The stage
lights are dimmed. Somewhere hidden in the
background, you can hear a warm, deep voice. “I am
Hanine,” she says, “and I come from the village of
Amaatour.”
Then she starts to sing in unaccompanied Arabic.
Eventually salsa rhythms join in, pick up speed,
and the lights come up to reveal the Hanine and
her Cuban band Son Cubano.
During a recent concert at UNESCO Palace, Hanine y
Son Cubano presented a rare but enchanting mix of
classic Arabic song and Cuban accompaniment.
Alternatively, you could say Son Cubano performed
pure salsa, based on Arabic melodies.
The music is a constant dialogue between Arabic
and Latin, a beautiful give and take. The pace
speeds up when Cuban singer Ramon Diaz takes
center stage, and some salsa enthusiasts
spontaneously join the band to dance.
The tempo slows again when Hanine returned with
her Arabic vocals. This constant change of tempo
which works extremely well on stage is quite
different from the more uniform pacing of her
album, Hanine y Son Cubano.
The public comes away feeling that they have
witnessed real teamwork on stage. All the
musicians are important, not only the singer.
Everybody has time to show his talents, yet the
performance is balanced.
In the midst of the show the Cubans grace the
audience with a short segue into Cuban voodoo
rituals and end the concert with a dabke, much to
the delight of the Lebanese. Hanine also performed
a song in honor of Lebanese singer Wadia Safi, who
was in the audience.
The fusion of classic Arabic songs with Cuban
salsa seems an odd mixture at first but it is an
experiment music producer Michel Elefteriades
plunged into with considerable success.
Before he took on Hanine, Elefteriades launched
the Lebanese career of Jose Fernandez some years
ago encouraging him to play songs of Umm
Khultoum on his guitar, adding a touch of flamenco
in the process.
Regular visitors to the erstwhile nightclub Amor y
Libertad were thrilled by the fusion, which was
quite new.
Elefteriades was the local voice of the Cuban
music, which saw a surge in popularity after the
release of the film and soundtrack of The Buena
Vista Social Club.
Being addicted to salsa music and to Cuba himself
the title of Elefteriades’ club was a slogan
from Che Guevara the producer was encouraged to
undertake a mix of salsa and Arabic classics.
“I searched for a good Arabic female singer all
over Lebanon,” he recalled. “I couldn’t find
anybody at first. I was ready to go to Syria, even
to Jordan, in search for the right singer.”
Elefteriades invited a salsa group to Lebanon to
see if they up to his unusual cross-over
experiment. The vocalist, however, was still
missing.
“I was looking for a beautiful female singer with
a professional music background,” he explained.
“She should not have too much professional
experience, because I wanted to engage her for a
long-term project, yet she should be professional
enough to make a CD and to do a stage show.”
When the Cuban musicians arrived, one thing led to
the other. He eventually met Hanine, who studied
music at the National Conservatory, specializing
in classic song. She had little stage experience,
having performed only for friends and private
events, but this is what Elefteriades wanted. He
brought the two parts together, hoping that they
would match.
Then in early 2000 the project got started.
Hanine and the Cubans got into the studio and
began experimenting. This meant long hours of
rehearsal. There was nobody to arrange the songs
or to make adaptations.
“I simply sang the classic Arab melodies and then
they started to improvise upon them in their own
style,” Hanine explained. “And it worked
beautifull,” she added.
Of course, they had “many discussions on how to do
things, but we always managed to find a good
compromise.”
In the beginning, Elefteriades regularly went to
the studio to see how his experiment was
proceeding. He was thrilled. The result was pure
salsa based on the most Arabic songs.
“Hanine has an amazing capacity of adaptation,” he
said. “She picked up the rhythms real fast, she
started to speak Spanish, and when you see her
dancing on stage she seems to have salsa in her
blood.”
It was clear that Hanine would remain the lead
singer. Her deep, beautiful voice has a full body
and can compete with the brash instruments of
salsa. The songs, which were partly translated
into Spanish, became a true dialogue between the
Arabic version performed by Hanine, and the
Spanish version sung by Diaz.
When Hanine started with Son Cubano, she had just
decided to drop her career as lawyer and studying
music.
“I admired Cuban music before getting involved
into the project, but I didn’t exactly know the
different styles and rhythms,” she admitted.
Her father’s political past gave Hanine an
affinity for this Caribbean island. “Cuba,” she
says, “is our hope.”
In her shows, she includes the popular song,
Comandante Che Guevara, both as a tribute to her
Cuban musicians and because it is popular in
Lebanon as well even among non-communists. “When
we sing this song, I don’t have a lead role in
it,” she said, “but I sing a small part of it in
Arabic.”
After nearly eight months of rehearsal and
recording, Hanine and Son Cubano made their first
music video, had their first concert during the
Byblos festival and released their first CD in
August 2000.
“Everything was a real success,” Elefteriades
said. “The CD broke all records in Lebanon a big
surprise for us.”
For the band’s recent UNESCO show, seven new Salsa
musicians replaced the old soneros, giving the
music more drive by mixing typical salsa rhythms
with a little bit of rap, reggae and even tango.
Hanine y Son Cubano began their first
international tour on 25 Nov. The 20-day tour took
them around Tunisia and Brazil. Hanine plans
another trip to Latin America soon she will
shoot a music video of Lama at-Tariq al-Ayn (On
the Way to the Spring) in Cuba.
A second CD a mix of new songs and remixes of
three or four songs of the first album is now in
production. For the first time, the CD will be
distributed outside the Arab region.
“The Arab audience accepted and liked the Latin
influence on the classic Arabic songs, and we
expect that he audience in Latin America will like
the Arab touch of Salsa,” she added.
Hanine hopes “to become an internationally renown
singer.” She has made a good start.
(The Daily Star on line) November 2003
