Music from Aleppo during the Syrian War: Displacement and Memory in Hello Psychaleppo’s Electro-Tarab, by Clara Wenz
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Can there be new homes for tarab outside Syria?What happens to musical traditions rooted in specific social relations, urban spaces, and listening communities when those worlds are fractured by war and displacement?These questions lie at the heart of Clara Wenz's concise yet richly textured Cambridge Elements, 1 Music from Aleppo during the Syrian War: Displacement and Memory in Hello Psychaleppo's Electro-Tarab.Focusing on the music of the US-based Syrian producer and DJ Hello Psychaleppo (Samer Saem Eldahr), Wenz offers a compelling exploration of how musical memory is reactivated through practices of sampling, and how displaced musicians negotiate belonging, loss, and creativity through sound.At first glance, the book appears to be a study of a single artist and genre.However, Wenz's intervention extends far beyond Hello Psychaleppo's musical output.Through an analysis of electro-tarab, a style that combines electronic dance music genres such as dubstep, drum and bass, trap, and trip-hop with digitally mediated Arab musical aesthetics and sampled recordings from the Arab musical canon, she develops a broader
Source: Music & Minorities
DOI: 10.52413/mm.2026.80
Author: Dunya Habash
Institution: University of Cambridge
Language: English
Topic: Music History and Culture
Subfield: Music
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7225591666