Habibi Festival is back for another year at Joe's Pub, bringing Arabs, comrades, and lovers of music together in New York in these difficult times that our nations continue to endure. And for another year, afikra was on stage to speak to the musicians and bring their conversations and performances to you on afikra's Quartertones podcast.Who better to kick off the season with than the one and only Iraqi-Canadian rapper, writer and teacher Narcy who's been – for decades – making music about the...

Nai Barghouti joins us for a very special episode of Quartertones ahead of her performance at the Toronto Palestine Film Festival on September 27th which will be her Canadian debut. Speaking from the heart, Nai shares how Palestine underscores the music she makes and performs, her journey to becoming unapologetically Palestinian, and learning the nuanced language of Fairuz's music. She tells us of the raw grief, hope and joy she finds come out of each performance and each audience she...

It's not often that we welcome a film score composer on QuarterTones. So we had a lot to chat about with award-winning composer Suad Bushnaq. We discuss the realities of writing music for cinema, her favorite Arab film scores of all time, and why the best movie soundtracks are those that you don't remember. We quizz Suad on how she chooses a key for her music, what it was like to study at Damascus' Higher Institute of Music after auditioning in front of no-other than the late Solhi al-Wadi,...

In this episode of QuarterTones, Cheb Mimo joins us in our podcast studio in Beirut along with his cassette player, turntable, and rare records and tapes, to take us on a tour of North Africa's raï, funk, and disco. With each musical interlude, Cheb Mimo introduces both well-known, niche and sometimes forgotten musicians through the past decades. We get a feel for raï as a transgressive genre that evokes a sense of liberation and rebellion. Cheb Mimo shares insights about playing sets with...

We're stoked to finally be launching our live in-studio sessions in our podcast recording studio in Beirut as an extension to Quartertones. The first is with no other than our past guest Rayess Bek (aka Wael Kodeih), the Lebanese music composer, producer, and performer's behind projects such as Love & Revenge, Aks'ser, and Goodbye Schlöndorff. He plays three tracks from recent projects, explaining the background behind the archival cinematic clips that his music accompanies, how he...

What makes experimental music…experimental? And what does it take to cultivate a thriving musical scene in the context of the Arab world? In this episode of QuarterTones, Sharif Sehnaoui joins us in our studio in Beirut to talk about the genre in the Arab world, the cultural significance and economic value of music, why his work is in itself an act of resistance, and Lebanon's unique position where the music and creative scenes are considered.

This QuarterTones episode is exceptionally in French and is hosted by our Outline host, Sabine Boghossian. We chat with Khalil Hentati (EPI) a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and essential figure in North Africa's alternative, electronic and contemporary music scenes. He shares the stories behind the origins of his collaborations and dives into the musical traditions of North Africa — namely Aïta and Isawiyya – discussing the disappearance of these oral traditions. Khalil talks about the...

In this episode of QuarterTones, we're joined by the frontman of pioneering Jordanian rock band, JadaL. Mahmoud Radaideh tells us about how the band popularized the genre in the Arab world, reflecting on his journey as a musician, and the shifting moment when an artist realizes that their work no longer belongs to them solely – but to their audience even more so. With each musical interlude, we hear about the stories behind some of JadaL's best known tracks, learn more about Jordan's music...

Multi-instrumentalist musician and musicologist Ronnie Malley shares his immense knowledge of Arabic classical music, touring us through the fundamentals of the musical canon and the sounds, songs and rhythms that define it. He tells us about his early exposure to Arabic music in Chicago playing for his father's bands, through thousands of wedding performances, to building a career alongside some of the biggest names in Arabic music. We learn about the history of Arabic music from Al-Andalus,...

Fadi Tabbal is a hidden giant of Beirut's alternative music scene. He joins us in our studio in Beirut to talk about the music he's produced over the years, the independent musicians on the rise, and the work that his studio – Tunefork studios – is doing. He compares the music scenes in Beirut, Cairo and Dubai, and explains how there are no records or archives of the alternative music that came before the last decade. He takes us on a journey through the 70s to the 2000s and 2010s, talks...

From medic to musician, Amman to Palestine, and quitting Ritalin, The Synaptik is a multifaceted musician who has grown out of change and transition. In this QuarterTones episode filmed live in afikra's studio in Beirut, The Synaptik tells us about his adolescence in Jordan defined by frustration and Ritalin, which was prescribed to him at a young age. He shares how the drug impacted him and how his life changed as he weaned off it; what he learnt about himself through music; and why he chose...

Emmy-nominated composer Kareem Roustom joins us on Quartertones to discuss all things Arabic music. With musical interludes from across his albums, we talk about the origins of Arabic Classical Music, current and previous perceptions around it, and the pioneers of the genre including Sayed Darwish and Sabah Fakhri. We get to grips with what defines Arabic music, hear about what it's like to get an Emmy nomination, and whether it was fun to work with Shakira and Tina Turner.

Buzq player and musicologist Farah Kaddour, joins us in the afikra studio in Beirut to give us a tour of her music and her instrument. Alongside musical interludes and live performances, we talk about the specific sound and identity of the Buzq and Farah's individual performance style. She tells us about how she experiments with the sound she's able to create with the Buzq and how playing this traditional instrument is in itself a form of political resistance. Finally she tells us about her...

We sat down with Maysa Daw and Tamer Nafar from Palestinian Hip-Hop group DAM for a live recording of Quartertones at Sole DXB in December 2023. We play short clips of music from their albums and talk about representing their home city of Lydda through rap, working with Israeli musicians in “co-resistance” and writing music that goes beyond the occupation as Palestinian musicians.