{"id":24555,"date":"2023-01-23T10:21:56","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T08:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=24555"},"modified":"2023-01-26T22:49:10","modified_gmt":"2023-01-26T20:49:10","slug":"berlin-based-palestinian-returns-to-arabic-in-new-amrat-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/berlin-based-palestinian-returns-to-arabic-in-new-amrat-album\/","title":{"rendered":"Berlin-Based Palestinian Returns to Arabic in new Amrat<\/em> Album"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Rasha Nahas has rocked the English-speaking world with a successful first EP and a first LP. She\u2019s back with an album of songs written in her native Arabic.<\/p>\n

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Melissa Chemam<\/h4>\n

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The singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rasha Nahas is already a well-known rock artist, and an intercontinental performer. Her label describes her sound as \u201cmoving seamlessly between the resonances of early rock \u2019n\u2019 roll and the reckless echoes of free jazz.\u201d Her distinctive approach to songwriting, storytelling and performance has been praised on three continents. She moved from Haifa to Berlin in 2018, after recording a few songs in England in 2016, then a first album, Desert<\/em>, released in 2021. She is now back in January \u201923 with her new album, Amrat <\/em>(\u201c<\/em>Sometimes\u201d), in which she explores themes of home, belonging, doubt, freedom and her relationship with her mother tongue, Arabic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have two realities, in a way,\u201d Nahas says. \u201cOne on the road, playing and traveling constantly, moving and being with people and performing, being very active.\u00a0 And the other one here in Berlin, trying to slow down. It\u2019s a very different rhythm.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Amrat<\/em>, the new album from Rasha Nahas (photo Sama Haddad, graphic design, Haitham Haddad\/ MNJNK STUDIO).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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She loves Berlin<\/a>, a place where she has found her own space to be creative, as have more and more Arab artists in the German capital. She works on her music in her studio, but also as a composer for film and theater productions, in English, including writing a range of pieces for Berlin\u2019s performing arts scene and Hamburg\u2019s Thalia Theater. The day we speak, she just had her first German lesson. \u201cI can now sing a song in German!\u201d she rejoices. [See TMR\u2019s BERLIN<\/a> issue. ED.]<\/p>\n

Born and raised in Haifa, a city in Israel with a thriving Palestinian cultural scene, the multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter started her relationship with music at the early age of 10, as a classical guitarist. [Haifa has a large Palestinian minority, but it is a Jewish-majority city. The most populous Palestinian city within the Green Line is Nazareth. \u2014ED] In her teens, she began writing and playing her own songs, carving out a place for herself on Haifa\u2019s underground scene. In 2016, at only 21, Nahas released her first EP, Am I<\/em>, produced between Haifa and Bristol, UK.<\/p>\n

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