Search This Blog

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Out of the Music Loop

Scott and I went to the bazaar today, braving the cold and the snow.  It was easy enough to have reception in our building call a cab to take us there, but getting back turned out to be another matter entirely.  Gone were the usual swarms of taxi drivers outside the bazaar entrance.  Maybe the demand just becomes too high in the winter.

We started trudging towards the nearest major road with all of our stuff.  Scott suggested we try to find a Korean restaurant we'd gone to previously.  We found it, and enjoyed a good dinner.  We still had to get back home, however.

It took us a while to get anyone to stop for us.  Finally, a car with two young guys stopped and agreed to take us home.  It was a longish ride with the combined factors of actual distance, traffic, and snow on the road.  It was a pleasant ride, though.  The young guy in the passenger seat had learned some English in school and chatted with us, and his friend was a good driver in the snow.

Aside from chatting, we had an opportunity to listen to some of the music these guys liked, played from one of their phones.  I thought one song was very interesting and unlike anything I'd heard before.  The title was "My Ummah".  The song was mostly in English, with some Arabic, and was about Islam.  In the Middle East, I used to hear plenty of Quranic recordings in taxi cabs, but no songs about Islam that I recall, and certainly no songs with English lyrics about Islam.  I was fascinated.

With the powers of Google, I found out that the artist in question is Sami Yusuf, that he has been producing albums since 2003, and that the song I heard is from 2005.  Apparently, I should listen to new music more often!  Has anyone else had the experience of thinking they had stumbled upon something new and interesting, only to find out that it is now several years old?

No comments:

Post a Comment