Sijal Nasralla

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Transcript

Sijal: This is what like inspired us to make music, inspired us, not Palestine in particular, but like pain, you know, and I use it broadly. Pain is somewhat of a path to beauty and we are creating together, we are feeling together, we are evoking this spirit together, expressing and being vulnerable with each other and sharing in that sensation and then using that to sustain us, resource us in our movements and move us forward. And I think that’s just a beautiful thing.

And the more I sit with that, the more I like and playing more DUNNUMS songs and more DUNNUMS shows. I’m like, dang, like I forget sometimes, how much expression in punk or experimental music or as like an improviser really just comes from a lot of pain.

And a beautiful realization within that is like, it’s not just these acts of expression that are works of art that we’re trying to manifest, but it’s actually our lives, our works of art. And I’m feeling very comforted by that thought, ’cause it is hard to accept. I think it is really hard to accept how much suffering there is.

That is something that, whether it comes when I experience it in a song and I experienced that spirit at a show, I feel like in the same way that I mentioned with the Ziad Rahbani song, it’s connected to a web of people who I would never choose not to be an oppressed person on this planet, given if this is the life we have and this is the resource that we have to carry ourselves through it, I do not need to be Elon Musk to live a better life. I am part of a global majority of oppressed people who are doing their best to build a better future in every way we know how.

Ryan: My guest on today’s episode is Sijal Nasralla of the band DUNUMS. Sijal also plays drums in The Muslims, a band out of Durham, North Carolina that embodies a true “I’m going to do me and fuck the haters” punk rock spirit.

While equally thought-provoking, DUNUMS is a few steps away from the blistering, pointed punk rock of The Muslims, as it ventures into experimental art pop, post-rock, and jazz territories.

I feel like it’s important context for this episode to note that we recorded this conversation on December 11th, 2023 – just over two months after the events of October 7th. Since October, Israel has murdered over 40,000 people, approximately half of which are children, with thousands more reported missing under rubble and occupation forces continuing their onslaught with some of the most advanced weapons technology in the world, paid for by American tax dollars. The Palestinian struggle for freedom has been going on for far longer than the past year. If you’re just learning about it, or are looking to learn more, I’ll include a list of recommended reading, viewing, and listening materials that I would encourage you to dive into at the end of this episode and in the show notes.

While the past year has brought death and destruction. The enigma of life has also brought forth beauty. Since we recorded this episode, Sijal announced a new DUNUMS record, titled I wasn’t that thought. It is set for release on October 4th of this year and is available for pre-order. There are currently three singles now streaming and I’ll include one for you to listen to here after our conversation. You can find a link to pre-order the record, as well as links to previous DUNUMS releases and Palestinian aid compilations like in order to hear the birds the warplanes must be silent, which features a mix of music and poetry by artists from or with ties to North Carolina.

But Ryan, why you talking about Palestine on a music conversation podcast? Great question. And it’s an easy one. Music is one of the purest forms of human expression, transcending language and imaginary borders; our humanity distilled. The illegal occupying settler colonial state of Israel is in direct opposition to our humanity. That’s fucking why. No one is free until everyone is free. Free Palestine and let’s make a mixtape.

[Intro theme music by Scotty Sandwich]

Ryan: Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Let’s Make a Mixtape. Please tell me what song you picked that reminds you of home and why.

Sijal: Thanks for having me. I picked, Ana Moush Kafer from Ziad Rahbani. Oh gosh, so many reasons. I think like, “what feels like home in this song?” Oh gosh, I don’t know where to start.

Well, let’s just say this my mother tongue is Arabic. I don’t always get to speak it. And in my home, in my family I do, but sometimes even like- it’s just kind of something that can feel kind of elusive in my mouth.

Especially right now, when we’re recording this at a time in which we’re like 65 plus days into the worst sustained act of violence I’ve ever witnessed in my life against my people in Palestine, I’m craving things that kind of give me this sense of power and sturdiness. And like, almost casually, not forceful. It’s just it’s so deserved, kind of power.

And so this song is by Ziad Rahbani and the way he sings and is right up in my register and the way that he delivers these simple but really powerful lyrics are so salty, are so uncontested about who he is in his spirit and what is right and what is wrong. And I love that about this song.

I’m sure we’ll talk more about the specifics, but I love singing this song in karaoke and no one understands what I’m saying. I think it’s just fun and I enjoy him and his raunchy, salty, communist bad boy attitude. I like him a lot.

Ryan: I did a little bit of preliminary reading up. It seems like he comes from Arab music legend- two parents that were stars in their own right, which was really cool.

Sijal: If there’s anything that’s even more homey, more of kind of like- I think my parents generation, it’s Ziad Rahbani’s mom. Who’s like, yeah, Fairouz, which is literally the soundtrack to- her music is the soundtrack to like my cooking any meal in the kitchen or car rides. Her music was- we listened to in the morning. It’s like people called it, kind of like her music in medicinal in the mornings and she is just such a superstar. So, yeah, she’s very like close to close to home.

Ryan: So you grew up with her and then did you find Ziad later or was she playing Ziad as well?

Sijal: My family never listened to him, which was interesting. Yeah, they never really listened to him and I found him later through mutual friends and being like a diaspora kid growing up here, it’s kind of like my relationship to my culture or even language and all these kinds of things is like in a time capsule. I kind of get it through my parents’ generations; digestion, metabolization of the culture. And then only when I like go and start making my own friends or go and start building my own community in those places or among other folks, then do I get to encounter new slang or, bits and see the way things are growing and changing.

So the other happened, he came in through one of those waves and I was like, “Oh my God, this guy’s awesome. This guy’s incredible.” Yeah. I love his music.

Ryan: With home, tying it back to how do you define home, first of all? The abstract term of it, again being, a diaspora kid as you said.

Sijal: Yeah, you know, there was a time that I felt when I was like trying to figure this stuff out. I think it was more contentious and I was younger. I’m in my mid thirties now, so I’m kind of like “home is where I go to go to sleep.” But when I was younger, I would follow academics and be like, “wow, I’m a foreigner here. And I’m also a foreigner when I’m back in Palestine or in Jordan.” My family lives between Palestine and Jordan, between the part of the West Bank, close to Jerusalem, Al-Quds, and then Amman, Jordan.

So my sense of place was always- I don’t know if I’m like where I belong, but I think now I’ve just really absorbed this identity and have just like totally accepted this is the cool aspect. This is a cool- this is like a really great identity.

And being of diaspora, I’m really connected to North Carolina as a place. I’ve lived in six cities in this state and grew up here.

Ryan: You grew up in Charlotte, right? Playing legendary Milestone.

Sijal: Shout out to Bo White, who’s a scene legend there who used to sell me records at the record store when I was in high school and then book all ages shows with Milestone.

So that’s like, in the early 2000s Emo scene is really just as much home to me as being in the countryside and like outside of Amman hanging out with my family and checking in on our family’s olive trees or eating food or going to the arcade with my cousins.

I kind of like love being in this in-between position. My English is stronger than my Arabic. My Arabic is like cool and good and weird and has its own shape. I’m like, “this is cool.” And it’s honestly kind of like the extension of the project DUNUMS that I started.

Dunam means, land, like a unit of land in Arabic. A plural of a Dunum does not have an S on the end but for the purpose of my band, I’m like DUNUMS. It’s okay we’re mixing a little bit. And it was really just about that grappling and playing with that kind of like identity.

And yeah, it feels really fulfilling to embrace.

Ryan: I first listened to DUNUMS because I found it through your work with The Muslims which, I see all those records framed up there, absolutely love all of them dearly. But I was really captivated by your work with Dunums and then got to see your set at Hopscotch at Transfer Food Hall set.

First of all, seeing two of the folks from Midtown Dickens on the stage again, together was fantastic. Brought back home- home for me is the Durham music scene in about 2008, 2010. So that’s like- when I think of home, that’s the vibe that I get there. So that was kind of a cool, like nostalgia hit getting up there and seeing that.

And then your set was amazing, but very different from the recordings that you have. If unless it felt different, it seemed like you were, going in a different direction. Is that correct? Or am I completely off base?

Sijal: Well, first of all, thank you. Yeah, that’s really cool. And I’m glad to know like- I was sort of situating you as well. And I remember actually. I remember seeing you before a Muslims show at one point, I think shortly after we had gotten signed to Epitaph, which was such a weird, weird thing. I think we saw you on the street and you were like, “congratulations guys.”

I have a lot of different DUNUMS material. For many years, that was the show that- you saw was the first show of that kind of iteration of that full large big band. I think a lot of people were like, “Oh, this is giving Arcade Fire/Broken Social Scene.” ‘Cause there’s so many people on stage.

That said, it was like kind of a balance between some of these songs that I wrote in 2016, which is that middle record on my wall. I recorded with a friend of mine Alston Palmer, and it’s a split with his band Casual Planes and he played drums and these songs were really in response to- we tracked in 2016, but we kind of worked on it for years after, really in response to the Great March of Return protests that were happening in Gaza.

And I was also listening to that time I was listening to a lot of Ornette Coleman, Prime Time, this one song by Max Roach, “Triptych.” And then I was also listening to Matana Roberts a lot. The way that like repetition kind of kept coming up in that album. And yeah, wanting to play melodies over and over and over again and drive as hard as possible was really exciting for me.

Particularly because there was an essay that Ornette wrote where he talked about I think was “Dancing in Your Head” and he talked about how melody itself can be a unit of culture and meaning-making, and if he can create melody and sear it into our bodies, into our heads, then we could be basically forecasting a future where the mailperson is walking down the street whistling a tune, but the tune is atonal. We get to then change what is normal or conceivable or fathomable about what exists in our culture, if we can drive melody and infuse it and like push melody.

And I was like, “What do I want to change about the world? What melody can I like cram into a song and then churn it at 100 miles per hour with the best punk drummer that I know?” And that was that album, but it’s very different than what I’m writing right now which is, I have about 10 songs that I wrote when my kid was born in 2020.

So they’re kind of weird love songs for her. And so there’s an interplay between the two happening in that set. But we have now gotten enough material practiced that we can either do a sweet set or a pretty fucking heavy set. So I’m excited about that. We just kind of decide on the fly. Do you want to do a sweet set or a heavy set?

Ryan: Previously, it’s been that collaborative project, but this is the first time that you’ve got like a real- you’re performing a lot now. I think I’ve seen like a handful of shows pop up in the last couple of months.

Sijal: I started DUNUMS in like- the first record was recorded in 2010-ish or 11, but I was playing songs when I was finishing up school in Asheville, like 2009. And one of those songs in particular, one of the songs we play now, it’s like an arrangement of this song called “Binti” that was on my first record, which I wrote for the kids in Gaza back in 2008. And that’s been a whole heartbreaking, moving experience to revisit material that comes from grief from 15 years ago. So that’s been an interesting experience.

But yeah, now what I’m doing is: we have a band, we are learning material, we’re playing mostly these days fundraiser shows, but we are playing and then we’re going to release our new album and then play one show a month is our plan.

[Transition music by Scotty Sandwich]

Ryan: I looked up, I don’t know how accurate the Genius.com lyric translation is of it but, damn, that shit’s fire.

Sijal: I’m not sure. Did they say, did they translate Kafer as ‘atheist’ or ‘heathen’ in the genius?

Ryan: They translated it to ‘heathen’.

Sijal: Okay cool that’s the good translation.

Ryan: That’s, a good translation? Do you want to talk a little bit about the lyrics and the political bend what it’s saying in the context of when it was written?

Sijal: Actually, I don’t even know when it was written. I just know it was written during the civil war.

I think the release date is way different than that. I’m not an expert on the song or Arabic music or anything like that, but I will say from my relationship to this song, when I heard it, I was so impacted the first time I heard it, I was like, “I love this.”

The song is “Ana Moush Kafer” which means “I am not a heathen” in this particular translation and the context that makes it powerful is, and you don’t need a lot of context, it’s an age old story, the ruling class and their relationships to the colonizers were basically trying to divide people and breed sectarian violence so they could maintain power. And they used religion as a cudgel to divide people and to dehumanize each other.

The Lebanese civil war is a whole podcast series on its own. It had a lot of players in it, but in this one example I love how something so complex becomes so simple. What I know, and I feel connected to in this moment, I think one reason why I can’t even be online that much right now is discourse stresses me out.

It stresses me out because I’m just like, what are we talking about with apartheid and genocide? What are we actually saying? Why do we have all these opinions? Why are we catering to any other emotion? Why are we like appealing different audiences? Why are we debating whether “from the river to the sea” is a slogan that we can use. It’s absolutely baffling to me.

And a song like gets to take such great complexity and turns it into something so simple and so human and so right is just something that I just crave right now.

So the lyrics itself that keep getting repeated through the song are:

I am not a heathen. Hunger is heathen. I am not a heathen. Sickness is heathen. I am not a heathen. Poverty is heathen. Humiliation is heathen.

And I just, I’m like yeah, yeah of course. The ways that our ideologies get weaponized and distort our truths and all these things. At the end of the day what is actually the thing that we need to be up against? We’re actually united against these and we all need to be made against these things that affect us all. And I just find so much solidarity, ease, knowing in the way that the lyrics will deliver, there’s such a casual, it’s obvious, that I really enjoy.

And I think what I really love about the song too, which I can’t not say is that it’s simple enough for me to flourish with it vocally, but also he sings in the same range as me. So I can really enjoy singing it in the car or karaoke or with friends and things like that. So it feels really powerful.

There’s one particular line in the song I love where, towards the end, is the kind of emotion he kind of pulls back a little bit. The band pulls back, the vocal intensity pulls back and then for one verse and then he kind of repeats the verse, but it’s like an augmented version of it. And he says, “I’m not a heathen. The country is a heathen”

I’m just like, yeah, it is, yeah, it is.

I’m in a good mood talking about it, but I will say that I’ve been utterly miserable for some time now. And this song has completely- every time I listen to it just gives me like a boost of connectedness to what I believe is true with all my heart, that the majority of people in the world know what’s right and what’s wrong. And I love the way that the delivery and character of the song, it invokes that in my spirit.

Ryan: That’s beautiful. And then that I think segues perfectly into the idea of how music helps us as, as people, as we encounter times of, of difficulty and need that unity and, you know, music in times of turmoil.

It’s hard to say, you know, some fantastic music comes out of that. And it’s unfortunate that terrible things have to happen for that kind of music to come out, but it’s beautiful that it does. And that it can unite people for the better in that sense. So, I don’t know if you have any thoughts on music and how- it seems like it helps you on a personal level too, which is amazing.

I think that’s why music, it’s a universal language. You can go into any country and a melody can convey an idea or solidarity. It’s a beautiful, beautiful fucking thing. I don’t know if you have anything you wanted to elaborate on that or your experience with music relationship wise.

Sijal: I have so much to say about that. During this time, I really care a lot about what artists are doing. I really care a lot and here’s some people I want to like, go ahead-

Ryan: I literally, before this call, fucking surprised. I saw the first time I think this motherfucker ever got anything right.

I saw Eric Clapton playing a guitar with a Palestinian flag. Like that racist ranting motherfucker. Broken clocks and all.

Sijal: Well, you know, Dave motherfucking Matthews has a better take on Palestine than most people out, and you know what I mean? Like things are weird in that way, but you know, it’s so weird, but I really care about it. You know? I really care about it.

Who said something like Brian Chippendale from Lightning Bolt said something today and I was like “dope!” Mickey Blanco has been going off in support. These things really matter. And then I have always watched, as a fan of hardcore music, I’ve always watched like Hate5Six videos. And Sonny from Hate5Six, I saw him at the March for Palestine in DC, the large one, the really big one.

And I was like, thank you. You know, thank you. Like, I really just, this means a lot. And he was just like, I will burn down my entire page and career for this. Like there’s nothing more important and this is also like what got me into this music in the first place. And then, you know, shout out to like Vacant Company in Raleigh and Jason who, and a bunch of volunteers, helped put on a fundraiser show for Palestinian Youth Movement a couple of weeks ago.

Everyone’s talking about this. It’s like a lot of folks, not everyone, not everyone who’s like singing about, you know, they’re Ex is necessarily concerned or has the same analysis, but like a lot of folks right now we’re talking an do this.

This is what like inspired us to make music, inspired us, not Palestine in particular, but like pain, you know, and I use it broadly. Pain is somewhat of a path to beauty and we are creating together, we are feeling together, we are evoking this spirit together, expressing and being vulnerable with each other and sharing in that sensation and then using that to sustain us, resource us in our movements and move us forward. And I think that’s just a beautiful thing.

And the more I sit with that, the more I like and playing more DUNNUMS songs and more DUNNUMS shows. I’m like, dang, like I forget sometimes, how much expression in punk or experimental music or as like an improviser really just comes from a lot of pain.

And a beautiful realization within that is like, it’s not just these acts of expression that are works of art that we’re trying to manifest, but it’s actually our lives, our works of art. And I’m feeling very comforted by that thought, ’cause it is hard to accept. I think it is really hard to accept how much suffering there is.

That is something that, whether it comes when I experience it in a song and I experienced that spirit at a show, I feel like in the same way that I mentioned with the Ziad Rahbani song, it’s connected to a web of people who I would never choose not to be an oppressed person on this planet, given if this is the life we have and this is the resource that we have to carry ourselves through it, I do not need to be Elon Musk to live a better life. I am part of a global majority of oppressed people who are doing their best to build a better future in every way we know how.

Ryan: That’s beautiful. I love it. And I, and I love that music, music can do that. I mean, it’s, it’s music is the best. Frank Zappa said it. . .

Sijal: Yeah. Yeah, right. .

Ryan: Which I think in one of the other interviews I read you mentioned Baby Snakes. I didn’t know if that was a Frank Zapper reference or-

Sijal: Yeah, me and Abu Shea, did I talk about baby snakes? Yeah. We play around with Baby Snakes sometimes. It’s fun to make fun of the song. Yeah, I do like Zappa’s music. I don’t know how good of a person he was.

Ryan: Yeah. It’s weird. It’s kind of a flip of a coin.

Sijal: Okay, great.

Ryan: Yeah, he was kind of, yeah, there, there’s a lot of stuff that was problematic about him. There was also a lot of stuff that he was pretty progressive for who he was. Like, I mean, he, he always had. Like a very diverse band for his career, but he was definitely an apologetic capitalist. He hated Reagan and televangelists like no other.

Ryan: Inserting a post-production note here, I actually was able to track down a quote from Zappa about Palestine from an interview he did with Spin Magazine back in 1991. Frank said, quote:

You could never say anything bad about Israel or people would say you’re anti-Semitic. If you happen to say that Israel behaves like Nazi Germany toward the Palestinians, which happens to look like quite a fact when you see a videotape of what’s actually going on, people go “Oh, you’re anti-Semitic.”

Now, I should note that quote was in the middle of a response to a question asking Frank about criticism of sexism in his music. Just another instance of him saying something incredibly progressive and ahead of his time, buried in something backwards at the same time. Anyways, back to the chat.

Sijal: We’ll do another episode on which artists we, we don’t allow ourselves- I mean, I used to be a big Smiths fan until I found out Morrissey was a Nazi. So that’s still unfortunate.

Ryan: It’s always such a weird thing, having to separate the art from the artist until what is like, do you wait till they’re dead?

Do you, in some cases, it’s just things have happened that I either find out about or that they do. And just, it just ruins the music for me. I don’t even have to, to think about it. I have no desire to go and listen to that music anymore just because it, it ruined it for me.

Sijal: Yeah totally.

Ryan: I loved Nick Cave for a while. And then he did the shit with-

Sijal: Yeah, exactly.

Ryan: And Radiohead. Oh, I liked Radiohead for a while. I have no desire to listen to Radiohead or Nick Cave. Like, You fucking assholes.

Sijal: Oh my God. I was such a Bad Seeds fan. Oh my God.

I used to listen to the Mercy Seat on repeat and just like so into that like goth Birthday Party stuff. And he flipped. He used to be all down. He’s be all down with like the cause solidarity with everyone. And then he flipped, he flipped entirely.

Ryan: Fucking dick.

Sijal: I know. Yeah. People. Yeah. He was, I don’t know. Yeah. He sucks. Nick Cave, Radiohead. Oh God. Sucks.

Sijal: I feel like it’s important. I feel like it’s really important. What, who’s on my mind, you know? I’m kind of waiting for Big Thief to say something. They were going to play a show in Israel. And their fans were like, do not. And they did not. And they turned a coin. They were like, actually, we support BDS and all these things.

But since this happened, we ain’t getting not a peep. All we get is more promo photos from them. So kind of curious about that. But I just think they don’t- I mean, it’s hard. You know, I think it’s, what is true? It’s just like, yeah, there’s no, it’s, it’s too dissonant.

I think for me and I think for many people, it’s like too dissonant to be interacting with art that dehumanizes people, you know what I mean? Like period. Yeah. Period.

Ryan: Cause you have to, at a certain point there’s when- I love the beauty of music and how music can have those connections, those moments of solidarity, those moments of channeling pain into something that’s powerful.

And then you have shit where music turns into propaganda, where you have Israeli singers singing about bombing bombing Gaza and reminiscent of like fucking Hitler youth and like that fucking shit. And that breaks my fucking heart to see music used as a weapon against fucking humanity.

And that just- fuck- that it wrecks me.

Sijal: Yeah. Totally. Well, good thing we have so much of our art, you know,

Ryan: Exactly. Keep it, hold it precious and,

Sijal: And it’s better. It’s just better. You know, it’s much better. Listen to The Cure instead of The Smiths, you know, it’ll be all right. You know, there’s a lot of bands.

Ryan: It’s been interesting. I was- so we signed on to the Corbin project. I think we’re finally listed there, that like Musicians for Ceasefire and I was browsing through the names of the artists and they’re like “seeing like, “Oh, IDLES is on there. And Shame.” And I was like “Oh, Clapton, what the fuck are you doing on this list but okay!” It’s interesting seeing the musicians that do, you know, that do support humanity.

Sijal: Yeah, that’s cool that IDLES is on there.

Ryan: Fontaine’s D.C., that whole like crew coming out of that scene.

Sijal: That’s good. That’s good. I was worried about them. I like their music.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sijal: Yeah.

Ryan: Well, sorry. That became a downer.

Sijal: No, it did not. I was, I was thinking about who else are we canceling before we move on to the next question. I’m like, Oh my gosh. Wait, no, no, no. Who was I a fan of? Oh yeah. You know, I was like, well, did I become a Macklemore- did I become a Macklemore listener? Since this moment, the answer is still no, but he is all in, he is all in for the cause.

Ryan: So there’s this young rapper that I saw a video, he’s playing a big festival show and he had this big pro Palestine speech and I was like, I’ve never heard of you.

And then I went and listened to like, this shit’s rad. You’ve got to get a new fan.

Sijal: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Yeah.

Ryan: When the shit in early October happened, the first thing that I went to was thinking of songs that you go to in times like that, like you go to for some sort of comfort, was one that I was familiar with from doing Global Garage that I found eight years ago. But it was Jowan Safadi. It’s a song called “Super White Man” that it’s in English, but it has that kind of satirical jab, but also it’s like very human. It’s like, “why am I suffering for your bullshit?”

Sijal: Oh my gosh. It’s funny that you brought him up. He has this song, it’s like, it’s really in like response to- he’s a Haifa-based artist, so he lives in Haifa, which is a city that has both like, um, that has some Arab city, we call him like, we call is part of ’48, which is like the original land of Palestine before 1948. And he’s, he lives there.

And a lot of Palestinians live there and they live in a segregated city beside other Israelis, but it’s considered to be a progressive city and all these kinds of things. But it’s just all fucked and it’s all sad because you go to the beach and you’re like, “wow,” you see the beach and I’m like, you know my family for your friends since like they they’ve never they never seen the beach. You know what I mean? Like my cousins have never seen the beach and it’s just like heartbreaking.

But and they his his songs are sometimes in relationship to what it’s like to be living in this kind of mixed territory. He has this one song, which is like the, “the cops aren’t our cops, the president isn’t our president, who are you going to complain to when you don’t have anyone to complain to?” What that experience is like, his song is really good. I like him a lot.

Ryan: I need to listen to more and, and see if I can find some translations of lyrics. I love, I love that, that one song in particular.

So, you have visited West Bank, is that correct?

Sijal: Yeah, so, my family are refugees from this place called Suba, which is in Jerusalem, al-Quds. Jerusalem is more than just a city. It’s like a whole area. It’s like a countryside and things like that.

And so they were in a village on the countryside, called Suba, that was demolished and attacked in 1948. My uncle was killed and my dad was six years old during that time, so he fled, and my whole family fled from there to kind of between Jericho and Jerusalem in an area that is now called Az-Zawiya, which is in the West Bank. And I have visited and many times and I have,- so that’s where they live here. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it’s just, it’s the West Bank life. I have some cousins who are artists, musicians too. I miss them a lot. They’re really talented. And oud players and drummers and things like that.

Ryan: Are there any musicians that point to that listener should, should check out?

Sijal: They’re not recording artists. They’re like teachers.

So music teachers, things like that, but, I have some videos that I put on my Instagram of them playing and improvising together and it’s just delightful. It’s beautiful. Yeah. Trying to get, I’ll do a shout out, I’m trying to get him over here to be a music teacher in a school through a work visa.

Trying really hard to make that happen so if there’s any schools out here that hear this, they’re like, want to sponsor an oud player in the Triangle, hit me up.

Ryan: Yes, please do. That would be amazing. Is there anything else that you want to talk about? Anything else that we, we didn’t cover that you want to say, or that you want to talk about? Floor is yours.

Sijal: I really liked that we talked about who we don’t fuck with anymore. That was a really- I enjoyed that conversation. I think obsessively about that. I’m like, who are these artists out here I need to cleanse?

Ryan: And I even like artists too, but we’ll just like even people.

Sijal: People a long time ago. Were out of the picture, you know?

Ryan: It’s weird seeing some people coming out of the woodwork: I honestly didn’t expect you to have any sort of opinion, but you do. And now I can’t look at you.

Sijal: Yeah, totally. I’m just like, if there’s any time to completely relinquish the right message or appeal to the right audience in the right way, I do feel like now is the time. And I hope, and I know that I have seen an unprecedented witnessing and stepping forward just around Palestinian solidarity in this moment.

I know there’s many other hells in this world happening at the same exact time as this. But it is like, it feels like a collective awakening of so many, like in a shift in a big way that like parallels some of the things that happened in 2021 with the Save Sheikh Jarrah work that was happening. But, what I believe is that it’s time to be brave.

It truly is. And I know people out here are worried about losing privilege or artists are worried about losing fans. And people are like, “it’s not my lane. It’s not my thing.” And I’m just like, “it absolutely is. It’s really is.” And, I think it’s just time to be our bravest selves in the face of that.

It is a harsh climate and people will lose fans and lose jobs and lose things speaking out, but you probably didn’t want to work there anyway, or be around those folks anyway. So you’re going to be all right. Welcome to a new life.

Ryan: There are friends here and you are welcome.

Sijal: Exactly. Come on. There’s better music. There’s better music and there’s better people. Trust me.

Ryan: Well, thank you so much for chatting with me about this beautiful song. I’m going to put that in my rotation too as I try to stop doomscrolling, go to a calming place. But yeah, thank you again. It was great to have a conversation with you after seeing a handful of Muslims shows and that DUNNUMS show.

Sijal: Yeah, likewise, that’s really great. Great to meet you as well, Ryan.

Ryan: A massive thanks to Sijal for taking the time to chat with me. You can pre-order the new DUNUMS record, I wasn’t that thought, on Bandcamp. I’ve included a link in the show notes at letsmixtape.com. For a glimpse of what you can expect from this beautiful record, here is “Binti,” one of the songs Sijal mentioned earlier on in the show.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Let’s Make A Mixtape. If you’re looking to learn more about the history of Palestinian’s struggle for freedom, I recommend watching journalist Abby Martin’s documentary on the 2018 March of Return titled Gaza Fights for Freedom. I also encourage you to read Israeli historian Ilan Pappe’s book Ten Myths About Israel and Palestine: A Socialist Introduction edited by Sumaya Awad and brian bean. You can also hear Sumaya Awad on the first episode of The Upstream Podcast’s fantastic series on Palestine.

Beyond unlearning the anti-Palestinian propaganda we’ve been spoon fed from birth and donating to relief organizations, what else can you do? Make noise. Help fight the narrative that Israel and the American military industrial complex spread to dehumanize Palestinians. Write to your representatives and tell them to stop sending our tax dollars to Israel. Tell your city council members to divest from Israel.

In our conversation Sijal mentioned the BDS Movement. BDS stands for boycott, divestment, and sanctions. This is a form of non-violent resistance designed to put economic pressure on Israel so that it will comply with international law. It’s built off of the economic resistance efforts against Apartheid in South Africa. One of many reasons I’m proud to call Durham home is, because of the tireless work of Demilitarize! Durham2Palestine activists, our city ended police exchanges between Israel and the City of Durham.

That’s a wrap on this episode. Tune in next week for my conversation with Daniel Michalak from the band Bombadil – another Durham band. Well, sort of, we’ll talk about that next week.

Be sure to subscribe and rate this show wherever you get your podcasts because it helps feed the algorithm gods so that new folks can find the show. Follow along as the mixtape comes together, you can listen on Spotify and YouTube. Links to the playlist and so many of the things discussed in todays episode can be found in the show notes transcript at letsmixtape.com. All editing and recording was done by yours truly. Intro & transition music was written and recorded by Scotty Sandwich.