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Gaga Gospel: Lady Gaga Embraces Christian Imagery

Driven by technology, today’s post-MTV music world seemingly revolves around the need for instant gratification. This culture of quick searches, clicks, and downloads causes many artists to abandon songs of content for the banal club anthems that colonize our iPods. As a result, the pop genre appears to have lost a certain philosophical vigor that once made it playful but serious, hip yet smart. You know, the stuff that the Beatles and Pink Floyd would sing about —the stuff that caused a deeper self to wonder what it all means. Yeah, that “stuff.” Religion.

But right when it appeared endangered, religion in pop music has experienced a revival spearheaded by Lady Gaga, a glamorous icon whose mainstream appeal lends negotiating power to radio hits that simultaneously confront meaningful issues in today’s society: individuality, insecurity, and, at times, clubbing.

Unexpected as it may be, the 25 year-old diva, whose bold fashion statements and singles have pretty much defined the last three years of pop music, uses her latest album, Born This Way, to explore themes ranging from Judas’s betrayal of Christ, to a black Jesus, to incarnation. As expected, the album created a a stir among conservative groups who not only feel threatened by Gaga’s use of gyrating Euro dance beats but are also at odds with the artist’s vocal advocacy on LGBT issues. The controversy behind her music brings about an important question: who gets to use religious imagery in pop culture?

To focus solely on this question, however, is to misinterpret Born This Way. Despite every inclination to assume otherwise, the album’s appropriation of Christian images is not directed towards the criticism of religion; instead, religion is celebrated as a cultural middle ground, one with stories rich and shared in our society, from which common issues like self-esteem and regret can be examined under a different light. In other words, Gaga uses biblical imagery to conjure a symbolic vocabulary that dives into everyday life much like a boss that uses sports metaphors to motivate his unproductive employees.

In Pakistan, Coke Studio Hits a High Note

Music can achieve for a nation that which no nuclear weapons or an abundance of natural resources can. It can give a sense of ownership and pride to its people and be a cultural representative across borders. This is certainly the casein Pakistan, where amidst chaos and political instability, Coke Studio manages to give Pakistanis something to proudly call their own.

Coke Studio started as an international franchise in Brazil, but it didn’t have the same infectious appeal among Brazilians that the Pakistani version has had since its inception in June 2008. Now in its fourth season, Coke Studios has been giving a platform to musicians in Pakistan from all genres and regions to come together for jam sessions and to create rich musical collaborations. The show has reinvigorated some of the best Pakistani folk songs, which lost their appeal over the years in favor of mainstream music. It has introduced the youth to the lost treasures of their country, while also building an international fan base for itself.

Many artists in previous seasons have also performed renditions of non-Pakistani songs. An emerging pop singer, Amanat Ali, sang an Urdu version of the popular French song Aïcha, originally performed by Algerian artist Khaled. Female duo Zeb and Haniya also performed various soulful Afghan folk songs and a cover of Turkish song Nazaar Eyle by Barış Manço.

Close-Up: Azad Right Opens for Tinie Tempah

The last time we met Azad Right, a young Iranian-American Hip Hop artist from LA, he had just released his debut album “A Piece of Mine” and was tirelessly working to spread his stylistic words and upbeat tempos to the music community at-large. After months of promotion and years of fine-tuning his craft, Azad Right’s ambitions came to fruition last Wednesday night when he delivered his first major performance, opening for international Hip Hop star, Tinie Tempah, at Hollywood’s well-known Key Club.

The concert marked a significant achievement for the up-and-coming musician, whose lyrical talent and on-stage swagger introduced audience members to Hip Hop rooted in authenticity, reflection, and determination.

After the concert, Azad Right chatted with Aslan Media to share his thoughts on the performance, his recent success, and what the future holds for the rising artist.

Magical (Musical) Carpet Ride

As summer quickly approaches, many of us will inevitably reminisce about years gone by. The end of school brought about warm evenings huddled with friends beneath a blanket of stars, singing folk tunes like “Cumbaya” or even Disney classics like “Hakuna Matata”. At some point in between the campfire smores and gossip about the latest high school “crush,” childhood delivered one of life’s most poignant messages: the similarities we share are stronger than the differences that separate us.

The recent musical performance, “A Carpet Concert with Rowan Storm and Friends”, hosted by LA’s Levantine Cultural Center on May 24, served as an opportunity to catch up on those important lessons, sans the smores and the high school hearthrob. The event craftily employed traditional music from Greece to Iran, Armenia to Arabia, highlighting the musical links that connect global citizens, in this time when we are constantly reminded of our differences. This praiseworthy ambition was achieved rather simply by the physical set-up of the concert.

In order to gather everyone together, Storm and her friends Naser Musa, Souren Baronian, and Jim Grippo requested that audience members sit on woven Middle Eastern carpets, a symbol for the intricate patterns that bind strand to strand, you to me. Thus creating a space so sacred that the concert-goers removed their shoes before entering, the musician carried on to provide music that felt righteous, a near religious experience that transcended time and place.

More About the Music: Rhythms of the Ancient Daf

Back in high school orchestra there was a rumor that the most ancient instrument was a percussion instrument, beating out Mick Jagger’s vocal chords by a few years. This was the daf, an instrument much like our old friend the tonbak, composed of a circular or rectangular frame covered by animal skin.

Played by the gentle thrumming of fingers, the daf has been used for a wide array of occasions ranging from religious services to Uncle Ali Reza’s dinner parties. To appreciate the full essence of the instrument, we ought to look at its illustrious history in the Middle East.

Famed for its role as the mood-setter in Solomon and Belgheis’ first night together (remember Al Green wasn’t born yet), the daf colored the sounds of many landmark moments ranging: from ushering in Nourouz (the Persian New Year) in ancient Iran, to Israelites playing it in front of the Golden Calf as Moses was busy on Mount Sinai, to welcoming the prophet Mohammed to Medina in 662 AD. It was first popularized outside the region by Moorish settlers in Europe, but, like the Macarena, the daf's popularity quickly declined. After the fifteenth century, when Spanish rulers sought to rid El Reino of its Arabic cultural influence, the daf disappeared from Europe. There’s good news though: the hardcore daff-iciando Ottoman Turks revitalized the instrument two centuries later with the introduction of the military marching band, sounding in conquest like no other.

A Turkish Kind of Rock: Spotlight on Grunge Band Duman

If you’re like me, when you think of Turkish music, you imagine Orhan Gencebay’s colorful folk tunes and foreign instruments like the baglama and tanbur. If not that, then the lively Gypsy jazz of Mustafa Kandirali may be more familiar.

Neither, you say? Alright, but let’s agree that one of the least likeliest forms of Turkish music is Grunge Rock—that iconic sound of teenage stagnation in the 90s epitomized by the after school ritual of watching Total Request Live and munching on the FDA nightmare diet of Bugles and Corn Nuts.

However, thanks to a generation of pioneers in the 1960s and 70s, the band Duman has been able to expand the genre of Anatolian Rock at home and abroad for the past decade. The verb “expand” doesn’t quite capture the trio’s impact, as their success has been as influential for many Turks as reading an article introducing Serge Gainsbourg would be to francophones. Useless, right? But for the unprivileged majority of audiophiles who have yet to experience Duman’s signature use of modern rifts and spooky vocals, their body of work serves as a worthy introduction to an emerging global sound.