Yasmine Hamdan / My first gig @ Salon iKSV

As some of you might know I am a big fan of Arabic languaged music. So it is a big world with many genres. Yasmine’s old band Soap Kills was one of these underground Lebanese bands of its time. They were making trip hop! I happened to listen to them for the first time in April/2009. I remember I was trying to find the lyrics of my favourite song of them: Aranis everywhere on internet then was lucky to have an Egyptian friend to translate it for me. In my opinion, they were a band that could erase many people’s prejudices against Arabic language and music. In Turkey people only understand belly-dancing when you say that you are fond of Arabic music. At the gig, before singing her song Beirut, she said that there was a love-hate relationship between her and the city. Just like Istanbul and us I guess..