[MUSIC]

Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar filling in for Alison Stewart. My next guest, the Tunisian-born, New York City-based artist, Emel, is coming out with a new album this Friday. It's called MRA. Here's a short clip.

[MUSIC - EMEL]

Kousha Navidar: EMEL's musical career could be described as always evolving, always pushing. In college, she played in a metal band, then fell in love with the sound of Joan Baez and folk music. Her international breakthrough was the song Kelmti Horra, which means "my word is free," a protest song that was effectively banned in her home country, but became a hit across Southwest Asia and North Africa during the Arab Spring.

In 2015, EMEL was even invited to sing at the concert for the Nobel Peace Prize. Around the same time, she officially relocated to New York City, where she's been for the last decade, and it's where she recorded part of her new album. The title MRA, translates to "woman" in Tunisian Arabic. That's a nod to the fact that the album was created by a team of female producers, musicians, technicians, artists, rappers, and composers. To preview the album ahead of its release, I'm delighted to be joined by EMEL live in WNYC Studio 5. EMEL, welcome.

EMEL: Thank you. Hi.

Kousha Navidar: Could you start us with the song?

EMEL: Sure.

[MUSIC - EMEL: L'amour]

Kousha Navidar: If you're just listening in, this is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar. We're lucky to have EMEL in studio, talking about her upcoming album, MRA. That was L'amour. Emel, could you explain some of the inspiration behind that song?

EMEL: There was a bunch of inspirations behind the song. Specifically, I think my first inspiration was to do a techno track, which was a really cool challenge, because I have never produced or performed a techno track. I was really having fun geeking on software and playing around with bass sounds and really like glitches. Then I met Liza, who co-produced this track with me initially. I started actually playing around with languages. I thought that I didn't want this song to be in just one language. I wanted to record some French.

Actually, I have a few poetry references. I'm a huge fan of poetry. I discovered two Arab poets, [unintelligible 00:07:13], who explores the theme of love a lot and very intensely in her poetry, which is why like we hear l'amour and the song is called L'amour. I'm trying to describe this immense and intense feeling that's deep, that could be a little bit too intense, that can take us off the rails we're on. This is a little bit what the song explores, and that's why we have all these rhythm switches.

I also wanted to invite Justina, who's an Iranian rapper, one of the most amazing rappers I've ever heard. She has such an amazing flow. Of course, her part is definitely super political. Yes, we're talking about love, but in a very unexpected way. We're breaking a bunch of rules. We're pushing a bunch of boundaries here. It's one of the tracks that I'm most excited about.

Kousha Navidar: It got me excited. I speak Farsi, and it's funny to listen to the rap section. I heard words like "book" and "people pop out" that I wasn't expecting. I'm like, "Oh, this is my brain working by just listening."

EMEL: Oh, wow.

Kousha Navidar: I love hearing the multiple languages on there. For you, do certain languages work better in certain contexts to express things than other languages, or how do you pick between which language you want to record in?

EMEL: It's a very interesting question because when I started music, I started singing in English. That was the language that I felt most comfortable with. Then eventually, I realized, so I actually speak Arabic and I should try to do my own thing. Somehow, for a bunch of years, I found some formula where I was using Tunisian Arabic, which is a language that’s not very often sang because in the Arab region, the two dialects that dominate are Lebanese and Egyptian. It's also my way of always saying, "No," and being a rebel.

Also, I thought that my way of writing Tunisian Arabic was a little bit more in the direction that I wanted, which was more revolutionary, more rock. I take also inspiration from poets like Gibran Kahlil Gibran, where the poetry is not smooth. It's raw. I don’t know, at some point, after moving to New York, after a few years, I released an album almost entirely in English, and I started being nostalgic to singing in English because the way to- -use my voice and the way to write about vocals is completely different from English to Arabic. I think most of the time, I just write songs that are not necessarily for me to sing. I'd be going from these low notes to these high notes.

When I started singing and writing in English again, I felt that I found something that was really me and that was in between. Eventually, for this record, I think I made peace with English, Arabic, and French. I decided to just let any language come to my mind because I think each music also calls for the right. It's the balance between the rhythm and the beat. I enjoyed also mixing languages.

Kousha Navidar: Well, I think that you've got another song for us, Massive Will. Would you be able to play that one for us?

EMEL: Phew. Yay.

[MUSIC - EMEL: Massive Will]

Kousha Navidar: Wow. This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar, and we're in studio live with EMEL, the musical artist. Her new album MRA is coming out. We just heard her perform Massive Will. EMEL, MRA seems to be a really story-driven album. One song, Maurice is about an immigrant abused by employers, another, Mazel is about a Trans woman and assault survivor. How do these stories come to you?

EMEL: Well, social media. This is probably the good side because it really confronts us to what's happening but in a very, very direct way and you’re really in touch with people. I'm someone that likes to be in touch with my fan base. I'm always checking my messages because there's so many interesting people out there. I think I'm very lucky because somehow the people that listen to my music, they always have amazing things to say. They're deep. I love that part of my job.

The Trans woman's story was someone that initially wrote to me because she likes my music, and then she started just telling me her story, but in a very poetic way. I read between the lines what was obvious and I was deeply moved and I really wanted to write about it. I don't know, I had that drive when you are like, "Oh my God, I have this strong emotion. I have to write it."

I hope I did justice, but I really also felt even though I didn't suffer what she went through, but I felt a parallel because, for me, this album was also a way to not surrender. This album is a way to control my destiny and my future and not be a victim. There're so many different ways for us to be a victim and especially me as an Arab African woman, I feel that there's always so much expectations and there's so many ways the Western medias try to define me. I felt stripped from my many layers over the years. I wanted through this album to say things a little bit more straightforward like, "Boom."

Kousha Navidar: Do you share the song with the fan before it's released?

EMEL: I did.

Kousha Navidar: What's that? What happens? What's that like?

EMEL: It's a big moment because if she hates it, over, but luckily, she really loved it. I thought it was very important for me to share it because I didn't want to-- I mean, I loved the song. I knew we did a good job in arranging it and producing it, but of course, her feedback was the most important for me. This album is ultimately is about stories of invisible violence. In the times we are in right now, I felt it was really important to tell all these stories because there's so much invisible violence.

The Me Too Movement just started not too long ago, but I feel there's still so much to denounce. There is so much that we need to talk about. As a woman, I didn't feel I was really helping other women by just putting myself in the front line. I thought like "This is not enough. I can be a strong woman and inspire people, but that's not enough. I have to share my platform."

Whatever platform I have, I have to share it with other women and give them hope, give them opportunities so that-- For me, this album is much more than an album. I wish for it to be more of a movement where us women also start breaking all the inherited wrong ideas that we are rivals, that we can't trust each other, that when we get in a studio and there's a woman behind the board, we don't feel comfortable. This is all real. I'm talking about things that I personally experience and I try to break all of those wrong habits one by one while doing this album.

Kousha Navidar: If you're just joining us, we are talking to the artist EMEL about her upcoming album MRA. That description that you have about creating a platform for people and having music be a part of a movement I think is something that so many musicians can relate to. You yourself have been able to see your music make a big difference. There's one more performance I think we've got, Rise. I'd love to hear it. Since this is a live show, I just want to point out, we have a clock here- -and I think we have just enough time to hear the whole song, but what I'm going to do, just to be safe, is thank you before we get to the song for the album-

EMEL: Thank you.

Kousha Navidar: -and for coming and for performing. The album is out Friday, correct?

EMEL: Yes.

Kousha Navidar: MRA, EMEL, take it away.

[MUSIC - Emel: Rise]

 

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