Sonic Affinities: The Middle East in the American Popular Music Imaginary, 1955-2014 by Meghan Drury B.A. in Anthropology, May 2004, Scripps College M.A. in Ethnomusicology, June 2006, UC Riverside A dissertation submitted to The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 15, 2016 Melani McAlister Associate Professor of American Studies and International Affairs Gayle Wald Professor of English and American Studies The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Meghan Elizabeth Drury has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of March 7, 2016. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. Sonic Affinities: The Middle East in the American Popular Music Imaginary, 1955-2014 Meghan Drury Dissertation Research Committee: Melani McAlister, Associate Professor of American Studies and International Affairs, Dissertation Co-Director Gayle Wald, Professor of English and American Studies, Dissertation Co-Director Josh Kun, Professor of Communication and American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California, Committee Member Antonio López, Associate Professor of English, Committee Member ii © Copyright 2016 by Meghan Drury. All rights reserved iii This dissertation is dedicated to my mom, my Nana, and Auntie Pussy – intelligent, resourceful women and enduring role models. iv Acknowledgments This dissertation is the product of a decade-long graduate school journey, which began in the music department at UC Riverside. I owe a debt of gratitude to Deborah Wong, René T.A. Lysloff, Jonathan Ritter, Leonora Saavedra, Byron Adams, and Griff Rollefson for their support and encouragement of my work as a master’s student. I was also fortunate enough to take a class at UCLA with Ali Jihad Racy, who taught me about the intricacies of Arabic music with great warmth and patience. I am grateful to maestro Nabil Azzam and MESTO for providing a community and extended family for me in Los Angeles. This project was inspired in part by their mutual support. Nabil has been an enthusiastic teacher and mentor over the past ten years, and he single-handedly facilitated trips to Egypt, Oman, and Jordan. Special thanks to Mandy Fey Carota for being such a generous friend and opening her home to me in LA. At UC Riverside, I benefited from the camaraderie of Liz Macy, Marshall Howland, Genie Yoo, Colin Pearson, Donovan Jones, Jacky Avila, Ryan Randall, Sharon Tohline, Helen Lovejoy, Erika Montenegro, Mary Song, and most of all, Melissa Garcia. I owe a special thanks to Josh Kun for keeping his promise to someday serve on my dissertation committee, and for his relentless work ethic and Spotify playlists. The seeds of this project were kindled by two incredible artists and human beings, Omar Chakaki (aka Omar Offendum) and Yassin Alsalman (aka Narcy), and I want to thank them for their creative vitality and humor. At George Washington, I was lucky enough to be introduced to Gayle Wald through a seminar on Lorraine Hansberry, which she taught despite only having two students registered. Gayle and Melani McAlister have both been incredible role models as professors and advisors. They have showed me how to be firm yet genuine as a teacher v and to intellectually engage with the world at large. Their brilliantly interdisciplinary scholarship has been instrumental to my own work and their mentorship is invaluable. I am grateful to have received guidance from James A Miller before his death in June 2015. Jim’s warmth, quick wit, and inexhaustible spirit made a lasting impression. Kip Kosek, Phyllis Palmer, and Libby Anker were all generous and compelling instructors, and were a pleasure to TA for. I owe thanks to Dina Khoury in the history department and to Kavita Daiya in English for their instructive seminars. Additionally, the courses I took with Andrew Zimmerman were exciting and intellectually demanding, and I appreciate his ability to distill and interpret dense material. Also, sincere thanks to my generous committee member Antonio López and outside reader William Youmans. Many thanks to the wonderful community of scholars I met through the Journal of Popular Music Studies and the EMP Pop Conference, including but not limited to: Eric Weisbard, Ann Powers, Oliver Wang, Sarah Dougher, Jack Hamilton, Carl Wilson, Jody Rosen, Gustavus Stadler, Barry Shank, Ali Colleen Neff, David Suisman, Patty Ahn, Jason King, Jennifer Stoever, Regina N. Bradley, Kyra Gaunt, Emily Lordi, Alexandra Apolloni, Karen Tongson, Daphne Brooks, José Muñoz, Jack Halberstam, Karl Hagstrom Miller, Scott Poulson-Bryant, Charles Hughes, Elliott Powell, Aimee Meredith Cox, Jessica Feldman, Paula Mejia, Zandria Robinson, Devon Maloney, Mike D’Errico, Roshy Kheshti, K.T. Ewing, Christine Bacareza Balance, Shanté Paradigm Smalls, Miles Grier, Kevin Fellezs, Ken Wissoker, and especially Charles McGovern, who has been a steady source of encouragement and wisdom throughout this process. Also thanks to Alex Corey, Brian T. Edwards, Eric Lott, and the other scholars I was lucky enough to meet at vi the Dartmouth Futures Institute, and to the radiant Naazneen Diwan, Arabic teacher and scholar extraordinaire. To my friends and colleagues in American Studies and English, I couldn’t have done this without you. Elizabeth Pittman, Eid Mohamed, Amber Wiley, Matt Kohlstedt, Clara Lewis, Joan Fragazy Troyano, David Kieran, Laura Cook Kenna, Kevin Strait, Charity Fox, Emily Dufton, Thomas Dolan, Chelsey Faloona, Katie Kein, Sam Yates, Carol Lautier-Woodley, Kim Pendleton, Mara Caelin, Pat Nugent, Maia Gil’Adi, and Scott Larsen were all great sources of sanity, friendship, and laughter. Ramzi Fawaz and Michael Horka pushed me to be a better person and scholar, and made life much more fun in the process. Dora Danylevich was there for every fraught step of the revisions and the job market, and I owe her for keeping me grounded and motivated with many emojis. To my meat cohort, particularly hot dog Bess Matassa and kielbasa Katie Schank, thanks for being yourselves and keeping it real. My trusty writing group members Katie Schank and Shannon Davies Mancus provided ceaseless moral support and read infinite drafts, and I honestly could not have finished this project without our Google hangouts. I want to recognize Asuka Madenokoji, Jawziya Zaman, and Chita Middleton for their loyal friendship over the past fifteen years, and awesome Scrippsies Andrea Gutierrez, Emi Saito, Amy Tsurumi, Tenly Chira, Katja Hildebrandt, Emily Jaksa, Lydia Paar, and Stefani Crabtree. Thank you, Adam Chefitz, for helping me learn how to listen. Twitter friends were a lifeline at various points in this process and I want to acknowledge the lovely people I met there, especially Liana Silva, Lili Loofbourow, and Aaron Bady. The virtual company of others vii in Phinished.org’s Mojoville and the IRL support of Portland VPhD members were other unexpected gifts at the end of the process. My family has provided vital support. I owe thanks to my dad for talking through ideas, to my sister for all of her love and encouragement over the years, and to my mom, who saw me through the many ups and downs of the PhD process and showed unconditional support. I couldn’t have done it without her or without Emma, my sweet canine sister who lived long enough to see me finish the first draft. At 102, my Great Auntie Pussy never ceases to astonish me with her intelligence and wit. I want to thank the extended Drury family: my Uncles Noel and Mark for bestowing their music learnin’ on me, Aunt Patty, Aunt Helen, and Aunt Donna, and my awesome Drury cousins – Jason, Amy, Aaron, Dorothy, Tom, Joe, Colin, and Eileen, and Michael, Danielle, and Sophie. Finally, I owe thanks to Ian, who had faith in me from the very beginning of this project, and to Christopher, who taught me to trust myself above all. Lastly, to Joshua Colwell, who not only kept me going with invigorating discussions, Empire breaks, and a steady stream of 1990s rap lyrics, but also pushed me to question my assumptions and think about life in new ways. His love and partnership made the finishing process more bearable and helped breathe new life into my intellectual and creative interests. viii Abstract of Dissertation Sonic Affinities: The Middle East in the American Popular Music Imaginary, 1955-2014 This dissertation considers the possibility of a transnational mode of listening based on musical relationships between the U.S. and the Middle East. Through a set of four case studies, the project argues that music has been a key site of cultural encounter between the U.S. and Arab culture. The first chapter undertakes a study of postwar exotica music, arguing for a nuanced understanding of music involving early Arab American performers. The second chapter investigates the iconic jazz musician Sun Ra’s sonic engagement with ancient Egypt, arguing that Ra’s music embodies an Afro-Orientalist aesthetic. The third chapter analyzes the role of world music from the Middle East and the politics of affiliation in the 1990s, and the final chapter performs a study of Arab American hip hop as a counter-Orientalist form. This research contributes to a better understanding of the complexities of U.S.-Middle East relationships by suggesting that the categories of “Arab” and “American” are linked via a flexible sonic imaginary that incorporates the two cultures. Secondly, it highlights