From Morocco with love

Just to annoy you with my musical predilections for a little bit longer (oh please, of course I will do this more in the future . . .), through the magic of modern, YouTube-esque technology, I present to you Ahmad Soultan and his tune, "Ya Salam."

I first heard this song played in heavy rotation on Radio France Internationale Musique throughout last fall, but I only recently discovered this video. This is the kind of sound that truly appeals to me: a mid-tempo, seductive beat; an exotic, trancelike quality to the music; yet completely contemporary as well, with its undercurrent of hip-hop.

The song doesn't even have to be in English for me to appreciate it. I wish my language skills were better (old joke: What do you all someone who speaks three languages? trilingual; what do you call someone who speaks two languages? bilingual; what do you call someone who speaks only one language: an American), and I could offer you a rough translation of the song itself, other than relying on the images in the video (surfing in Morocco, too! who knew?) or the vibe conveyed.

However, knowing what's being sung may actually be incidental to my enjoyment of song.

Sounds funny, dunnit? Well, consider this: So much of contemporary music is performed in English, and yet not everyone speaks English, so already much of the world hears a sound they like, even when they don't understand what's being said. In other words, they appreciate the song for the sound and the way it makes them feel. It's very impressionistic, don't you think? And that's often why I like music so much--for the way it makes me feel, for the emotions and feelings it conjures, rather than for its literalness, for what it makes me think or interpret intellectually.

I have little patience for anyone who says they don't want to listen to songs performed in other languages because they can't understand what's being said. I'm not saying the lyrics don't matter--of course they may, when you understand them. I know enough to know that Ahmad Soultan is from Morocco and that the song is sung partly in Arabic and that "Ya Salam" roughly translates to mean . . . well, I don't know what it means. "God is great"? "Pass the surfboard wax"? "Get the hell out of my country, you imperialist invader"? An article in Wikipedia, my source for all wisdom, about another Arabic-language performer translates "Ya Salam" to mean "How Fantastic."

Maybe now you see better my point about knowing what's being sung being incidental, even detrimental, to my enjoyment of the song. The lesson here may be that sometimes too much knowledge is a boring thing: I might have been far happier not to understand the language, to just let my mind wander in the oasis of the exotic rather than get stuck in the muck of the somewhat banal.

Yes, yes, I see the ghost of Edward Said hovering over my shoulder as I type this. Bad Westerner, baaaaad Westerner. Exoticizing the East and the Other once again. I may be guilty of that in fact, but it's really not my intent. Via the internet, I listen to RFI Musique. I listen to Medi 1 and Africa No. 1 as well and enjoy the different sounds I hear. It reminds me of childhood and using my shortwave radio to expand my horizons and experience the world beyond my bedroom. The Voice of Turkey. Radio Moscow. Paris Calling Africa. Radio Rumbos, Caracas, Venezuela.

Therefore, am I exoticizing the East or just appreciating the differences and savoring qualities in its popular music and culture that seem lost or in hiding in our own? I mean, when was the last time you heard a pop song on American radio and felt the pleasure of the hook, commented on the trancelike quality of the chorus, experienced the seductiveness of the 3 minutes and thirty seconds of it all? In fact, when was the last time you bothered to listen to American Top 40 radio, which has basically been reduced to advertising messages interspersed by the same 20 songs played repeatedly over a 24-hour period?

I thought as much.

Perhaps it's a fine line, this world music appreciation versus orientalism. Perhaps I cross it on the "wrong" side at times and the "right" at others. But perhaps, too, whenever I hear the latest news from Iraq or Afghanistan or Egypt or Palestine or Israel--no matter how bad it is (and it often is), no matter how badly we misunderstand each other (and we often do)--I pause for a moment to remember that somewhere in another part of the world, a group of friends is getting together to hang out, listen to some music, and enjoy the moments of pleasure life offers us.

How fantastic, indeed.