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Ya Matar Wa Amtor (Pour O’ Rain) is a traditional Yemeni mahjal,[1] sung when rain falls in the villages and cities of the northwestern regions of the country. An idea for a project came to Osama Khaled when he was working on reproducing traditional Yemeni songs with electro beats. Osama, who is based in Berlin, collaborated with Ammar Zayed, based in Cairo, and worked together on the song.
The musicians released a one-minute long version of Ya Matar Wa Amtor on social media to experiment and evaluate the reception of the song. Despite its brevity, this new version was received positively. Both Osama and Ammar shared the version with musicians whose feedback contributed to shaping the song in the way we hear it today.
Osama believes that Yemeni music can be a part of internationally distributed music, reaching a wider global audience. He aspires to release an album where he uses various techniques to reproduce traditional Yemeni music in collaboration with Yemeni and non-Yemeni musicians. Ya Matar Wa Amtor is reproduced with the use of electro rhythms as Osama previously did with Anastana Ya Eid (Eid Our Joyful Companion).[2] Both Ammar and Osama hope that Ya Matar Wa Amtor will be the beginning of many further projects that they love, and enjoy sharing with their audience.
Osama Khaled is a Yemeni filmmaker who, after producing his first documentary film in 2009, was commissioned by several television and national and international entities to work on films. In addition to his passion for filmmaking, Osama Khaled has a special passion for music. He was trained in music production, which he has used to produce traditional Yemeni music with electro beats. Anastana Ya Eid was the result of his efforts, as was Ya Matar Wa Amtor, which he worked on with Ammar Zayed. Osama’s latest music project is a song he wrote called A’atesbor (It Shall Pass), performed by Mohammed Khaled, highlighting the situation in Yemen from a humanitarian perspective.
You can follow Osama’s work on his website as well as his Facebook and Instagram pages.
Ammar Zayed is a Yemeni artist who studied business adminstration and moved to Cairo in order to receive training in music and sound engineering. Ammar participated in a number of festivals in Yemen and abroad. He is passionate about reproducing traditional Yemeni music through mixing with various music genres and beats. He has previously released Yawm al-ahad (Sunday) and is planning to release Mashtish (I Do Not Want to), Ma Ma’akom (What You’ve Got) and Rafat O’yooni (My Eyes Blinked).
You can follow Ammar’s work on his YouTube channel as well as his Facebook and Instagram pages.
[1] Mahjal is a form of Yemeni colloquial poetry that is usually sung by farmers and workers during the hours of labor.
[2] A Yemeni song written by Yemeni Poet Abbas Mohammed al-Mota’a, composed and sung in the late 1970s by Yemeni singer Ali Bin Ali al-Anesi.
