808 Dabke

(Concept Album) - 8 Tracks - [Year 2024]

The question of identity and culture is a recurrent question to the ordinary man, yet also for the modern Lebanese Arab within the era of globalization and intercultural exchange, political conflicts, wars and a history of generations fighting for and on behalf of identities and affiliations. With that and a curiosity for history, a general curiosity in life and long observations came the idea of a new genre of music that voices the Arab youth from the Lebanese experience.

808 Dabke is a sonic experiment, a fusion between Levantine Dabke music and electronic music, sticking to the roots and introducing a modern sound that looks into the future. 808 Dabke doesn’t modernize dabke, it deconstructs and reconstructs it, treating it as an evolving form. At its core, the project is an act of cultural preservation through transformation asserting that tradition and innovation are not opposing forces.

The output of this project was a concept album of 8 tracks that represents this style, collaborating with 2 Lebanese artists Youssef Khoury & Nour Abboud, and sampling old Lebanese records 2 of which dated from 1920 and 1935 respectively. Also a collaboration with local Lebanese fashion brand Ethereal wear to re create the same school of thought of 808 Dabke from music to fashion creating the clothes that Beatlalipos wore on the artwork of the album and the video launch.