All Together Now
Ravid Kahalani talks about Yemen Blues, the band's popularity throughout the Islamic world, and his music's inherent universality
Yemen Blues, the brainchild of vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, Ravid Kahalani, is a testament to the universal nature of music. The band is centered around Kahalani’s powerful vocals—he sings in both Hebrew and Arabic—and fuses disparate musics from Yemen, North Africa, the Middle East, and Israel together with American styles like funk and R&B. And its appeal—particularly in the Arab world—transcends borders and politics. “People leave their conflicts outside the concert hall,” Kahalani says in our interview below. “You can feel that they are uniting under the circumstances of the music—feeling, being natural, being neutral, forgetting … they feel the importance of music.” That stylistic mashup is organic, too, and doesn’t come off as forced or contrived. “It is the magic of the harmony of the world,” he adds. “Everything can work with everything. The question is how you connect them.”
Yemen Blues started in 2008 as a collaboration between Kahalani and New York-based Israeli bassist and oud player, Omer Avital. The band, as a nine-piece ensemble, came to the attention of the world music community after an epic set at the 2010 Babel Med Music Festival in Marseille, France. That appearance led to hundreds of bookings, a frantic touring schedule, international press, and, eventually, their eponymous debut in 2011. Their second album, Insaniya, was recorded in 2015 with legendary producer, Bill Laswell. “I took two engineers and I went to Tel Aviv,” Laswell told me in an interview for Plus One Me. “We spent about a week recording it. I brought everything back to my studio in New Jersey, and put it together.”
Yemen Blues hasn’t yet recorded a follow up to Insaniya, although Kahalani is still busy with the same circle of musicians. His most recent project is a reinterpretation of Hallel, taken from the traditional Jewish liturgy. He toured last fall, and performed Hallel in New York City with members of the First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, but his spring 2020 tour was stymied by the outbreak of COVID-19. “We were supposed to tour in March, but most of the band couldn’t fly in for the tour,” he says. “Bassist Shanir Blumenkranz and I did half the tour as a duo. On March 17, I took one of the last flights that flew back to Israel. We did three shows in Europe and not many people came. Everything was very strange. No one knew what was going on, everyone was afraid, the hotels were completely empty, and the streets were pretty empty as well.” Also in 2019, Kahalani took a selection of poems written by the great Yemenite poet, Rabbi Shalom Shabazi, and set them to music, which he did in honor of what would have been the poet’s 400th birthday.
Kahalani spoke with me from his home in Israel. We discussed his history and multilingual approach to lyrics, the infinite malleability of musical genres and styles, Yemen Blues’ popularity throughout the Islamic world, and why music—when given the chance—is our best hope to bringing people together.
What’s your background and how did you get into music?
I am from a few places. I was born in Bat Yam, which is on the beach (just south of Tel Aviv). Then, before everything went down with the first intifada, my parents became more religious, and moved to Elon Moreh. Elon Moreh is a little religious village, and is very close to Nablus. That was when I was five or six years old, in 1983 or 1984. The first intifada started in 1987. When my parents moved there, it wasn’t such an issue like it is today. They bought a house, and three years later the house was worth a quarter of what it originally was, so they stayed, and they are still there today. I grew up there from when I was five until 15. I grew up around the hardcore atmosphere of the intifada, but I remember us going to Nablus before everything changed. We went to Nablus to buy vegetables almost every day.
Do your parents speak Arabic?
No. My father came from Yemen, and his first language was Arabic, but when Yemeni people arrived in Israel, they had the belief that since they’re now in the holy land, they should only speak the holy language. They stopped talking Arabic, and that is why my father never spoke Arabic with me. He arrived in Israel when he was around seven from Yemen, and when he arrived, he stopped speaking Arabic, and didn’t speak Arabic for many years.
Do you speak Arabic now?
I don’t.
But you sing in Arabic?
I do. The main reason I sing well in Arabic is because of the dialect and the pronunciation of how the Yemeni Jews pray and sing. When a Yemeni Jew prays or sings, the pronunciation, even when it’s in Hebrew, sounds like Arabic. It’s similar to speaking broken English in Jamaica, it’s like that. It’s like a different take on Hebrew. We say the words a little bit differently, and we use an Arabic-sounding pronunciation, which uses a lot of the same sounds that exist in the Arabic language. That’s why it is very natural for me to sing in Arabic, even though I don’t speak it. I need to translate the lyrics that I write, but the pronunciation comes to me naturally.
What was your first exposure to music?
I lived music all the time. I sang to myself from a very young age. I loved singing all kinds of melodies, inventing words, and gibberish. I have always been attracted to that. Also, there is a lot in Jewish Yemeni culture about melodies and singing. We have a mori, which is similar to a cheder [a cheder is a traditional Jewish elementary school, and the mori is what the teacher is called in Yemeni culture], and he teaches the children to say everything correctly—how to pray, sing, and things like that. The Jewish Yemeni culture is very much based around singing. There are lots of melodies, and at some points, the melodies [sound like a cross] between Arabic and African melodies, which are almost bluesy in some moments.
Did you also listen to western music?
When I was around 13, I discovered Pink Floyd and Bob Marley. Those were the two things that were different music from Yemeni music, or different from the stuff that my parents were listening to at home, which was Jewish Yemeni music to Hasidic music. I started to listen to that—Led Zeppelin was around then also—and later, also the Doors. When I was 19, I started to get into the blues, funk, and other musics, like jazz, and even some classical music, and that was a period that had the biggest influence on me. I also knew about Michael Jackson and Prince, and later on I was heavily influenced by Prince.
Do you play instruments as well, in addition to singing?
When I was 15, I got my first guitar. I had a neighbor from Peru, his name was Yedidia, and he taught me a few chords on the guitar. We played. We had meetings. I was also imitating Israeli vocalists. I loved everything around music. I enjoyed anything that was connected to music, but mainly groove, playing some drums, and things like that.
Were you in bands at that time, too?
No. I grew up in a religious village. Back then, religious people weren’t around music so much, unless it was holy, religious songs, or things like that. There were not many bands in our village, and nothing too exciting.
What was your first band?
I moved to Tel Aviv when I was 19. I left my parent’s house when I was 15, and I was in Holon from 15 to 19, which is near Tel Aviv. I was singing, and I was involved with some projects. I did all kinds of small things at a bar that I was working at—we even tried to start a punk band—all kinds of stuff. But my first project as a professional singer was in 2003. I was singing with a dance show. I was on stage, live, and singing with three female dancers, and that was my first professional gig. After that, I worked with Maya Dunietz as part of her choir, and also Chen Zimbalista, another percussionist from Israel. I did all kinds of things. Later, I joined the Idan Raichel Project, and I was with them from 2008 until 2013.
I started Yemen Blues in 2010, although I actually started to work on Yemen Blues around 2008, with bassist and oud player, Omer Avital. We met around 2008 or so, and started to work together. We met on another project that we did. We started to work on some songs that I had, and he helped me arrange those songs. The first Yemen Blues show was in Marseille, France, at the Babel Med Music Festival in 2010, and we became—like overnight—the most-booked world music act. We started to tour in 2011.
Yemen Blues brings together many different styles of music. Do you see parallels or similarities in how they fit together?
It is the magic of the harmony of the world, the cosmic music, and everything that is in it. Everything can work with everything. The question is how you connect them. With Yemen Blues, we never thought about what the outcome would be. We never planned, as in, “What’s the music that we want to hear?” We had a basic melody, some lyrics, and we created around that. In the beginning, working on songs, it was just me and Omer Avital. We jammed the songs for hours and hours, and recorded everything. We explored the vibe of the song, the melody, and the language of the groove. Slowly, Omer fished out sounds [and various parts] from these jams, and understood how to glue them together. Then we met with percussionists Rony Iwryn and Itamar Doari, Itamar Borochov on trumpet, plus Omer on bass and oud, and myself. We brought in more stuff—each of us brought his influences—sounds and rhythms into the rehearsal room, and whatever worked, it was there. Whatever felt right, was there. We always served the energy and the atmosphere of the song, the language of the way I was singing, and we built the songs out of a vibe.
The actual arrangements sound very worked out.
All the arrangements in Yemen Blues are on paper. We wrote everything—even all kinds of weird lines—everything that’s there, is written. On the first album, Omer Avital was the musical director. We were five musicians, and then added Hilla Epstain and Galia Hai on cello and viola, Avi Lebovich on trombone, Hadar Noiberg on flute, and became nine. Each of them brought their influence to the table as well. Even though each of them was part of the arranging process, at the end of the day, Omer Avital took it home and glued everything together.
Did you record that first album live?
The first album was recorded in one room, no separation, nothing. We mic-ed everything, and my friend, Ariel Levinsohn, did the recording. He recorded it live, everyone was in the same room, even me—I was singing in the same room. The mixes weren’t so easy to do, I believe, because you can hear everything bleed into everything else, but Tamir Muskat, from Balkan Beat Box, did amazing work with the mix.
Has the band been accepted in the Arab world, and do you have fans throughout the Middle East?
We have many fans, and that is one of the things that I am most proud of. Yemen Blues succeeds in making people forget about their everyday lives, political conflicts, and brings them together in the same room with people with very different political beliefs. We have many fans from all over the world, many Muslim fans, many Christian Arab fans, and they write to us, from Yemen, from Egypt, from Tunisia, from Dubai, of course from Turkey—we’ve performed in Turkey many times—and many fans from Syria. Our shows in places like Brooklyn, Berlin, and Paris—places where everybody is there, and the cultures mix—have the most exciting crowd. Those people leave their conflicts between each other outside the concert hall. At Yemen Blues shows, you can feel that they are uniting under the circumstances of the music, feeling, being natural, being neutral, forgetting, and feeling that it is something good to create love. They feel the importance of music.
Music and creation of music which is very different from, let’s say, entertainment. For me, music can be entertaining and being a performer can be entertaining, but for me, it is a part of a creation that has nothing to do with entertaining. It’s a creation that I believe can change—and has changed—many things in the world. I think the common people take music for granted. Music is not appreciated enough in this world. It is not appreciated as a tool, not appreciated as a job, or as a way to provide, or a thing to do in life. It is true for music like many other things connected to art, but music, for me, is something that people feel every day, every hour. The creation of music is something we need to research more, and appreciate more. It is a world full of wise things, a world full of learning.
But is it a tool to bring people together?
Obviously, it brings people together, and that is the first kind effect that it has. It is a feeling that people connect to, and that is because it reaches to the most deep place inside you, and there is nothing stronger than that.
Have you been invited to Islamic countries besides Turkey?
Yeah, we’ve been invited to Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, many Arab countries.
Have you gone?
No, most of those places we can’t really go to, and that’s a problem. Not all of us are Israelis, but it’s hard.
Zion Golan is on Insaniya. Didn’t he play a wedding in Jordan?
Yeah, he’s a good friend. He’s singing on “Ma’ahla Asalam.” I believe that we can go to Jordan, but he was not there officially. He was there and he met Hussein Moheb, who is maybe the most famous singer in Yemen. They met there and sang together, but it wasn’t official. Once you go official, and you want to sell tickets, and promote it, that’s when people are afraid to deal with Israelis from places like Jordan, Tunisia, Egypt, and other places like that.
When did you start playing gimbri?
I heard the gimbri somewhere. I loved the sound and somehow got one in Israel. I opened up YouTube and learned how to play it.
Is the playing technique similar to slap bass?
In some things, but not really. The thumb works similar to slap, but the other fingers are not the same. You need to understand, I learned the technique of how to play the gimbri, but I am not really playing traditionally. I am using the gimbri in my way, which is not too much, but it is whatever it is.
What’s the story with Insaniya, and how did you meet up with Bill Laswell?
Bill Laswell was in touch with Shanir—Shanir Blumenkranz replaced Omer Avital on oud and bass in 2012—and Shanir has done all sorts of things with Bill. He connected me with Bill, and I sent Bill the music. He loved the music, and a few months later, he came to Israel with Oz Fritz and James Dellatacoma, and they recorded and produced Insaniya. It was recorded in Tel Aviv, but Bill also did a little bit of recording in New Jersey at his studio there.
Was it a similar process to how you recorded the first album?
We did the arrangements together—me, Rony Iwryn, Itamar Doari, Itamar Borochov, and Shanir—and then Bill took it to another level. He produced it. When we were recording, he took out many of our arrangements. He made space in the music. He approached the music very differently than the first album. Insaniya is more focused on the groove and has a more produced sound. It has a bigger sound in a way, it’s digital, and it was the first time we used keyboards.
But still no drum set in the band?
On the albums we don’t use a drum set, but we do some of our live shows with a drum set. The tour that was supposed to be, which was cut in the middle because of corona, was supposed to be with Nikki Glaspie. She’s Beyoncé’s former drummer from New York. We were supposed to do the tour in March, but most of the band couldn’t fly to make the tour, so Shanir and I did half the tour as a duo.
What is your project that’s with the poems of Rabbi Shalom Shabazi?
A year-and-a-half ago, was the 400th anniversary of the birth of Rabbi Shalom Shabazi. He is one of the greatest Jewish poets. He wrote more than 850 poems, and most of the lyrics are connected to the holiness the Jewish religion. He was a big rabbi back in Yemen.
What was special about his poems?
He wrote songs with the same kinds of rhythmic rules for words, similar to how they were used in Spanish poetry back then. I took those songs, and recomposed them according to the original rhythmic way to sing those words.
Did that have to do with meter and pulse?
Kind of. If the word is split into two or three, that’s its rhythm. The weight of the word—how you divide the word so it has the right weight—there is a deep reason behind it.
Is any of it recorded?
It’s not recorded. I am looking for a way to record it. It’s not easy, as I said before, there is not enough support for music and creation, so it is hard to record a project like that.
Will you do that with Yemen Blues, or will it be a different line up?
It would be more or less the same musicians that I work with. It is a beautiful project, and great music. I am looking forward to doing it. I did another project, too. After years of not working with Omer Avital, we did another project where I recomposed the Hallel prayer. We did a tour of that show not so long ago, in November. We did eight shows in seven cities in the U.S. and Canada. It was amazing. In New York, we hosted a few gospel singers from the First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, and it was beautiful. The whole vibe of the groove between the Yemeni Jewish singing, the Arabic harmonies, the funky horns, the sometimes funky sound, and the funky rhythms mixed with other rhythms like Arabic and Latin, all of that blends, and sounds very organic together. We did it, and the Gospel singers sang the Hallel with us.
Were they able to handle the Hebrew words?
The didn’t say so many Hebrew words, but some words they knew already, like, “Hallelujah.” They sang a few Hebrew words, but it was very natural.