Between Cultural Representation and Self-Orientalization, How Do North Africans Toe the Line?

Last week, OkayAfrica published an article exploring why the majority of Egyptians don't listen to music from their diaspora. “To Egyptians who find diaspora artists cringey, have a chat with them about what it was like growing up, potentially completely isolated from their Egyptian roots,” said Egyptian British journalist Deana Soni. 

“Yes, it is cringey to say habibi 234 times in one song or replace the random word with an Arabic one, but for them, that might be the expression they longed for growing up. I understand both sides and totally agree that you can be a successful artist from the diaspora without orientalizing yourself.”

Orientalism

The term Orientalism was first coined in 1978 by Palestinian American academic Edward Said. In his seminal book Orientalism, Said explains how Western academia and art have constructed a colonial image of the “Orient,” which paints North African and Asian societies as exotic, mystical, stagnant, and in need of rational, read: Western, guidance. 

“The Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience,” he wrote. “The phenomenon of Orientalism [...] deals principally not with a correspondence between Orientalism and Orient, but with the internal consistency of Orientalism and its ideas about the Orient … despite or beyond any correspondence, or lack thereof, with a ‘real’ Orient.”

Self-orientalization is the deliberate self-othering by playing into Western stereotypes about the Orient. Performing and internalizing these ideas in order to preserve a cultural identity that can be recognized by the Western gaze. Self-orientalization in North African diaspora music often looks and sounds like the Western idea of what it means to be North African. Using people like fruit or falafel sellers as aesthetic props, for example, pouring tea on a carpet while wearing excessive jewelry and a belly dance outfit in a music video. 

Avoiding self-orientalization

“This conversation is important, not because some people make cringe music, but because it has a domino effect into the future,” NYC-based Sudanese rapper Nadine El Roubi tells OkayAfrica. “How are you feeding into something that's ultimately gonna harm us and remove our credibility and legacy as a culture when you're whittling it down to this look and this sound?”

Growing up in the US for 10 years and then moving to Sudan as a teenager, El Roubi struggled with Sudanese society's conservatism. Her father ran Capital Radio 91.6, where she heard Sudanese rappers embrace their culture and identity, shifting her perspective and inspiring her to do the same. Her first ever verse was for a song by MaMan while studying for a master’s degree in England. “I wrote ‘God it’s Thursday night, speeding down the Nile… we might go to jail, we might go to hell, Mama pay my bills money’s tight.’” 

These lyrics might not reflect what most people think of as Sudanese culture, but El Roubi tapped into her personal experience as a young person in Sudan and found resonance among her peers despite living abroad and rapping in English. 

To El Roubi, the gateway to self-orientalization is when an artist sets out to reach a certain demographic. “When you say ‘I really want Arab people to hear this and fuck with it,’ you think your outfit has to be Arabized, the song has to sample an Arabic song, and you have to speak Arabic,” she says. “This is now the recipe for appealing to an Arab audience, and you see everyone following that recipe, and that’s when you’re stereotyping the demographic.” 

“I think that [self-orientalization] would require an element of belief that the work would appeal more simply because it’s exotic or oriental,” says Rita Kamale, a Moroccan artist who grew up in London. “For me, creating has always been about the mood and the colors I see around a particular song. Being a Moroccan just means I’ve had access to so much inspiration through our craftsmanship, fashion, music, and culture.”

Kamale’s art organically blends the many cultures she grew up around and learned to admire. For her upcoming film LOST{INTRANCE}LATION, she wanted to unite her London creative circle with the Moroccan one. “There are similarities everywhere,” she says. “I’m also a huge fan of religious art, Islamic art in particular. I like to incorporate these elements into my visuals because I relate to the storytelling.”

Responsibility vs. caricature

The intention to speak to one’s community might stem from a genuine sense of responsibility to represent said community. El Roubi doesn’t feel this need; she believes that being Sudanese is enough. While she was working on her upcoming album, a producer sampled Sudanese jazz legend Kamal Keila, and her label pushed her to use it. “I didn’t force it to be on the album, because it didn’t fit sonically even though it repped Sudan,” she says. 

Kamale, too, believes that being Moroccan is enough. “I might seem cringe to someone and that’s cool, someone might seem cringe to me and that’s fine too,” says Kamale. “What I really don’t like to see is someone who does not know themselves well enough as an artist use culture as a mask. Culture is a part of who you are but it should not be the defining feature of your artistry.”

Moroccan Dutch singer Inez feels a responsibility to represent. She consciously mixes Moroccan and Western music, trying to merge “the best of both worlds.”

“People will always have an opinion anyway, if you show too little of your roots, they’ll say you’re not proud of being Moroccan, and if you show too much, it becomes something else,” she says. “So for me it’s simple: I stay true to myself and express what I love and what I’m proud of, without trying to fit into expectations.”

Inez disagrees with the statement that much diaspora music is cringe from a local perspective. “Everyone has their own creativity and taste, and people will either like something or they won’t. It’s really that simple,” says.

“It makes me cringe when someone is trying so hard to be seen as something and be part of a trend,” says El Roubi who just released “Nuclear,” a song that addresses this issue. “‘They do whatever goes viral/ pictures with the underprivileged on arrival,’” she quotes, referring to diaspora artists who use locals as props for their music videos.

“‘You watered down the flavor, you lack taste. Baladi is belly dancing on Umm Kulthum’s grave. If this is what they cheer, boo me off stage,’” she continues. “I don't think you're paying tribute to anybody. I honestly think they're rolling in their grave. I don't think this is what our ancestors paved the way for.”

How, then, does a diaspora artist avoid falling into the trap of self-orientalization? Is there an aesthetic, a sound, or a language to avoid? El Roubi mostly raps in English, sometimes over Arabic samples and sometimes not. “I rarely use Arabic in my music, just because I really can't speak it very well,” she says. “If I have to go to my mom and ask, ‘Hey, how do you say this?’ it loses the authenticity of it coming from me.” 

Growing up with Darija, English, and French, Kamale constantly switches between languages and genres. Inez mostly sings in Darija, her mother tongue and the only language she spoke until primary school. It seems there is no set route that bypasses self-orientalization.

“Really sit down and ask yourself why you’re doing something before you do it,” says El Roubi. “If you’re trying to rep Arab culture and you live in the West, do you think going on holiday [to North Africa] is enough to put that in your music? If people lived there for a year and then came back, they would sound different.” 

“Simply being present on the land influences the art,” says Kamale. Both she and Inez visited Morocco every year growing up, trying to spend as much time there as possible. Inez works with many Moroccan diaspora artists who understand how to translate her wish for representation into sounds and aesthetics that feel authentic to her. 

“When I would come to Morocco, I built relationships with people which led to lifelong friendships,” says Kamale. “Morocco has been there through every phase of my life. When I came of age to go out, I discovered the best parties there. And at those parties I met incredibly talented people with whom I work with until this day.”