Sonic Indigenousness

Contrary to al-Ghayti’s polemical claim that the Danna phenomenon is a case of foreign penetration and corruption, I want to argue that we should view Danna’s Arabic songs as an intervention within the local culture. For it is her very indigenousness—operating on a number of levels—that accounts for much of her appeal in Egypt. This is already manifest in the tone of Danna’s singing. Although the grain of the voice is clearly provocative, the seductiveness is not “foreign” but is recognizable on local terms, recalling as it does the prototypical coy, alluring, and usually blond starlet of the Egyptian movie screen. What is simultaneously shocking and appealing is that this coquettish and “forward” female tone of voice is asserted somewhat more publicly and openly by Danna than it is in the cinema. The “dirty” lyrics of Danna’s songs are not foreign to contemporary Egyptian pop either; salaciousness, in fact, is one of the chief charges that cultural mandarins level against Egypt’s so-called vulgar pop singers. At least in Arabic, Danna’s lyrics suggest nothing more audacious than those of ‘Adawiya’s famous and extremely successful number, “Bint al-Sultan,” or Sahar Hamdi’s “Illi shartit ‘aynuh bitghannin,” or other songs by other “unrefined” singers who are massively popular with lower- and middle-class Egyptian youths.^[42] Indeed, the “sexiness” of Danna’s lyrics, I suggest, works mainly by implication: along with the crucial role played by the tone of voice, Danna’s pronunciation and her use of multilingual combinations and nonsensical expressions render her meaning vague and open to multiple readings. In this regard “Susu ya Susu” recalls “Louie, Louie,” the famous Kingsmen hit of 1963, which all adolescents at the time “knew” was a dirty song, even though, or perhaps because, its lyrics were virtually indecipherable. “Louie, Louie” too caused a “moral panic” in the United States.^[43]

Although elements in the lyrics hint at Danna’s transgendered status—“Susu ya Susu” vacillates between busi [kiss, feminine form] and inta [you, masculine]—as far as I can determine Susu’s possibly “effeminate” character is not a significant issue for fans, or at least not one that is openly voiced. As in much of the Middle East, discussions of homosexuality are quite circumscribed in Egypt, but as a practice it is hardly rare.^[44] Nor is it entirely absent from the public arena, as evidenced, for example, by Yusri Nasrallah’s wacky 1994 film, Mercedes, which, directly inspired by the cinematic campiness of Pedro Almodovar, deals frankly and sympathetically (although not centrally) with homosexual characters.^[45] Sex-change operations are not unthinkable in Egypt either. In fact, at the time there was an ongoing controversy regarding a man named Sayyid ‘Abdallah who had a sex-change operation in 1988 and applied as Sali (Sally) for admission to al-Azhar Islamic University. In November 1995 the Shaykh al-Azhar, Jad al-Haqq (the country’s leading religious authority), finally issued a fatwa (religious edict) stating that sex-change operations were permissible,^[46] thereby regularizing the status of transgendered individuals in Egypt (Rizq 1995b; Middle East Times, December 31, 1995).^[47] The sad footnote to the “Sally” case, however, was that after her sex-change operation was ruled permissible, she was denied admission to the women’s section of al-Azhar for having performed as a belly dancer. Just as with Danna, it was Sally’s overt sexuality that was more offensive to the powers that be than her transgendered status. Thus, for Danna’s Egyptian fans in any case, “Susu ya Susu” was principally a heterosexual “sex song” whose “transgressive” scenario is that of a cosmopolitan, Western or Westernized Arab woman who is traveling, feels sexy, has “a golden hair” (the quintessential sign of feminine beauty in Egypt), and makes advances toward Susu in a mixture of Western languages and impeccable Arabic. Although the singer’s forwardness was rather shocking in the local context, it was appreciated by Egyptian youths, and this response no doubt in part reflected changing gender relations and the increasing role of women in Egyptian public life.

In terms of their musical style, Danna’s Arabic numbers combine Western and Eastern rhythms, modes, and textures in a manner that is hardly “foreign” to Egypt, as many of the country’s most interesting pop musicians engage in similarly innovative, syncretic, and hybridizing experiments and in the indigenization of foreign pop styles (see Armbrust 1996, 173–84). Two examples, chosen somewhat at random, of similar attempts to articulate an alternative vision of cultural modernity are the 1995 cassette, Rab musik li-al-shabab faqat (Rap Music—For Young People Only), produced by Ashra ‘Abduh (Al-Sharq Records), and Muhammad Munir’s 1995 hit “al-Layla di” (Tonight), from his cassette Mumkin?! (Is It Possible?!, Digitec Records). Rap Music—For Young People Only garnered negative reviews from the mandarins, who saw it as another example of “vulgar” pop, but as usual young people ignored the literati’s admonitions, and the tape was a hit all over Egypt in 1995, particularly in working-class neighborhoods. The songs on the cassette are not really rap music at all but instead a shameless and delightful blending of Egyptian pop vocalizations and melodies with well-known recent U.S. and U.K. house and dance beats and samples. The melody of one tune, “Sikkat al-salama” (The Road of Peace), for instance, is from the 1971 song, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,” later used in a well-known Coca-Cola advertisement. Muhammad Munir is an Egyptian pop singer with a “respectable” reputation, whose music videos and concerts are routinely broadcast on television, and whose lyrics are often penned by well-known national poets. Munir has been syncretizing Western and Eastern music for years and has recorded with the German rock bands Embryo and Logic Animal. His hit, “al-Layla di,” fetures funk beats, electronic keyboards and electric guitars, “Oriental” rhythms from a drum machine and a tabla, and an Oriental flute. The song’s instrumental “hook” is played in a Western scale, while Munir sings the vocals in an Oriental mode. Because Munir has a reputation as a serious artist and because this song’s lyrics are penned by one of Egypt’s premier “folk” poets, ‘Abd al-Rahman al-‘Abnudi, this sort of musical syncretism is considered acceptable by the cultural establishment. Such hybridizing of Eastern and Western musics, which works through the “indigenization” of Western pop styles, is entirely typical of much popular music, whether it is considered “respectable” or “vulgar,” heard throughout the Arab world. Stylistically, therefore, Danna’s music is far from foreign but rather, like much contemporary Egyptian pop, falls into the category of what mainstream nationalist intellectuals label “vulgar” (habit) or “cheap” music. It combines lower-class or “popular” Egyptian and Arab musical traditions with Western pop motifs, without concern for neoclassicist conventions of synthesizing the “best” in high and low culture (see Armbrust 1996, 181–82). Indeed, some of Danna’s tunes function in such an acoustically indigenous manner that they have even been employed in an advertisement for an Egyptian shampoo called Luna 2!^[48]

Just as issues of homosexuality do not seem to be a significant factor in the reception of Danna by Egyptian youths, the same can be said about another striking characteristic of her work and her cultural identity—her Arab-Jewishness. Danna is by no means the first and only Israeli Mizrahi artist to enjoy underground success in Egypt. An album recorded in 1984 by Ofra Haza entitled Yemenite Songs—later released in the United States to critical acclaim under the title 50 Gates of Wisdom (Shanachie Records, 1987)—circulated widely in Egypt on contraband cassette in the late 1980s. Ofra Haza first established her reputation in Israel singing mainstream pop, and it was only after she was thoroughly confirmed as a respectable artist there that it was safe for her to return to her Mizrahi roots and record this set of traditional Arab-Jewish Yemeni music. Because the Ofra Haza cassette was understood in Egypt as “folk” music rather than “cheap” or “vulgar,” and because it had no sexual overtones,^[49] its underground circulation in Egypt did not provoke the controversies that Danna’s cassette has ignited. The point is that Danna’s music issues from a wider and extremely rich phenomenon of Mizrahi pop music in Israel that is Levantine and Middle Eastern (and as such is marginalized in Israel) and is therefore comprehensible and “local” to Arab audiences in the Eastern Arab world.^[50] Mizrahi pop music, for instance, is heavily consumed and appreciated by Palestinian youths in the West Bank and Gaza, a phenomenon little appreciated or noted by observers of Palestinian culture. Moreover, Zehava Ben, an Israeli Jewish singer of Moroccan origin who sings the (canonical) repertoire of Umm Kulthum to the backing of a Palestinian Arab orchestra from Haifa, has played several concerts in the Palestine National Authority (Nablus, Bethlehem, and Jericho) and is massively popular among Palestinians (Tsur 1998; Agassi 1997). Ben’s success among Palestinians suggests the existence of a lively but underground “Levantine” expressive culture that can be shared by Arabs and (Oriental) Jews. Moreover, Egyptian pop music has a tremendous influence on Mizrahi pop music, and the fact that Mizrahi singers like Danna International do “versions” of Egyptian pop songs should be interpreted not as Israeli “theft” of Egyptian music but as a kind of tribute to the tremendous importance and influence of Egypt’s popular music on the “Levantine” music scene in Israel (see Regev 1995). Such a phenomenon of shared culture is incomprehensible if one thinks of the region as starkly divided into the polarities Arab (East) and Jew (West).

It is only when one has grasped the elements of Danna’s sonic indigenousness that one can understand that what makes her cultural interventions in Egypt so effective is that she works within musical and cultural trends that are familiar to Egyptian youths. She pushes at the edges from inside a vibrant and innovating tradition, and this makes her music lively and exciting for many Egyptian young people. This is also precisely what makes her seem so dangerous to many nationalist intellectuals, much more threatening, in fact, than Madonna or Michael Jackson, as she is able to communicate with Egyptian youths in Arabic. Danna’s liminality, the fact that she is at once Arab and Jew, is precisely what makes her dialogue with Egyptian youths possible and is also what is so offensive to mainstream nationalists of all stripes, whose ideology presupposes an essential difference between Arab and Jew. A nationalism that conceives of Egyptian society as homogeneous, unitary, and self-identical has no room for a border figure like Danna.