 Thank you all for joining us today for our Ramadan fundraiser kickoff concert. But before we officially begin, a brief introduction of the event and series in general, both the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation and Code Pink host the series. My name is Arwal Mokdad. I volunteer with YRF. YRF provides relief in Yemen and advocates in the U.S. to end the war. I'm Danika. I work on the Yemen campaign at Code Pink. Code Pink has been working coalition with other organizations to stop U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen for years. And we always love working with Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation. And this is actually the anniversary of Saudi UAE and U.S. intervention in Yemen. As many of you know, Yemen is experiencing the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. YRF does crucial life saving work on the ground in Yemen to address the crisis and all proceeds from this fundraiser will go to aid. If you would like to know more about YRF, please refer to our website and social media accounts. However, Yemen has a rich history and culture that also deserves attention. The Beyond the War series aims to showcase Yemen outside the context of war and center Yemeni voices. We hope to break stereotypes and build solidarity with Yemeni communities. To start off our fundraiser, we have Zaki Zikatro with us. Zaki's eyes have always been fixated on the arts. Looking at ways he could transform a space, enhance an experience or pull beauty out of something that would otherwise seem mundane. This thirst is what drove him to pursue graphic arts. So it drove him to establish his own company, Qifana, Lincoln Bio, and create cycling experiences. And it's what ultimately led him to pursue his love of world music beyond just listening. Zaki once again wanted to create, and his roots led him back to the sounds of the Ud. This instrument has always instilled the sort of peace in him, and he decided to learn and practice it well into his adult years. Learning and performing with the band Aswad has been grounding him ever since. Thank you for that introduction. And like I said, like Arwa said, we are doing a fundraiser. We're trying to raise $20,000 for food baskets to send to Yemen through Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation. Food baskets average at about $50. They feed a family of six for an entire month. Baskets distributed during the month of Ramadan, which starts the next weekend, include dates for people to break their fast. It also includes powdered milk, flour, rice, oil, that kind of thing. We are already like at almost $12,000 out of our $20,000 goal. We're actually at $11,963. If anyone wants to bump us up and help us hit that $12,000 mark right now, you can donate in the link I just sent in the chat. So please check that out. And the very helpful thing that you could do is share the fundraiser on Twitter or send to a few of your friends who would throw in five, 10, whatever amount they can donate. Every dollar is very much appreciated. And with that, we can get started with the concert portion of the evening. So I will hand it over to Zaki. Thank you Danaka and thank you Arwa for having me. Nice to meet you all. So yeah, so I'll be playing the instrument called Ud. So I'm just gonna talk a little bit about the instrument. So first of all, this instrument's been around for some people say a thousand years. I mean, we don't know what we need the origin from. And one of the article that I read a while back that the old started with the bow, right? So if you notice the shape of this, oh, it looked like a bow, they put it together and then creating a sound because somebody I guess playing around with the bow and make that noises. And there was one, we were like, okay, why not? We put it together and see how it sounds like. So that's how the old started. I mean, this is one of the history that I read about the old. But obviously over the years, it finds the shapes, people being more creative about it and then mix it up with different wood, right? In this particular one, I designed this in Turkey and yeah, and it's a custom design with the African Ibanee wood and mixed with the Sumatran black wood. So all this is handmade and I designed it myself and then hand it over to the maker and then they design it. And as you can see, that's my logo, my personal logo. So yeah, so that's the history, a quick highlight of the history about the old and they usually have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So this particular one have 15 strings but usually they have 11. So I'll put additional strings called F, so that's the sound. So yeah, so that's just a quick highlight about the instrument and I'm about to play. So it's not really a song, old is known for the opening of the music, right? And this is like more like the soul of the music. And by the way, and the old have, it is related to the guitar. This is, think about this is the mother of the guitar. So when the Islamic empire left and the Spanish people, they're trying to take over and trying to duplicate it and they can't be able to do it. So they just create the guitar and that's where they get out of old. So that's how they relate it. But yeah, any questions before I go on to the opening of the concert? Anyone? Great. Can you guys hear me clear? Yeah, cool. So yeah, so like I said, this is not a songly just more the opening, right? So I'm gonna be Macam. So in the Middle Eastern music, they have a call Macamad, which is a different melody and different notes. So, and this one is particular one is gonna call the Bayati. I love it. Can people unmute and clap? I don't know if they're able to, but. No worries, we're gonna do it. So yeah, so that's any other questions? Yeah, if anyone has any questions in between songs, you're more than welcome to unmute and ask them. We did break 12,000 on the fundraiser. So thank you all so much. Something you could do is text your family, post the fundraiser on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, whatever social media you use. There's descriptions on the link itself. So if you need any language to post the fundraiser with, it's all there. But yeah, thank you all so much for your generosity. So the next one, I'm going to kind of gather from different countries. So this one is gonna come from Egypt. So the music, so it's a vocal song. She's one of the very famous singer in Egypt in the 60s, 50s. And this particular song, I'm gonna play in the ombre. You know what? What I would do is almost share you guys the link on the message for the singer. So you guys can listen to it for richer because this is just the old, right? So yeah, let's see. You know, she's a singer that is actually one of my favorite one. I mean, obviously, I think people who listen to Arabic music, I'm sure they know who's in the microphone. And I mean, even Jay-Z, I mean, do a remix out of that. Some of us are songs, right? So yeah, any other questions? If anyone has questions but doesn't want to unmute, you can type them in the chat and I can redirect the questions. That's also an option. We are $27 away from reaching 12th. Oh, just kidding. Someone just donated. We're at $1,100. Thank you. Robert just donated. Thank you so much. Keep sending it around. Getting to $20,000. We're supposed to have this fundraiser open for a few weeks, but it's going really well. So we'll see what happens. Thank you, everyone, who's donated so far. All right. So the next one is a little bit short is because the song, it's by Yemeni songs, is one of my favorite one called Imaa Tashroofoq. I know. Sorry. I'm Tashroofoq. So the meaning of this is actually, when can I see you? So original singer was Abu Bakr Salim. He's from Hanamout. He's a region in Yemen. So in the beginning, I mean, I'm just going to read you a couple of lines, of course. You know, if you listen to the music, for those who never listen to the music of this song, if you translate into songs, it mostly romantic love stories, right? Like, we are known for, you know, poets. I mean, we read poets. Just to present it to the audience. Because we are very creative in our mind in the way that we want to say something. We always say, with honey in our tongue. So the song goes, when can I see you? Oh, you've got a goodness, a godness of beauty. Tell me, please. When or when are you free? Yeah, and then, yeah, I'll send you guys all the link once I'm done with the music, and then you guys can check it out. The music and also the larynx. So I'm going to do the opening again for the music just to get my mood into a different makaman. And yeah, so yeah. So that's one of the songs a little bit shorter because it just looked right. And so the larynx is always changing. So that's what's nice about the song. But that's something that I'll share with you guys with everything so you can satisfy to listen to all the songs. Who's the song by again? By Abu Bakr Salim, I can send it to you. So this is the... So I'll send you one of the YouTube on the song actually in a second. Anyone who doesn't know, Abu Bakr Salim is kind of the bread and butter of Yemeni music. I don't know any other way to put it. He's iconic. He's well known across the Middle East. I'm currently living in Oman. And I went to a poetry, like music, open mic night. And at least two people, Omanis, were singing Abu Bakr. He's just such an iconic figure in the region. Yeah, Abu Bakr is like Oman kaltoum in the 60s. Like, it's known. But it's from the Khalidj side, which is from the Gulf side, which is the Khalidj is like where... They call the Khalidj is where, you know, like from Kuwait, you know, UAE, Oman. They get influenced from Himawa since the 60s. So this is, I'm just gonna play some Mawa, which is an improvising as I go. So it's not a song. And this is more, I'm just gonna play it as I go. So this is something new, something I might not be able to repeat it again, but this is something you guys technically get to life. I mean, life as I make it up. Yeah, so that's, I was playing at three different Makamat. So I just jumping from one melody to another. So I think you can hear one, there was, I was playing a Makamat called Hejaz. Questions, well, there's nothing, questions. I assume that everybody's already been, know what Odi is, and I'm sure you guys been across this instrument before the sound, so. Can you talk a little bit about, a little bit more about the tradition of what you were just doing? Cause I know we talked on the phone a little bit about, like playing as you go and like improvisation, kind of being an element of it. But if you- Yeah, so, you know, like, I would, when I pick up the music, right? Like, I don't know what Makamat myself, and then I come across, you know, like those, you know, that people, somebody they don't know how to play it old, and I just asked them a little bit about, you know, how to play it and stuff like that. So one of the things I said about, we don't usually, a lot of our old player, they go by here, you know, we the music. I mean, I mean, don't get me wrong. Reading music, it helped when you were in a bigger group of musicians to play certain music, who read this music, right? So you guys can, so the audience in sync with what other musicians. However, Makamat has, there's hundreds of different Makamat, but the most main one, I'm just gonna talk about the, you know, the four things, right? Like Hijaz, they call the Western Makamat. By the way, I'm sorry about a lot of my background, I don't know if you guys can hear that, but there's a lot of motorcycles running around. So life of the city, right? So, so Hijaz, so what nice about it is they don't have friends, right? So the guitar have those lines between, right? On the neck, if you look at the guitar. So what you notice is that guitar is very limited, but you can play chord here. You notice I don't play chord at all, right? It made for one stroke at a time. But guitar, they were like playing a chord like, right? So it's a little bit different. That's why the frets difference. I mean, there's many things, but that's the main one, the main one. Now, the second one is the, the four Makamat of Hijaz, in order for you to learn though, when I was learning like the first thing I need to understand is this main one, the first one called Hijaz. Now Hijaz is the Western sound. So if you wanna play an American song, you wanna play on this Makamat because they call the Makamat from Hijaz, right? So like, so, so that's doh, right? So doh re mi fa so la si doh, right? So this is how it sounds. So that's if you notice, somebody playing the piano will sound the same thing on guitar or any other instrument, right? So if you, this Hijaz, all you need to play is within that note. Like, if I wanna play, you know, Western sound to it, right? So like, so you can play, I can't think of an American song at the moment, but I don't know if you know this song. It's Italian, right? But it's still the Western melodic sound to it, right? So that's one of them. I think my friend recognized that song that you were playing. Is it Bella Chow? Yeah, it is a Bella Chow. It is Italian music. It's a, it's a revolution music, but it won't get there. He recognized it from money heist. Yes, it is. It is money heist using that song. Yes. That's correct. Yeah, so, so that's one of them. Then you have, sorry, so they're called the Hijam, right? So that's the Western one. And then the Hijaz, I make mistakes, or Hijaz is more the Arabic, like night of the Arabian, and we've heard of those Disney, right? Like the Aladdin, for example. So it's like going from, let's start with the dough. Hijaz, that's the, it's just like, that's the Arabian night, right? Like there's more like Arab music, like one of the classic one, right? Now, and then there's Bayati. Bayati is where the Gulf, I mean, all middle, use this, this Makama. This is like really one of the Middle Eastern using this sound. By the way, before I go into Bayati, Hijaz also Flamingo using this, you can hear someone from the Flamingo sound. And then, yeah, so Bayati is actually a lot of the Gulf using this Bayati. So Bayati sounds like, it's very special because Bayati have the quarter notes. And this is where it makes a difference between the Western world and then the Oriental, right? The quarter notes, it's between, it's between the note. And you can't play it in the guitar. You can't play it in a piano. You can't even play in the trumpet unless they modify it to have that, right? So if you notice when I play Hijaz and Ajam, right? So I'm going to go with Ajam, which is the Western sound, like the Hijaz. That is in between. The last one is the Nahuan, which is my fifth one because you can cross the world with the Andalusian and the Spanish music, right? So this is the Nahuan, they call it the Nahuan. It's nice because, and also the Gulf, a lot of the Khaleiji, the Gulf region also play the Nahuan. So Bayati and Nahuan, they always put it together and play. Our closing will be playing the Nahuan. So I'm keeping that one in the last one, so yeah. So that's the four Makamat that I learned. And so technically, the Udh can play in music in the world. Like if somebody come from Africa and they want to play some African music, the Udh can complement that. If you want to play with the Western world, you can complement that too. And there's a lot of musicians actually mix the Udh and even with the composer of like a big, you know what all the drummer, the violins, what is it called? Symphony, right? So the Udh can go cross the world on different type of music. And that's what nice about that is that you can play with the Western world. So yeah, I hope I answered your questions very well. Yeah, thank you so much. And my friends here loved the money heist reference. So how about we do one more song? And then I know Arwa has some questions. And then if anyone in the audience also has questions, and then we can wrap up. We are at $12,100. If we can get to $12,200, that would be amazing. That would be two more families of six fed through the next month. So if you know anyone who might donate, please send them the link. We'd really, really appreciate it. But we'll throw it over to Zaki for his last songs. So I'm going to play a song, and then I'm going to do a closing with the Nahuan, the Makama called Nahuan. This song, I think you guys know, but this song is from the old Anderusian song. It's very, very old. And people can't track it when it comes from. But I think it starts with a poem, and then I think somebody make it into music. A song. And a lot of actually very famous musicians are using this music. So I don't know if you guys know, I'm not bad with the song, but this is the song. If people want to unmute and do like a round of applause, that would be awesome. Thank you, Zaki. Thank you so much, Zaki, for the wonderful music. We're going to open it up to questions now. So if you have any questions, feel free to put it in the chat and mute yourself and ask. I believe there's the raise hand function if you want to ask a question verbally. And I'll just call on you. I am also a teacher in my free time. So I volunteer as much. Nice memories of please raise your hand. But I'll start us off with questions until people put it in the chat or raise their hands. I kind of want to discuss what you were mentioning earlier, Zaki, of how a lot of musicians do it by ear and how that plays into traditional concert structures and medulous style concerts. Do you mind sharing what those look like? For those who are unaware of what a medulous is, but the setting is how these traditional concerts work because it's not written music. Yeah. So I just went out. I went out. Can you repeat that again and get cut off a little bit? Can you tell me more about something? And then I just forgot. I mean, it just got cut off. Oh yeah. So I was wondering, as you were mentioning earlier, a lot of musicians, musicians play by ear, right? Not written music. So I was wondering if you could talk about traditional concerts and the structure of those, right? Where you kind of have the singer going and then the musicians just have to follow whatever they go with. And then medulous. Where someone just starts reading poetry and playing food, kind of those structures from a musician's point of view. So it's a little bit different. Definitely. Right? Like, so you have to understand. I thought myself. Recently. Like I thought myself an old 2014 and I practice every four hours. Right? So some of the questions I'm not exposed as much as most of the musicians. It's learning old since they were little. However, I'll tell you what my experience was. So, um, So I, I, you know, I'm part of the band here in the bear. I call us what, and, you know, we have a music sheet that we have to read and kind of listen. So some of the songs, I don't even read it because. To follow up with the singer. So the rule. Engagement in the music world is that you have to follow the singer. You know, right? And so, um, So if they slow down, you have to slow down. They go faster. You have to go faster. Right. And, um, and that's something that would kind of nice because they can live between the two worlds because, you know, like the old, if you make mistakes, still some nice. This is what I learned. You can improvise quickly. If you know how to, you can improvise quickly. Right. And so, um, but yeah, but in terms of in a SWAT is more very organized. Um, in terms of like what music sheet that you have to read. And then when you're stopping and when you're playing, while the. See if they have a violinist playing first and then it will play. Actually it is very rule that you have to follow. Now in the modular settings, that's the origin of the song. And it's very rule that you have to follow. Now in the modular settings, that's the original and how they get together all the musicians, which is, it's a free fall. Right. Like everybody start playing and then the rhythm just start playing together. Like, like that's one of the measures. And some of them singing the very popular song, which is the improvise as they go. Like, so sometimes you say, Oh, I know that song, but it's different. It's like they make it because some people just improvise it as they go. But they still, what, what nice about it is that in measure, it's like, you can play the melody is a little bit different, but then you know the song, for example, like you use a certain song. Oh, I know that song, but like, but it's different. I like it. Right. Like. Still playing in the same. Right. Let's say by that, for example, but they do some extra stuff that it's different than the original song. So that's why you enable this. It's a more like a few, like, you know, some songs like they re-sample or fusionize the songs like those but still, you know, so I was playing. So I like it more in the measure style because like I can improvise it the way I want it versus, you know, playing in a more like in the settings where it's more like a band that you have to play, you know, certain songs for the audience. And it's almost like a symphony too, right? Like we're not symphony, like it's more assembly, like different, like we have like, it's violinist, you know, five oldest, but we have to, we have to in tune and sync. And much of this, again, it's free fall. So like you can play as long as you're playing the same Macabre and still something. And it's more fun because people start to stand up and that's it. Just nice. Yeah. Thank you for going over those differences between a swat and then a measure setting really fascinating. We have a question from Mary in the audience. She's wondering about the relationship of poetry to Yemeni music. Am I talking about that? Yeah, I mean, poetry has been around in, in not just in Yemen, but like in Middle East, right? But I mean, I mean, Yemen known for poetry. I mean, we even have a TV show for just a poetry, right? Like it's, it's, it's, it's the culture. It's part of us DNA from like years, thousands of years. So it's, and I think, I think that's one of the reason why every time you hear a story from like, I hear a story from my dad or my, my grandfather, they're always going to talk like, win my, my mom's heart or my grandma's heart. So it's just embedded in them, like how they talk, like a sweet talk and it's very poetic. Yeah. So I mean, I grew up, you know, it's interesting as now, the growing up, I realized that when you're growing up and people talk, you know, very poetic, you think it's normal. And then when I come to the US when I was 16, and I start to realize it's like, it's a weird way I talk and when I try to translate it in English and it's funny. I mean, it's just, it's just interesting. Oh, it's not to them. It's not normal. It's different. It's very poetic, right? It's like, why are you so poetic when you talk when you can talk normal? I don't see that. And so, yeah. So I realized when I was, I come to America. So, you know, so that's from my experience in my life. I hope I answered the question. Mary, can you hear me? Yeah, I love that answer. Like you said, Yemeni. Yemeni and like out of tradition in general is very poetic. Yeah. And a lot of these like old school songs are just poems that people have added music to. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, most music technically is poem. I mean, I can, you know, so they started with poem. I mean, a lot of music. They took it from old poem books. You know, so you can hear that like Lama Bada, for example, that's one of them. It wasn't. Some say it wasn't a song. What is it from point and they convert it into. So anyone has any other questions? Again, feel free to raise your hand or print that if not, I'll go on to our. Oh Dan, I could go for it. Just to chime in really quick. We're $25 away from our final goal of the night, which is $12,300 right now we're at 12,275. So if we can get a last $25 in there, that would be amazing. That would be such a great accomplishment for this fundraiser. That's my last plug for the fundraiser. I'm going to stop asking you all for money now. You can see it. This is what it looks like. It's nice because it has a nice. I look forward to that. Okay, so if there's not a question in the chart and no one's raising their hand, I will go to our final question of the night which is, what are some common themes and Yemeni songs. What is the common theme? I was, I was trying to share all the music that I was playing some of them. Thank you for doing that. What are some common themes in Yemeni songs? The common things, I mean, mostly Abu Bakr Salim, I mean that's he's the legend right and so. I'm sure is one of them. I can share it also on chat and also. And then the other song that I was playing today, which is the Mata Shufak, right, which is what I translated into, when can I see. So that's one of the two very common music in Yemeni, all the Yemeni knows when you start singing like all the Yemeni women. They start singing along with you. So that's, yeah. And he passed recently too. He just passed, I think, a couple of years, some of years ago. We have a question from Thayna. Who's your favorite Yemeni poet? Among the people, they're all a poet. But I don't have any specific, no. Yeah, I don't have any specific. I mean, I am more into, so, but just to go back in my background, so my background is, it's, I never was in musicians, right. And a poet, and when I was in high school in senior year, that's why I get into a court, but I don't have any specific. Yeah, so I mean, to answer your question, I don't have any specific, but I mean, the musicians also look both and they wrote this music. Yeah, thank you. Also something about Yemeni poetic tradition that you were discussing earlier is it's the culture itself is very poetic. So when I think of poems that I've heard a lot of times it's people talking, right. And it's through, it's reached so many mouths, this poetry, like it's hard to find the original. Yeah, or people themselves when you're talking to a kind of elder person, someone who's used like a tribal leader or whatnot. They'll give their answers in poetry. I remember that would drive me nuts as a child where I would ask my grandma for something and she would respond to them. Right. And I'm like, no, I want clear answer grandma. Don't just go to the poetry right now. Yeah, exactly. You're right. You're not like, so what does that mean? Yeah. So yeah, poetry is really embedded in everyday life in Yemen, I would say so I also struggle with that question is your favorite. I'm like, I guess it's the people around me. Yeah, that's true. I'm about to give you guys the English translations of the, the Yemeni songs that I mentioned earlier. That's the translation. Sorry, that's a lot. Thank you so much for sharing everything in the chat. Danica, unless you have anything to add, I think we can start shifting to closing statements. Yeah, closing. That sounds good. Great. Well, thank you everyone for joining us today. Thank you, Zaki, for your time. We really appreciate it. And thank you for the generous donations. We're really glad that we were able to raise so much money tonight and in general this fundraiser is going to stay open for a while. It's our Ramadan fundraiser. So feel free to share it with others, donate, whatever it may be, we really appreciate any support in Yemen needs the support as well. In general, please keep an eye out for our Beyond the War series. We're going to continue doing these and it's a great opportunity to learn about Yemeni culture and hear unique Yemeni perspectives, such as Zaki's.