Ahmed Ben Ali – Subhana

2023, Habibi Funk

Habibi Funk has to be one of the coolest boutique record labels out there. Their shtick is to pick up and release obscure tapes from the Middle East and North Africa, and just about everything they put out is excellent. Through them, people like you and I can discover that reggae has been popular in Libya for decades, and some of the local productions are bloody good.

You might think “wow what the hell does 2000s Libyan reggae even sound like?” but when you hear it you’ll be like “oh yeah i guess it would sound like that wouldn’t it” – all the trappings of 21st century reggae production (semi digital style, playing with the HPF on the skanks, snare rolls with lots of reverb, etc.) but in the Arabic language (mostly) and with Arab pop sensibilities and autotune mixed in.

Yarait showcases everything described above. This whole record is arguably in the dancehall style, and Ben Ali sings Arab music in the Arab way on top of that, but also deejays in patois on this tune (“lawd, mi mek di dancehall block up, and mi grab di microphone an tan up” gives you whiplash if you’re not ready for it). Zigi zig it up, zigi zig it up. Then on Ya Ghalian Alakheera we get more patois deejaying, and on La Ta’tather we get English singing (very sweet tune by the way), and the rest is all Arabic. Subhana, being the title track, is obviously a big tune, and it doubles down on Arab musical traditions by using maqam Bayati, which is essentially an Arab musical scale. The fun thing about this is that it has a microtone (specifically, a half-flat 2nd), and microtones start to sound very spicy if you treat them equally to other notes when using harmony in a Western manner, but here the issue is sidestepped by just not having any chords which contain this note. Thankfully reggae music tends to be very simple harmonically and this is not too hard to pull off. The result is a cool dancehall style tune with a VERY OBVIOUSLY Arab melodic motif mixed in seamlessly.

But while Subhana is the title track, YouTube view counts show that Dameek Majeb is the real hit (rightfully so) from this record, with 18 million views on one upload with awful sound quality. Dameek Majeb is the least identifiably ‘reggae’ tune on this record, though it does have tresillo drums and skanks. Translated lyrics tell me this is a breakup song but it comes through musically as a serious pinger or banger. The highlight is the post-chorus horns which blare out maqam Kurd in some very clashing and twisted harmony. A minor 2nd (i.e. one semitone between the notes) is blasted into your bones at full volume and that is probably the most exciting couple seconds on this album for me.

Anyway, good alb, and apologies for the excess music theory wank in this post. Before you go, make sure to check out the liner notes from Habibi Funk on the album’s Bandcamp page. And see also these two other Libyan releases from them.

My picks: Yarait, Subhana, Dameek Majeb, La Ta’tather
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