Rahim AlHaj was born in Baghdad, Iraq, where he began learning to play the oud when he was nine. He continued his study of the instrument at the Institute of Music in Baghdad under the tutelage of Munir Bashir, widely considered to be among the greatest to ever play it. He graduated with a degree in composition and also earned a degree in Arabic literature.
His political activism in opposition to Saddam Hussein's regime forced him to leave the country after the first Gulf War in 1991. Following his departure, he lived in Jordan and Syria until he moved to the United States in 2000 settling in New Mexico.
Iraq has gotten plenty of attention from American news media outlets. I can't remember any of it being positive.
Being a high schooler during the first Iraq War, I never thought of Iraq as a place where music would be studied in conservatories or as a place where young men and women would receive degrees for their study of literature. I wasn't being purposefully obtuse. I simply lacked the intellectual curiosity to explore the idea on my own, such information being extraneous to what I needed for my daily rat race routine.
Iraq became synonymous with Saddam Hussein; Saddam Hussein was synonymous with evil. It wasn't until I received Rahim AlHaj's CD Home Again that I realized I never moved beyond thinking of Iraqis as pitiable victims of an awful, evil regime.
Home Again is a musical expression of AlHaj's journey back to Iraq in 2004, following the fall of the Hussein government. During that time back in his native country, he spent time with family and loved ones. He also experienced the effects of the destruction and chaos of a despicable regime, two wars, and the resultant upheaval.
If the present is better than the past – a dubious proposition – it can't be by much. The sad truth of Iraq in 2007 is we seem to have fought problems with bigger problems. Steven Feld, professor of anthropology and music at the University of New Mexico, praises AlHaj's ability to "musically reside in multiple realities." That is the center of this album.
AlHaj isn't the only one trying to reside in multiple realities where this music is concerned. I've not studied composition at a famed conservatory. I didn't know what an oud was until I looked it up on Wikipedia. I had no concept of Iraqi music and even Wikipedia can't bail me out on that. The truth is there is no reason to think I could decode this music and be able to relate it to any of you (now he tells us, five paragraphs in!).
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
great review. i've got to check this guy out (i've also got to purchase an oud, but that's another story)
and yes, as for the culture of that region, we americans don't know a whole lot about it...which is really kind of sad.
2 - Josh
Thanks, Mark. I certainly think you'd appreciate this album.
I'm not sure cultural ignorance is unique to America, but there are a lot of us who are victims of it. If every lesson were as interesting as Home Again, I'd be a far more willing student.
3 - El Bicho
I'll have to go to Amazon and sample a few tracks.
4 - Josh
El Bicho, I don't feel I have a good enough handle on your musical preferences to know whether or not you'll like this, but I know you're open enough that you might. You should definitely check out some clips and see what you think.
5 - Connie Phillips
Congrats! This article has been forwarded to the Advance.net websites and Boston.com.
6 - Josh
Thanks, Connie. That's great. I'll let my PoC know.