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Monday Mixtape: On the Aslan Media iPod

Music hardly exists in a vacuum. Like an interconnected web, each tune, each track released to the world both came from somewhere and leads to something else. At Aslan Media, we recognize that very few albums come to us without influence, and it’s those artists that walked the road before who helped shape the styles and expressions of the music artists we profile in this website today.

To show that music, in its purest form, is an expression that knows no physical, cultural, societal or economic boundaries, Aslan Media is beginning a new monthly series called Monday Mixtape, in which profiled artists on this site share with us the tracks that inspire and influence who and where they are as music artists. The genres covered by these playlists are limitless, as are the artists they include, which can include those from countries outside the Middle East that carry universal messages found in every region of the world.

Resistance Hit a Major Chord in New Album Azadi: Songs of Freedom

Middle East resistance is not a burgeoning new trend. Neither is the attempt to overthrow corrupt imperialistic and Islamist regimes. Michel Foucault once called the 1979 Iranian Revolution “the revolution of bare hands” in that it was one driven by civil resistance, reliant on protest rather than violence. What followed in the political history of Iran was something far different than the campaign that tried to usher in democratic reform.

Monday Mixtape: Rapper Mohammed “BigMo” Alkhadher

Music hardly exists in a vacuum. Like an interconnected web, each tune and each track released to the world came from somewhere and leads to somewhere else. At Aslan Media, we recognize that very few albums come to us without influence, and it is those artists that walked the road before who shape the styles and expressions of the musicians we profile.

To show that music is an expression that knows no physical, cultural, societal or economic boundaries, Aslan Media is beginning a new regular series called Monday Mixtape. Artists profiled on this site share with us the tracks that inspire and influence who and where they are as music artists. The genres covered by these playlists are limitless, as are the artists they include. Whether situated in the Middle East or beyond, they carry universal messages found in every region of the world.

Re-Enchanting the World: American Jazz Legend Archie Shepp Dazzles at the Fes Sacred Music Festival in Morocco

Fes: The Imperial City. Driving into the medina from centre ville, it’s easy to get the impression of travelling backwards in time to a magical era where easy living was customary and where cell phones, iPods and the electronic devices that dominate life today seemed like unnecessary advancements in technology. The smell of kefta, hashed, grilled meat, wafts through the air and Moroccan men sip tea, sitting quietly among the tourists that have descended on the kasbah from nearly every part of the world for the 18th Annual Fes Sacred Music Festival — a week-long concert series that brings together some of the world’s most talented musicians to promote musical and cultural harmony.

Jazz Mirrors Iran, Part VII: Jazz, the Samarkand Way

Music between Iran and the West has never been a one-way street. Even today, despite severe government crackdowns and censorship on anything that deviates from so-called “Islamic” ideals, the flow of tunes between these seemingly opposing worlds continues to thrive, in large part because of the Islamic Republic’s abandonment of its own citizens, exiles who are forced to start anew with faint hope that they will see their native land again. It’s a severed existence, to live in a country with artistic freedom, yet long for your home, despite its depraved conditions.

Jazz Mirrors Iran, Part VI: Paraded Beauty

Women in Iran: a hot topic, no matter how you look at it, from European feminists studying the country to Iranian men sipping cups of “smuggled” Starbucks coffee while cruising up Tehran’s Jam Avenue. Whatever helps to glamorize these young ladies on the streets comes to their service: heavy make-up, flamboyant haircuts which under the veil turns the head into a piece of early Cubist art, bold colors that remind one of Gauguin in Martinique, tight dresses that generously exhibit the female figure, high heels and leather boots that make the infamous Betty Page look like a modest housewife - cigarette smokers, driving behind the wheel of expensive sport cars in northern Tehran, listening to loud music - patrons of Tehran’s reputation as the nose job capital of the world, as if all Persian girls rival themselves with Nicole Kidman in how properly whittled noses should look.