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Kurt Cobain would have been—should have been—turning 54 yesterday. Instead, on April 5, 1994, the music world lost one of its brightest stars at the age of 27, a musical voice that both crystalized the voice of the previous decade’s underground, sharpening it and sending it rocketing around the globe, as well as led the next great step forward, influencing countless musicians to not only follow in his footsteps, but to honor all that had come before with the same open and honest reverence he showed his own influences.
Cobain was a lover of music of all shapes and sizes, and one of the great tragedies of his loss is that he never got to take his rightful place as the patron saint of rock globally, championing the best that music had to offer all across the world, and across genre. Nirvana, Cobain’s legendary band, never got to tour the Middle East, but that never stopped the Arab and Muslim world from loving him and his legacy, where his music still maintains popularity more than 30 years since he changed everything.
Numerous artists have paid tribute to Cobain’s music over the years. Here’s a few of our favorites from the Arabic-speaking world, which infuse new musical styles and often new lyrics into Cobain’s timeless and versatile music.
Jowan Safadi & FISHSAMAK – “By Mahbalni” (Dumb)
Jowan Safadi is an alternative Palestinian singer musician from Nazareth, who mixes Arabic styles with various influences, bringing a fresh sound to the alternative Arabic-language music scene, tackling different emotional and philosophical themes. .
“This is an Arabic interpretation and reviver of Nirvana’s song Dumb, based on the same chords and theme. The song is a tribute to the unforgettable Kurt Cobain of the legendary Nirvana, a witness that he is still present in the world of evolving music and that Nirvana did not die with its founder, but rather shifted from being a band to become a music genre and philosophy, that spread widely across seas, cultures and generations, to strongly influence musicians around the world,” said Safadi on his YouTube.
Emel – “The Man Who Sold The World”
Though originally a song off of David Bowie’s album of the same name, it was Cobain who made the song resonate with a new generation during the band’s iconic MTV Unplugged performance in New York, released at the tail-end of 1994. Emel Mathlouthi, born in 1982, is a musician from Tunisia, who came to prominence during the Tunisian revolution.
Nadid Albadar – “The Man Who Sold The World”
A seven piece band of Muslims based in Indonesia, Nasyid Albadar dresses in traditional Indonesian garb on stage and mixes styles and languages, here putting Arabic-language lyrics into the classic David Bowie song made popular by Nirvana. Fans in Indonesia love it. The band thanked Kurt Cobain when posting the cover on their Facebook in 2020.
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