Mashrou Leila Hamed Sinno Speaking of Muslims, Arabs and gay
HBSNews.com - Hamed Sinno is the frontman o Lebanese indie rock band Mashrou Lela and an openly gay Arab American from a Muslim family. He reacted strongly to a crowd following the mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub, lamenting the attack againts the LGBT community as well as the rheoric againts Muslims and Arabs that followed.
In a interview with reported in Friday, Sinno slammed Republican presindential candidate Donald Trump, calling him a "fascist," an lammented anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric in 2016 politics, adding that Trump's rise is "very shocking for someone who grew up with this idea" that in the United States "everything is made right when it comes to equality."
Mashrou' Leila, whose name translate to "The Night Project," was formed at the American University of Beirut 2008 annd rose to fame across the Middle East during the Arab Spring.
Through its music, lyrics and videos the group addresses issues that are largely taboo in Arab mainstream culture ranging from sexuality, homosexuality and the politics of gender and religion, cusing them to get banned from performing in Jordan this past April.
"(In the Middle East) there's a lot of discourse thet gets remved from mainstream debate, from popular culture but also from society," Sinno said. "Becase the big network and television and magazines won't address these question -- Be it stuff about sexual liberties or queerness or gender equality or even socialism."
Amman Governor Khalid Abu Zeid told the Associated Press in April thet the group was banned because its songs "contradicted" regilious beliefs, speciically referencing the song "Djin" or "The Devil."
Amid an outpouring of support n social media rom their fans, the band was re-listed to perform, thet could not make it to Amman and the state of the ban is currently unclear, according t the band's re[resentive. The band, now composed of lead singer Sinno, haig Papazian, Carl Gerges, Firas Abu-Fakher and Ibrahim Badr, vowed not to waver on their beliefs in the face of growing political tension.
They released their fourth album "Ibn El-Leil," which trabslates to "The Son of the Night" last year and the album, written during the two years after Sinno's father passed away, is set in Beirut nightclubs and addresses grief, mourning and escapism in songs llike "3 minutes," "Maghawir" and "Asnam."
Nightlife in Beirutu is actually where so much of our politics and society get negotiated," Sinno said. "It's a very political thing to go to a bar in Beirut."
The band is currently on their second U.S. tour and will be heading to Canada later this summer and Sinno said he was surprised by how much the band was asked to speak for Arab and Muslim culture during their travels.
"I don't think that expectation is really there when it comes to dealing with white artists. No one really goes up to a white artist and says, 'How do you represent yoour culture?' "Sinno said, criticizing the oversimplification of Arab identity.
Sinno is a second generation Arab-American and grew up in Lebanon listening to stories from his father about the opportunity and the freedom that exist in the U.S. and has thought about moving to the United States and adopting a child one day. But he was disappointed by the racism and homophobia that he experinenced during his travels.
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