Coalition Aims to Crush Iraqi Pop Music

[jamiroguy1]

Coalition faces new battlefront

BORZOU DARAGAHI IN FALLUJAH

POP music was always meant to be subversive but in Iraq it is proving to be too subversive for the coalition.

As Americans flood Iraq’s airwaves with radio stations playing harmless Western and Arab pop tunes, the young are turning elsewhere for their musical inspiration.

They turn to artists like Sabah al-Jenabi who sings: "America has come and occupied Baghdad. The army and people have weapons and ammunition. Let’s go fight and call out the name of God."

Banned from the air, such songs are proving increasingly popular in the CD and tape shops of Baghdad, Fallujah and Ramadi.

As anti-United States rebels shoot down helicopters at a rate of about one a week in the Fallujah area, al-Jenabi’s tunes ring out in the bazaars of central Iraq.

"The men of Fallujah are men of hard tasks," he sings in an Arabic dialect only people from Fallujah and Ramadi can decipher. "They paralysed America with rocket-propelled grenades. May God protect them from [united States] planes."

Even Iraqis generally supportive of the US occupation admit they’re attracted to the music. Driver Ahmad Hossein plays al-Jenabi’s cassettes in his car.

"I like the music and the lyrics," says Mr Hossein, a member of Iraq’s Shia majority, which was oppressed under Saddam. "I don’t know why. I don’t agree with what it’s saying. It just makes me feel good."

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http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=64722004