BUT LISTEN ANYWAY

Princess Music at 6919 5th Ave in Bay Ridge (Bay Ridge: R stop) is the best Arab music shop in Brooklyn. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not good. It simply happens to be the best, because the competition is even worse. Princess has some headless black Sambo/Aunt Jemima style ceramic figurines too, although they’re not for sale – they’re decoration.

Good thing Beur.Fm has internet streaming!

beurfm

(Beur = verlan for ‘arabe’ ; verlan = we’ll eat this language from our side out)

Beur Fm is a powerful nationwide FM station in France with a satellite broadcast so family back the in the bled can listen in. They have 5 internet streams: the main station, 100% Maroc, 100% Rai, 100% Kabyle, 100% Orientale, and a new one called Ramadan.

Song and artist (metadata) info on all channels except 100% Maroc… That said, I can tell you that the song right now is by Jil Jilala… with Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri on guembri. I recognized his stride immediately… so clear. This moment arrives bookmarked by music I can neither recognize nor remember // beauty dovetails drift, also the way smoke works, hope rolled up and burning. to know little. to listen.

3 thoughts on “BUT LISTEN ANYWAY”

  1. Let’s not forget that you can verlaniser a word already in verlan. So beur, which has become rather mainstream — something like BeurFM is a good indication — has a new mutation: rebeu. Maybe there’s a maghrebi pirate station somewhere in France broadcasting as Rebeu FM . . . on peut rêver.

  2. good choice sr Rupture !!! check out especially these programs on Beur FM “café des artistes” (about north-african rooted scene news) and “arabesque lounge” (arab electro mix) both runned by my friend Mourad Achour (I used to be the producer of these shows – been working there 2 years)
    And check our new web_radio : http://www.groovalizacion.com with worldwide urban soundzzzz
    Big Up !!!!
    DJ iZem

  3. as per the above i did not know it was possible to ‘rev erlaniser’ a word which was already in verlan. this kind of linguistic recursion breaks my brain. where does it end?

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