Beirut’s popular Gemmayze neighbourhood is humming with its usual late-afternoon energy. Low-hanging powerlines zig-zag below overhanging balconies and above a growing flow of pedestrians who are starting to fill up the scattering of street-side café tables.
Two of those pedestrians is the famed Lebanese music producer Zeid Hamdan [48] and the talented Syrian vocalist Lynn Adib [37]. They are not meeting to shoot the breeze about life and everything that comes with it, but rather are on the way to a different kind of shoot—a photoshoot for Esquire Middle East at the atelier of fashion designer Saleem Azzam, ahead of their eagerly-anticipated performance at the city’s eminent live music venue ‘KED Beirut.’
The duo make-up the Arab-indie group Bedouin Burger—a one-of-a-kind group in the Middle East music sphere, crisscrossing genres and beats to create a unique, Arab-Indie, electronic genre.
Hamdan is no stranger to labels. He is often referred to as the ‘godfather’ of Arab indie music, a tag he playfully denies telling Esquire: “I used to enjoy the title! I found it funny, but today I wish I could be referred to more as an explorer rather than a religious authority! Religion and power are the worst elements that humanity has to offer.” Explorer seems an apt term to describe both Hamdan and Adib—each artist hailing from a country whose music (and styles) have inspired a generation.
“I don’t know if Bedouin Burger ‘breaks boundaries’ exactly,” Hamdan explains, “I mainly see it as a starting point to meet and collaborate with Lynn Adib—an artist that I love and admire, and now get to create beautiful art and memories together.” It is clear that the bond between the two is powerful, fused by a joint passion for both music and heritage. Adib points to the start of the duo as a critical moment in her life.
“Bedouin Burger is the beginning of a deep friendship story between Zeid and myself,” she says. “Before we even created any music, we met during a critical moment of my life when I had moved back to the Middle East from Paris with the hope to start a musical project that spoke about our region—that came from it. It’s been a blessing. Zeid approaches everything with such enthusiasm, it’s like when a child is exposed to new ideas—there are no preconceived ideas, and he is open to modifying things according to the person he’s working with. It probably explains why he has been so successful with all his different collaborations. It’s really fun!”
In the Arab music scene, Zeid Hamdan has been an underlying pioneer of a range of musical genres and artists including Soapkills, The New Government, Hiba Mansouri, Kanjha Kora, and his band, Zeid and the Wings. But Bedouin Burger is different, a completely new and unique challenge in a space which is at its early stages.
“There are so many incredible Arabic indie artists working hard in the shadows and so few music labels to help build the scene,” Hamdan laments. “The music business is extremely harsh in our region and basic copyright laws are still not enforced, which discourages new initiatives in the region. You mostly hear electronic, or hip-hop production nowadays because it’s the simplest format to sell on a global level—but musically, this region is very rich soil that is just waiting to be properly cultivated.”
In contrast, singer and composer Lynn Adib was born and raised in Damascus. Her career has seen her constantly exploring Arabic music and questioning her musical place in the canon of patrimonial heritage, taking part in a range of collaborations throughout the years, with genres that vary from improvisation, jazz and soul, to electronic and experimental music, Lynn Adib quartet, Nearness, and Yalla Queen, to name a few.
Furthering his Hamdan’s point, Adib adds she doesn’t believe that their band is truly innovative, but it is a sign that there is plenty of scope to grow. “I don’t know if ‘BB’ is adding a new genre per se—there have been many projects in the past five years that have combined traditional Arabic music and electronics—but I think any new project that comes from a deep place can only help add something helpful in the scene,” she says before noting that it is their cross-border nationalities that helps their case. “The fact that we come from different, neighbouring, countries is a reminder that unity is necessary for us to be stronger.”
Arab-Indie is quickly gaining in popularity as the youthful generations search for catchy fusions between Eastern and Western melodies and various modes of alternative music. Hamdan goes back to his earlier years, pondering the experiences and vibes that transformed his musical taste.
“My earliest musical memories in Lebanon: taking my guitar and my girlfriend, hopping in a cab from Tayyouneh in Beirut to ride to Damascus; performing in Marmar at Bab Touma; sleeping under the stars on the roof of mysterious Hotel Al-Rabii; jumping on a bus to Jordan the next day reach Amman and performing at night in a café with Tamer Abou Ghazaleh. Those days seemed like they are from another dimension where we were under the impression that we were in a big country.” It is this concept of music and life with no borders which captivates Hamdan the artist. The idea of a fluid Arab identity is a central feature behind Bedouin Burger—it is collaborative, it is positive, it remains free and unoppressed, and that it “only brings something positive to the world.”
For Hamdan, Palestine is never far away from his mind, and heart. When asked to describe himself in three words, he retorts: “Justice for Palestine”, adding that “in a time where we are being eradicated from this planet, being an ambassador for Arab culture is a duty, an act of real resistance, something I take very seriously.”
Lynn Adib, too, speaks powerfully on the situation and turmoil in the region. “We are witnessing the oppression of Palestinian people online, while decision-makers are mainly silent,” she says. “It is heartbreaking to see and, as Arab artists, we have the responsibility to keep speaking our truth and existing beyond fear.”
As a Syrian female artist, fighting to be treated as an equal has always been part of her journey. “Before the war in Syria, I always had a dream to change the attitude people had about women taking the stage to perform. Later, when I moved to France in 2009, I realised that it wasn’t just in Syria where there was a prejudice against women. I began to notice that there was a prejudice the West had against the Arab world in general—this is why I often sing in Arabic. I feel responsible for where I come from. I try to give my people a voice to speak through what I do.”
The dynamic duo are immersed in conversation while being styled by the charming Lebanese designer Salim Azzam.
“My relationship with them [Bedouin Burger] is one of adoration,” says Azzam. “Lynn is a dear friend and Zeid comes from the same village as me in Lebanon. Bedouin Burger means something special to me because we are similar in so many ways, they create and innovate using the mediums of music, heritage and origins, in a civilized and unique way. They are a source of happiness.”
While Azzam and Hamdan are indeed from the same village in Lebanon, it was actually Adib who introduced them to each other.
“It’s kind of wonderful that it was Lynn—my partner from Syria—who introduced me to such a talented fashion designer from my tiny village in the mountains of Lebanon! You get a sense of how the universe works,” muses Hamdan.
“I’ve been wanting to emancipate from Western clothing because to me it now represents something deeply troubling and sad—cheap labour, mass exploitation and colonialism. Salim Azzam seems to be the perfect answer to my desire. He allows me to wear something that truly represents our culture and I am so honored to work with him.”
Azzam’s is a name that is gaining traction internationally. As he works, he starts to share the specifics of what it takes to create pieces at his atelier: “I’m not inspired by Western clothing, what I do is very authentic to where I come from, it uses the conventional modes of fashion for our region,” he says. “Every collection or piece we work on has a story—or presents a topic or idea that we want to bring to society.”
For Salim Azzam, his work is not unlike that of Bedouin Burger. Each piece tells a different story, but through the medium of fashion and material, rather than music and rhythm. “My inspirations come from everywhere, most of them come from the world that I was raised in, how I was brought up and where I lived,” explains Azzam. “My latest collection, Chapter Eight, speaks about dancing in fashion, it’s a chapter that is aimed at entertaining people and to shed light on how I wanted to become a fashion designer.” It seems only too fitting, then, that is it is the pieces of Chapter Eight that Bedouin Burger are wearing for the shoot.
In both cases—Salim Azzam and Bedouin Burger—it appears that there is something of a growing cultural renaissance that is happening on a very real and grassroots level. Given the choice each artist would choose to go against the grain, regardless of whether it is the harder route to direct success. For them, art isn’t about volume or fame, it is about being true to yourself and being a beacon for those around them to recognise something that they may not have otherwise seen. “Syria’s culture is present in everything I am today,” says Adib. “I’m neither a classical nor a transitional Arab singer, I am an artist that tells my story through music. Hamdan sees that, and that’s why we wanted to create this project together.” Because together, we are stronger.