Sonic Sundays | 47Soul

47Soul in 2018
Image | FolklorefestKR, Wikimedia

UK-based 47Soul is a musical collective that formed in Jordan, but its members hail from Jordan, the US, Israel, and the UK; and all four of them have Palestinian roots. The 47 in their name references the year 1947, the last time that all people in Palestine enjoyed freedom of movement between their cities. 1948 is the year of the Nakba (meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic), when the creation of Israel in Palestine resulted in the forced displacement of roughly 750,000 Palestinians. They and their descendants have been barred by Israel’s government from returning to their homes.

Musicians Tareq Abu Kwaik (Jordan), Ramzy Suleiman (US), Waala Sbait (Israel) and past member Hamza Arnaout (UK) got together and collaborated via the internet to create their music. Their pioneering style of sound is called shamstep, which is a mixture of dabke (celebration dance music of the Levant region) mixed with electronic elements and rap. The word shamstep references Bilad Al-Sham, the region of modern-day Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

The post-Nakba period is often referred to as the “Arab-Israeli conflict” or sometimes the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” but the band wants to draw attention to the thousands of years of multicultural history during which people in Palestine lived together in relative harmony, before the disruption from this recent colonialism and conflict. They make music that touches on topics of statelessness, restriction of movement, and being forced out of one’s home, be that the physical residence or the homeland as a whole. Tareq emphasizes that politics is simply “the season of the flavor in everything I write”— lived experience and collective history.

47Soul’s catchy hooks, bilingual lyrics, and energetic beats elicit the desire in listeners to dance and clap along. In the video for “Intro to Shamstep,” 47Soul introduces their music and their message. “Gamar” is a song about how things usually are not what they once seemed. “Border Ctrl.” draws connections between the US-Mexico border wall and border walls separating Israel from the West Bank and Gaza to discuss how division hurts everybody. It features guest artists Shadia Mansour (a British-Palestinian rapper who has been called “the first lady of Arabic hip-hop”) and Fedzilla (a London-based rapper who integrates Latin elements into her music). “Dabke System” is a tribute to the dabke dancers of the diaspora, and the music video includes lots of dancing. I recommend that you turn on subtitles for these videos (except the second, which is auto-generated).

“Intro to Shamstep”

”Gamar” (Satellite/Moon)

“Border Ctrl.” feat. Shadia Mansour and Fedzilla

”Dabke System”

Bonus: 47Soul performs for NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert