“fatima al qadiri is the streets.” born in senegal, raised in kuwait, fatima al qadiri is now living and working in new york city, deftly summoning her worldly middle-eastern roots in her work. she has popped up on multiple radars of ours — through writing for dismagazine, to being remixed by physical therapy and spun by brenmar, to being named by gatekeeper as one of their favorite contemporary artists. the more we discovered from there, the more intrigued we became, learning about her explorations of goth subculture in kuwait, and her beat-less “symphonic diet raves,” and her acapella project “ayshay,” exploring sunni and shiite acapella jams, quoting and warping the phrases of the qur’an.
her track, “d-medley,” marks an unexpected shift in style, while still keeping all her reference points intact. exotic instrumentation, ethereal wordless aahs, and that “symphonic diet rave” vibe are all present here, each magic layer a shaft of light in this luminous forest. by the time the drums hit somewhere after the two-minute mark, only to disappear again, it almost seems like an afterthought: we’d sooner reach for the physical therapy edit in a party context, but with this tune, your brain’s tastebuds are already tapdancing. bask in this glow:
here’s an exclusive preview of the (as-yet-unfinished) physical therapy remix, set for release next week:
FATIMA AL QADIRI – D-MEDLEY (PHYSICAL THERAPY EDIT) by PHYSICAL THERAPY
we also were mesmerized by this video of her ayshay project’s “warn-u,” included in gatekeeper’s youtube mix.
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more fatima:
fatima al qadiri soundcloud
fatima al qadiri myspace
