22 Feb Fatima Al Qadiri on the Risks of Making Queer Arabic Dance Music
Midway through our recent Skype chat, Fatima Al Qadiri tells me that she doesn’t want to get too deep into the themes behind her new five-track EP, Shaneera. With its raunchy, call-and-response Arabic refrains set to serpentine melodies and cavernous drums traversing the Mideast and the West, the Hyperdub-released record might be Al Qadiri’s most club-friendly music in years. But as with rest of the Kuwait-raised, Berlin-based producer’s work, grasping the cultural context greatly enriches the listening experience.
The problem with this record, she says, is that it’s impossible to explain queer culture of the Gulf to Western audiences without tripping up over the fact that nuances will be lost in translation. “I want to explain this record the least to straight people—it’s none of their business,” she says. “I don’t want to speak on behalf of the queer Gulf. I don’t think it’s fair for one person to assume that role.”
The inevitable loss of meaning across foreign borders is a theme that Al Qadiri often comes back to. Her fascinating 2014 debut LP Asiatisch was, in her words, “about an imagined China created through a Western filter—how rap and grime producers took Sino themes, attached power to them, and re-interpreted them in their music.” Shaneera’s title also hints at the circular nature of these exchanges, coming from Arabic slang that one of Al Qadiri’s friends couldn’t wrap his tongue around and later adopted in its mispronounced form by her queer friends back in Kuwait. The term refers to a gender-defying evil queen—a persona that Al Qadiri thinks of as her nefarious alter ego and inhabits, nearly unrecognizable in drag-like makeup, on the EP’s cover.
Despite her reservations, Al Qadiri translates some of Shaneera’s lyrics and explains why they’re going to piss some people off.
Pitchfork: What does the EP’s title mean, and what does it signify to you?
Fatima Al-Qadiri: Shanee’a is an Arabic word, and like a lot of Arabic words, there are layers of meaning: outrageous, nefarious, hideous, major, foul. A few years ago, we were teaching GCC’s gallerist, Stephan Sastrawidjaja, how to say “shanee’a,” and he kept saying “shaneera.” The meaning is still the same, but it’s a mispronunciation. We fell in love with it and started using it.
What drew you to this term as the album’s dominant theme? Is shaneera similar to what “queen” means in gay slang here?
Not really—this is specifically an evil queen. I’m fascinated by evil queens. They’re very alluring and repellent at the same time, and I’m into that dichotomy. I also wanted to explore the fact that it’s a persona—a temporary state or action—and not a person.
When does your shaneera alter ego come out?
She comes out when she’s tested [laughs]. I keep her under wraps; she’s definitely not a public persona. But if you really troll through my Twitter feed, you’ll see little vestiges of my shaneera behavior.
At first I thought it was a drag queen on the album cover—but it’s you! It’s interesting how a hyper feminine look can be indistinguishable from drag, which is often a subversion of femininity. Was it your intent to explore this ambiguity?
I’ve been exploring gender performativity in the Gulf since I was a teenager. I’m not a gender anthropologist, but I feel like there’s an extreme binary between femininity and masculinity in the Gulf. From a young age, I knew I didn’t want to be part of it. Gender is a huge gray area, and the problem with defined roles is that they cover up undefined ones.
The cover is inspired by stale pop diva imagery in the Arab world. If you’ve ever seen album covers for Arab female pop stars, it looks like the designer was paid five dollars to make them, and the extreme femme-ness is astounding. I’m almost certain I’ll never be on the cover of any of my records again, but I thought it was appropriate because it highlights that anyone can be a shaneera. Your cat can be a shaneera. With this EP, I wanted to highlight the questions: what is drag? What is femininity? Who is an evil queen? The answer is: everybody.
How might gender performativity be different in the Gulf than in the West?
There are lot of words for male roles and, like, two for female roles [in Arabic]. These words don’t exist in English, so there’s already a big semantic gap, and a lot is lost in translation. [On the other hand], “queer” is still an English word, and there isn’t an Arabic equivalent, in a non-binary sense.
Speaking of language, Arabic vocals play a prominent role on this EP. Did you use any samples?
No. The lyrics were taken from drag and comedy sketches, but we re-recorded them. For example, “Is2aleeha” is from an iconic YouTube skit by the most famous drag queen in the Arab world, Bassem Feghali, who assumes the role of this very famous Egyptian TV show host. My friends are obsessed with the sketch, but the [sound] quality was terrible, so [my collaborator] Bobo Secret re-recorded the lyrics. It turned out better because Bobo Secret has such an incredible voice.
You also used Grindr chats as material.
The majority of the lyrics in “Alkahaf”—which means “The Cave”—as well in the title track are taken from Grindr chats. For instance, the only English lyric on the record is “masc only,” a routine requirement in queer hook-up culture that means “masculine only.”
Lama3an, one of the vocalists, says “masc only” and Bobo Secret says back, “Why, girlfriend?” She’s expressing a frustration with the masculine body as a hegemonic type of queer body.
The vocals sound really big and dramatic, especially with the echo effect. It seemed like you wanted to make sure people could understand them.
I definitely wanted them to be understood. Let’s just say all the words are very risqué—it’s high evil queen drama. The crux of this record is that I made it for, and with, my friends in Kuwait. I’m excited for Arab speakers to hear it, and of course, I’m happy for everyone else to vibe off it the way you’d listen to something like kuduro [a distinct style of Angolan dance music, typically sung in Portuguese]—you don’t understand the lyrics but you’re still down. I don’t want to make statements that would pander to a Western perspective because there’s a lot lost in translation.
The press release calls the melodies “Arabesque”—what does that mean, exactly?
There’s a big difference between the Arabic and Western scales. One uses quarter tone system and one doesn’t. So in order for me to compose real Arabic scale melodies, I would need an Arabic keyboard, and I don’t have one. So I had to compose Arabesque melodies.
What atmosphere were you trying to conjure?
I wanted to create a clubby, fun atmosphere. It’s a light-hearted record, but it’s also a fuck you, which is in the spirit of the shaneera evil queen. I used a combination of Gulf and Western drum kits. Mixing was actually the most painful part, because Gulf drums have very big resonances—they swallow up the whole mix. It was a nightmare to find sound engineers who know how to mix them.
Did you have any criteria when figuring out which vocalists to collaborate with?
Oh my god, I thought this record was never going to be made. It’s really risqué to say things like “whore house.” In English, nobody gives a shit. But saying it in Arabic is taboo. Basically, I landed in Kuwait last November, was invited to a party the same day, and met all the collaborators there. All but one person [involved with the record] took pseudonyms, so I can only say so much about them.
After finding the vocalists, the huge question was: where could I record? Studios in Kuwait are super bro-ed out places, and nothing is worse than going to this bro atmosphere and recording really queeny lyrics. But at this party, I also met [multimedia artist] Zahed Sultan, who was friends with practically all the vocalists, and had a recording studio in his apartment. That made it so chill because the recording was done in a safe space where they could be at ease.
That must have been one hell of a party.
There were, like, 30 people at the party, and five of them were instrumental to this record. Had those circumstances not occurred, this record would not have been made. It would have been too difficult. I made this record for fun, but it’s going to offend some straight square people, who are the majority in the Arab world.