After joy was introduced to the Iraqi heritage song, in which about half a century ago he caused a revolution by inoculating it with Western machines, Iraqi musician Ilham Al-Madfai today seeks hope in the stage of the Corona pandemic through a new song he recently released.
This rebellious seventieth musician is known to have transformed the Iraqi song, which is often overwhelmed by the tinge of sadness, to become more joyful, and made young people dance to its tunes;
He says in his new song that he released two days ago, written by the young Jordanian poet Omar Sari, and the Iraqi singer Nadine Al-Khalidi shared with him: "After absence, you must return. Your dream is a cloud, your sadness is a mirage, an oud with tenderness, your voice is ringing, let the sad people forget reproach."
Al-Madfai said - from his home in the Jordanian capital Amman, where he was quarantined for a year due to the Corona virus - "We must continue to sing in all circumstances in order to send a message of hope to the world. Music is the language of peoples, crossing all borders and reaching the far corners of the world."
And this singer, musician, writer and composer continues, "If the epidemic continues for a longer period, I will open my window one day and sing from it to the people, just as Europeans used to sing from their balconies and then clap for themselves, because life must go on," despite the pandemic that has caused the deaths of more than 2.6 million people around the world.
After he was forced to cancel concerts scheduled for 2020 in Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, Al-Madfaie appeared last May to his fans with a party without an audience from the Roman amphitheater in central Amman.
Al-Madfai, who spends his spare time drawing, writing poetry and singing, says, "We live in unnatural circumstances. It was a difficult year, during which we lost contact with the world."
Al Madfai: We must continue singing in all circumstances in order to send a message of hope to the world (French)
Let's open the box
Al-Madfai, who learned to play the guitar at the age of 12, recounts that he grew up "in a house that loved music, in which everyone used to sing, men, women and children."
"At that time, in the 1950s, art was flourishing in Iraq; in Baghdad alone there were 85 Iraqi female singers."
In the sixties, he formed the inspiration for "The Twisters", one of the first music groups of Western songs in Iraq, and when his family sent him to London to study architecture like his brothers, his love and fondness for Western songs, especially the songs of the British "Beatles", increased.
When Al-Madfa'i returned to Baghdad in 1967, he decided to form a new band called "13 and Text", in which he used the electric guitar, drums, bass and piano to revive many of the songs of the Iraqi heritage with a joyful western distribution, which caused a shock to the advocates of classical Arabic music who demanded that it be stopped at Alone.
But he continued and presented the most beautiful heritage songs, including "Jaljal Ali Al Zaman", "Mali Ashghal in Al Souk", "Fouq Al Nakhl", "Zari Al Bazrankoush" and "Khattar", whose album has achieved the most sales in the Middle East for 3 consecutive years, and won the title The album is from the British company "EMI" (EMI).
"People were accustomed to oriental musical instruments and oriental clothes," he says. "As for me, I changed all of this, and invented a new style. I was defending the modern song that we can display everywhere in the world."
He adds, "There were very beautiful, old Iraqi songs, but they are unknown, so I asked: Why is this treasure placed in a sealed box? Let us open this box."
He explains that he also shortened the long songs, and chose which instrument to start with, "in a way that helps the song stay in the listener's ears in a way that is joyful."
He continues, "All I did was renew the old Iraqi song in order to survive and resist time, just as we repair an old building in order to survive and resist the effects of time."
Al-Madfai: If the epidemic continues for a longer period, I will open my window one day and sing about it for the people (French)
Dreaming of singing in Al-Zahawi cafe
All the while, Al Madfai had been drawing the attention of a whole new generation of fans to masterpieces of Arabic music during the glory years of the 1970s, when life was safe and stable in Iraq.
At the beginning of his debut in the sixties, the oriental musical instrument had no role in his band, which included two guitars, bass and percussion, but in the seventies he added the zither, then the flute, the nut and the rhythms, and in this way he married Western and Eastern instruments.
Al-Madfai’s longing for his country, Iraq, which he left twice: the first in 1979, and the second in 1994, to settle in Jordan;
"It is true that I live in Jordan, but I remained that Iraqi who longs for his country and all his memories."
And he considers that "it is not easy for a person to live far from his country. The main connection of the artist is in his country, the source of dirt and art, but we all left our country for some reason."
Although he sang in the most famous halls of the world as "Royal Albert Hall" and "Queen Elizabeth Hall" in London, "Trianon" theater in Paris, and opera houses in many countries of the world;
Al-Madfai dreamed of singing one day in the "Zahawi Café", the oldest café in Baghdad, which was founded in 1917, and is located at the beginning of Al-Mutanabi Street (central Baghdad), and used to sing in it the most prominent Iraqi maqam singers such as Muhammad Al-Qubanji and Youssef Omar.
He says that the people who come to this street, which does not exceed 200 meters in length, including writers, intellectuals, musicians and artists of all sects and religions, "are breathing the culture that we have been looking for all our lives."