Interviewer: Hello ladies and gentle men welcome back to our lovely show, today we have one of the most talented artist in the middle east, he’s well known for winning the title of Arab’s got talent and winning the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Middle East Act. please welcome Mohammad Assaf.
Mohammad Assaf: Thanks for hosting me, I'm glad to be here with you.
interviewer: Well lets get right to it. you are one of the most talented Arab musicians in your era, you're well known for performing the works of classic Arab artists such as Mohammad Abdel Wahab. Can you tell us about some of the artists or bands that had influenced you within you're community?
Mohammad Assaf: sure why not, first of all there was a band named “al ashiqeen” which was a band that was found during the start of the Palestinian revolution back in 1965. They used to play on a station that was called “sur falesiteen”(wall of Palestine). As a child I used to listen to them a lot especially when i was in school, they were one of the most authentic Palestinian bands that had influenced me to be an artist alongside an influence regarding the type of songs that I play now a days. however there many other bands and artists that had influenced me like a band named “al buraq” and many others.
Interviewer: moving on, knowing that you're a Palestinian and that there is a war going on why do you Palestinians get into the music industry despite the Israeli blockade on Gaza and the harsh economic situations, why do you get into music?
Mohammad Assaf: Well this shows that my community and I in the rest of the time we have in this life we still believe and hope that their well be a day when we get our country back, but we do enjoy music because despite this occupation we still have the right to be happy. We do sing songs of celebration, I mean that our lives aren't bitter and all but due to our circumstances and this occupation we are forced to do things. however were a part of humanity we have the right to live happy and express our selves don't we?… talking about me now, since I was a kid I had dreamt of being a well known artist. My dream was to sing patriotic songs regarding my homeland despite the conditions we live in, it was hard for me to reach to the point of being famous and all I really struggled due to the blockade and the occupation. civilians lives in my community had changed and we needed to express this and i had done that throughout my music. Despite everything were still under occupation and many of our youth talent is hidden and I was an example of one. So Palestinians tend to get into music to express the emotions and sorrow towards their lives.
Interviewer: Thanks Mohammad that was an insightful answer that you gave us, looking at content and theme of you’re work, many have said that the use of language in you're songs had gotten them to enjoy you're art because of the way you use language to express you’re thoughts. do you believe that you had made a change in your community?
Mohammad Assaf: Well taking a look at the amount of people those in which who have listened to my work, I certainly believe that I had made a huge change in my Palestinian community since my songs were mainly patriotic thus I was sharing with them their experiences under the occupation alongside with how much we all love Palestine. However I don't believe that I had only affected my community only I believe that I had touched and inspired others as well. taking that back to songs i have sang like "ali al koofeyeh" the language used in their is pretty sensitive and emotional as my aim was to touch Palestinians heart and give them an insight towards my thoughts and feelings about my homeland. I believe that this patriotic song had touched and influenced myself and many other communities in the world thus making a change in them by the use of language and content of my work.
Interviewer: thank you mohammed for being here with us, I hope that we get a chance and see you next time but until then I hope you have a great life.
I really enjoyed reading your interview. Even though you had some simple grammatical errors, I liked the organization and the structure of the interview
ReplyDeleteIt was a well written blog post. However many grammatical errors as well as spelling errors were made. Sometimes, the post is quoted difficult to understand. Work on your orginization and try to make your work more coherent. In your post, you do touch on some important factors which may have influenced the artist's work as well as how his community benefits from his music. You understood the unit and incorporated what was learnt in class well.
ReplyDeleteThe content of the post was good. The read was made to be interesting and I liked how you chose such an artist. It differs from the many who decided to talk about or interview artists usually from the US or famous in that region. The answers from the interviewee were relevant, stayed on topic and each of those texts had a significant amount written that provided much information.
ReplyDeleteHowever there were a couple of minorities which prevented the post itself from being its best. First of all the grammatical mistakes that were to be found in this post played a significant role in lowering the standardization of the post itself. You need to be aware of making such mistakes and know that before you publish such you edit those out. Next would be that you need to try and avoid talking about the artists childhood or such and stay closer towards talking more about the language he uses in his songs. Some good ideas would be how some of this statements are significant to his audience and why, or why he decided to use such tones in his songs or such. If you do talk about the background information of the singer, make the connection between such to his usage of language more relevant.
The post was solid, I enjoyed the read. Good job!
Powerful choice of an artist and community. You use the interview text type effectively to engage with the social and political issues that Assaf addresses in his music. Greater attention to specific lyrics could have demonstrated a greater appreciation for the relationship between language and community.
ReplyDelete