Al-Kuwaiti Brothers Were Much Loved Across the Arab World

DUDU TASSA An Iraqi Revival The songs of the Jewish-Arabic band the Al-Kuwaiti Brothers were much loved across the Arab world. Robin Denselow speaks to Dudu Tassa, the grandson of Daoud Al-Kuwaiti, about reviving these songs Dudi Hasson Dudi 32 SONGLINES › ISSUE 144 WWW.SONGLINES.CO.UK 032_Dudu Tassa_SL144.indd 32 28/11/2018 11:08 DUDU TASSA udu Tassa is an Israeli rock star, songwriter, palaces,” and they even owned a radio station “because the composer and actor who has turned folk-rock King loved them and gave them the permission and money revivalist with an intriguing project. He has set to do this.” The cover of the first Dudu Tassa and the Kuwaitis out to rework and re-popularise the music of album shows Daoud and Saleh surrounded by the Baghdad Dhis grandfather Daoud Al-Kuwaiti, “an amazing singer,” and radio station band, complete with ney and qanun players. Daoud’s brother Saleh, a fiddle-player and prolific songwriter, The Al-Kuwaiti brothers’ songs were released in Baghdad who transformed the music scene in Iraq between the 1930s on cassette and vinyl, and their fame spread across the Arab and 50s, becoming massively popular across the Arab world, world. When the legendary Egyptian singer Oum Kalthoum before their careers suddenly collapsed. visited Baghdad in the 30s, she insisted on meeting them, and It’s a story that involves politics, history and some excellent in return Saleh wrote a song for her. At that time, it seemed music. Tassa may have set out to explore his family’s history, that no one cared that he and his brother were Jewish. They but in the process he has launched a band, the Kuwaitis, who were admired and loved as brilliant musicians who sang could well become a global success. They have already toured powerful new songs in Arabic. the US with Radiohead and are planning their first UK shows. But by the 1950s, the mood had changed. Growing anti- I meet Tassa in a Paris hotel, where he is joined by his co- Jewish hostility in Iraq intensified after the creation of Israel in producer and band member Nir Maimon, and manager Or 1948, and the Arab-Israeli war that followed. And as violence Davidson, who both step in to translate when he veers from against Iraqi Jews increased, the vast majority decided to leave English into Hebrew. They are in Europe promoting the band’s – including Daoud and Saleh, who joined the mass exodus of third album, El Hajar, the first to be released outside Israel on 1951, when Israel organised an airlift. Though according to CD and vinyl. Dudu Tassa Tassa “there’s a story that and the Kuwaitis (2011) and the king sent a messenger to Ala Shawati (2015) have so the plane, asking Saleh not far only had a worldwide to leave Baghdad.” digital release. Life in their new home Like those earlier of Israel was not as easy as sets, El Hajar consists of they had expected. They songs originally made had been wealthy, “owning famous by Daoud and clubs and jewellery,” in Saleh Al-Kuwaiti, but are Iraq, but were not allowed now beefed up by Tassa’s to take money with them. guitar, bass and banjo, Nir They expected to be treated Maimon’s bass, keyboards as celebrities, but instead and programming, and they found that few people the occasional addition of wanted to hear Arabic song, ney (flute), qanun or violin. which was regarded as “the The songs are, of course, language of the enemy all in Arabic, and Tassa is joined on “You can’t make a song – so they had a big problem with vocals by female singers, including their culture and music. They were the excellent Rehela. The best tracks, disappear but you embarrassed to speak in Arabic.” like the sturdy and melodic ‘Bint The brothers were still just in El Moshab’, remind me of the late, can make the writer’s their 40s, but their success was brilliant Rachid Taha, and the way name disappear” suddenly over. “They still played for that he updated popular Algerian other Iraqi Jews at weddings or bar songs on his two Diwân albums. mitzvahs, but only small events,” Another outstanding track, ‘Ahibbek’, includes samples of says Tassa. “But Saleh kept writing a lot of songs – many of original recordings featuring Daoud Al-Kuwaiti on vocals and them about immigration and how he missed Baghdad.” The Saleh Al-Kuwaiti on the kamancheh (spike fiddle). cover of the second Kuwaitis album shows the brothers looking So how did these two brothers achieve such extraordinary dejected after moving from Iraq. Once hailed as celebrities, success in Iraq? As Tassa explains, it’s a colourful story. Daoud they now survived by selling kitchen appliances in a market. and Saleh were from a Jewish Kuwaiti family and as teenagers, Israel’s national radio station did eventually acknowledge their back in the 1920s, they moved with their parents to Baghdad. importance and offered a weekly hour-long slot, “but on a One of their uncles had given Daoud an oud and Saleh a violin, Friday afternoon, when no one would hear it.” and they began playing together and writing new songs, with Back in Iraq meanwhile, their songs remained popular, such success that they became celebrities in the Iraqi capital. and continued to be played on the radio. But when Saddam Saleh was the composer and lyricist, and according to Tassa Hussein came to power in 1979 he banned all mention of the he “invented new maqams (the melodic modes used in Arabic composer and singer, as well as any acknowledgement that music) and according to an Iraqi TV programme we saw, he they were Jewish. “They had a lot of fans, and a lot of soldiers became the inventor of modern Iraqi music.” were listening to these two Jewish guys, but Saddam erased The songs brought the brothers fame and wealth in their names from all the music, so no one would know they Baghdad. Tassa says they “played in clubs, stadiums and were Jewish. You can’t make a song disappear, but you can WWW.SONGLINES.CO.UK ISSUE 144 › SONGLINES 33 032_Dudu Tassa_SL144.indd 33 28/11/2018 11:09 DUDU TASSA His co-producer Nir Maimon says: “I thought he had gone crazy. We made this project basically for ourselves, as an adventure. We had just fi nished an album that was a great success in Israel and he came up with these weird songs. He said he wanted to do something in Arabic and I said ‘do we need it?’. But that fi rst album sold more in Israel than all the albums in Hebrew – so we were in shock!” So why had this new fusion s le, now inevitably known as Iraq’n’roll, sold so well? Tassa thinks “it came at the right time. People were ready to put aside the whole thing with Arabic.” He put together the Kuwaitis band, which includes qanun, cello and violin, guitar and keyboards, and was delighted to fi nd their “concerts were sold out, with three generations coming – grandfathers, sons and grandsons. e new generation in Tel Aviv are more open-minded – they are open to music from all over. And we didn’t do this as a ‘roots’ project – we went to the cool venues to bring in the hipsters…” Tassa has continued his solo career as a rock star in Israel, but now always includes Kuwaitis songs in the Clockwise make the writer’s name disappear. People knew set. But when he tours abroad, it is with the Kuwaitis from top: the the songs, but not who wrote them. at was the band. eir international career kicked o with what Al-Kuwaiti brothers’ band; situation when they died.” he called a “terrible” appearance at the 2011 Babel Med Daoud and Saleh Daoud died in 1977, just a few months Festival in Marseille, but he has been happier with later Al-Kuwaiti before Tassa was born, while Saleh died shows, which included WOMEX 2016 in Spain. Why nine years later. at could have been not the UK? “Because the market looks very closed the end of the story, if his grandson had from the outside. But now we have PR in England and not decided to investigate and revive the a company that trusts us, so we will come soon.” music, and did so despite the fact that his eir biggest concerts to date have been with mum – Daoud’s daughter – had tried to Radiohead, whom they supported on their 2017 tour of stop him becoming a musician – precisely North America, and then in Tel Aviv. Tassa has known because of the family history. “She said no Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead’s guitarist, since they met one will become a singer in our family, in Israel 12 years ago, and Greenwood played guitar because music betrayed us.” to accompany a Hebrew ballad on one of Tassa’s solo Tassa wisely ignored her, and has albums. He was delighted by the tour, which included an enjoyed a lengthy career in Israel. He had appearance at the Coachella festival in California, and by his fi rst success at 13, when he was spotted by a record producer the way the Radiohead fans responded to the updated Jewish when playing in a neighbourhood communi band and invited Iraqi songs. “ e Radiohead crowd is very special and open- to sing on what would become a best-selling album. He went on minded – and they listened, for all the set.” to study jazz guitar, work as a session guitarist and write music e careers of Daoud and Saleh Al-Kuwaiti were, of course, for fi lms and TV.

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