One of the reasons we started Residents’ Hour is to highlight scenes our cameras haven’t quite managed to reach yet. This instalment is a prime example. Anna Loulou in Tel Aviv is a refreshingly forward thinking venue, not only providing space and a platform for more leftfield forms of art, but also striving to bridge the cultural divide in the city. Their resident DJ Khen Elmaleh aims to do the same with her selections, gliding through a wide range of Middle Eastern music and beyond, from Cheb Khaled to Kendrick Lamar. Dive into Khen’s mix and find out more below.
Founded in 2010 and located in an old Ottoman cave at what was once the old city of Palestinian Jaffa, Anna Loulou is a bar, mini-club, laboratory and home for a binational crowd of Palestinians and Jews who believe music can be a medium for radical social change.
Viewed by scholars as a utopian pocket of ‘artivists’ ridiculing the mainstream Israeli orientalist gaze on Jaffa, Anna Loulou strives to represent and give stage to current underground local urban scenes through experimental music, fringe theatre and modern dance.
“Instead of blurring differences, Anna Loulou and Khen Elmaleh
emphasise contradictions in a very complex country, and maybe this is where they connect so well, and put the conflicts to work.”
We like to imagine Anna Loulou as a ‘third space’, or a liminal place; an enclave that is literally open to everything, and where new social forms, and especially new and renewed musical combinations that could not evolve and popularise on the ‘outside’, emerge.
As a resident women DJ and activist Khen Elmaleh symbolises a new hybrid DJ, embodying local contradicting dualities and illuminating the Arabic component in her Mizrachi identity, while giving new and contemporary perspectives to Middle Eastern musical selections on the dance floor.
“Her nights at Anna Loulou consist of a crazy mix of Jaffa locals, tourists and hipsters dancing Yemenite step while confusing it with Dabkeh, or belly dancing while not knowing its a nationalistic song about loss and sorrow, but some how she makes it all work.
“Instead of blurring differences, Anna Loulou and Khen Elmaleh
– Niv Gal (Anna Loulou)
“Tel Aviv might fool you and mislead you into thinking it’s a multi-cultural and diverse city, when in fact it is quite homogeneous. The night life is no different. For me, as a DJ who mixes identity conflict in music, Anna Loulou has been a great home for the last couple of years with a crowd that would be difficult to find elsewhere.
“For an outsider, this recorded set might sound legitimate, but only folks who grew up and live here can get the almost impossible mix between lovers and haters, friends and enemies coming straight out of this crazy neighbourhood called the Middle East. We love it though :)”
– Khen Elmaleh
Tracklist
Cheb Mamiv – Maandi
Cheb Khaled – Chab Rassi
Cheb Khaled – Al Arbi
Amr Diab – Omal Eih
Eli Luzon – Nearat HaHalomot
Moshe Giat – Siro (ATAR Take)
Fnaire – Zwaq (feat. Abidate RMA)
Nancy Ajram – Oul Tani Eyh
Haim Moshe – Ahavat Haiai (Arabic Version)
Asala Yousef – Dabke we Dabike
Zehava Ben – Ya 7abibi
Laroz – Have Some Fun (feat. Suhell Nafar) [Ori Shochat & DJ Alarm Remix]
Tzililey HaOud vs. Funk Sinatra – Oud Pop
113 – Ton Du Bled (Guido Acid Arab Edit)
Kami Phenomene – Mahboul
Shadia Mansour – Lyrical Alliance (feat. Tamer Nafar, Rayess Bek, Samm & MBS)
Kader Japonai – Nog3og Wahdi Je Me’n Fou
Etty Ankri – Ashabo
Simon – Mabsouta
47SOUL – Intro To Shamstep
Saad Lamjarred – L’M3allem
Kendrick Lamar – King kunta
Reuma Abbas – Waana Fda Leumi (Apfelberg & Matushka Edit)
Peer Tasi – HaShalom Rd. (Libra Music remix)
Azania Al – Ali- Natalie Kan Wadi
Photos and artwork: © Anat Martkovich & Ben Palhov, 2015
The next instalment of Residents’ Hour comes from a small night with a global outlook in Scotland and will be the last of 2015.