Mark LeVine 
We’ll Play till We Die 
Journeys across a Decade of Revolutionary Music in the Muslim World

In his iconic musical travelogue Heavy Metal Islam, Mark Le Vine first brought the views and experiences of a still-young generation to the world. In We’ll Play till We Die, he joins with this generation’s leading voices to write a definitive history of the era, closing with a cowritten epilogue that explores the meanings and futures of youth music from North Africa to Southeast Asia.

 

We’ll Play till We Die dives into the revolutionary music cultures of the Middle East and larger Muslim world before, during, and beyond the waves of resistance that shook the region from Morocco to Pakistan. This sequel to Mark Le Vine’s celebrated
Heavy Metal Islam shows how some of the world’s most extreme music not only helped inspire and define region-wide protests, but also exemplifies the beauty and diversity of youth cultures throughout the Muslim world.


Two years after
Heavy Metal Islam was published in 2008, uprisings and revolutions spread like wildfire. The young people organizing and protesting on the streets—in dozens of cities from Casablanca to Karachi—included the very musicians and fans Le Vine spotlighted in that book.
We’ll Play till We Die revisits the groundbreaking stories he originally explored, sharing what has happened to these musicians, their music, their politics, and their societies since then. The book covers a stunning array of developments, not just in metal and hip hop scenes, but with emo in Baghdad,
mahraganat in Egypt, techno in Beirut, and more. Le Vine also reveals how artists have used global platforms like You Tube and Sound Cloud to achieve unprecedented circulation of their music outside corporate or government control. The first collective ethnography and biography of the post-2010 generation,
We’ll Play till We Die explains and amplifies the radical possibilities of music as a revolutionary force for change.

विषयसूची

Contents


List of Illustrations

Author’s Note: Revolutionary Auras and Phantasms

Acknowledgments 

Note on Transliteration 


Introduction

From Uprisings to Plagues


1 • Morocco

Finding Harmonies in a Land of Dissidence


2 • Yalla, “Let’s Play!” 

Egypt from the Pharaoh to the General


3 • Palestine/Israel

Uprisings in Music


4 • Lebanon 

Remixed but Never Remastered


5 • Iran 

Living in the Upside Down and Inside Out


6 • Pakistan

Shredding the Funk from the Valleys to the Sea


By Way of an Epilogue 

The Joys of Resistance


References by Chapter

List of Contributors 

Index 

लेखक के बारे में

Mark Le Vine is a Guggenheim-winning musician who has recorded and toured with acclaimed performers, including Mick Jagger, Chuck D, Dr. John, Ozomatli, Hassan Hakmoun, Seun and Femi Kuti, and other leading Middle Eastern and African artists. His recording on Ozomatli's album Street Signs won a Grammy in 2005. He is also Professor of Middle Eastern and African Histories at the University of California, Irvine. His many books include Twilight of Empire, coedited with Viggo Mortensen. He is also author of Overthrowing Geography and coeditor of One Land, Two States.