then rewind."—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
"LeVine's We'll Play till We Die is a brilliant testimony to the power of Extreme Youth Music as a weapon of resistance, an instrument of hope, and an irrepressible act of revolution across the Middle East."—Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk and The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing
"We'll Play till We Die is a powerful account of Muslim youth culture over the last decade, tracing how young Muslims from Morocco to Pakistan forge music for political struggle. LeVine is a witty, pissed-off audiohead who crisscrosses the Muslim-majority world, leaving no musical stone unturned."—Hisham Aidi, author of Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture
"When LeVine wrote Heavy Metal Islam over a decade ago, he imagined a day when the youth of the Middle East would rise up with one voice—channeling the ethos of the rock and roll and hip hop music that gives pulse to the region—and transform their world for better or worse. Now that we have seen that day come and go, LeVine's new, deeply personal examination of how music has given voice to both the despair and the hope of this youth generation is even more relevant than it was a decade ago."—Reza Aslan, author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth