Joe Namy AKA El Iqaa

Joe Namy AKA El Iqaa (Arabic for provider of the beat) is an independent multimedia artist creating sample based sound collages exploring the musical history of his roots – based somewhere within the triangulated time-space of Detroit / New York / Beirut. He is an interdiciplinary artist who is currently studying to obtain a total freedom of expression through any and all means of visual and sonic communications.

Joe Namy received a MFA from New York University, participated in Ashkal Alwan's Home Workspace programme in 2011-12, and has studied jazz, Arabic and heavy-metal drumming. He has worked with performance, sound, photography and mixed media installation to investigate aspects of youth culture and masculinity, while focusing on the intrinsic power dynamics played out in certain subcultures often impacted by the prophetic force of music. His work has been exhibited, amplified, screened at the Detroit Science Center (USA), Queens Museum (USA), Brooklyn Museum (USA), Art Dubai (UAE), Homeworks (Lebanon), Beirut Art Center (Lebanon).

He also hosts and produces the program Electric Kahraba for the online radio station artonair.org.

He has made 4 albums,using mainly electronic tools and samples from old 45's and new mp3's.

"I seek to promote and empower an image deserving of my heritage. Appropriating from a culturally insensitive and illiterate media, I attempt to create a consciousness for my people, a people that is all too often misunderstood and misrepresented. My expressions are related through exploiting the digital medium from which many of these constricts are propagated. However, this art is not only a means to educate those who are denied exposure to a true Arab image, but serves also to clarify my own identity, as well as inspire self-awareness for others". 

El Iqaa – Detroit Beirut (2007)

This music was made with live drums, with samples from old 45's and new mp3's, with a mixer and a mic, Michael's Moog, technics and technique, some claps and snaps, a g4, pro tools, sticks on cymbals from Istanbul, fingers on a Kevork riq, masking tape, kahwa araby, sweat, pride and love (infused with a little camoon). [It] is [the] rhythm from rebellions and resistance, for empowerment and progression. Through audio imaging, history is sampled onto the future, terrorific stereotypes are rejected, a slandered heritage is reclaimed, the ruins of a city are rebuilt. Sound and visions express the struggles and share the beauty of Detroit, Beirut.

( http://piratebeirut.com)

01 Prayer for a Passive Resistance [1:54]
02 She Still Sings(as the world passes her by)[1:16]
03 Whoever Can Will [3:45]*
04 Time Is Changing [1:27]
05 If Your Heart Is Ice [2:27]
06 America Today [0:24]
07 We F*d Up Iraq (Electro-Jurjina) [1:56]
08 July War (Juxtapose Instrumental) [3:14]
09 While They Were Sleeping [1:36]
10 Al-Safi Interlude [1:07]
11 Detroit Beirut [3:03]
12 This Time [1:17]
13 7 Wonders [1:56]
14 Bitter Cherries [2:41]
15 Music Make You Lose Control [2:07]
16 Make 'Em Shout (one more time) [1:43]
17 Drumming War in US [0:56]*
18 Wahab's Bounce[2:08]
19 Zeina [2:28]
20 Al-Arabiya [3:50]
21 Olds 98 [1:18]
22 1001 Fights [1:54]
23 Keep Pushing [1:08]
24 Doctor Crush [3:06]*
25 Dawr Hindi Blues [1:14]
26 or.G In Rhythm (Dulab Live Ver.) [3:51]
27 Movement of the Tribe [4:45]
28 Floating On A Nod [3:40]

HERE

El Iqaa – circulate (2011)

Circulate (EP) نشر – is a collection of tracks created within the past year in dialogue with various video/photographic/installation art projects.These research projects, and the musical asides they inspire, all carry overarching themes which the artist is continually struggling to define; issues of language and translation (specifically around the languages of Arabic, English, Music and Love), memory, movement, electricity (power) and appropriation. circulate (EP) نشر explores these issues through quotes and cuts from specific definitive samples (ranging from Abdel Halim Hafez to Pierre Boulez, Amiri Baraka to Trisha Donnelly + much more). These splices are mixed with original recorded sounds to create a dialogue between the past and the future, in hopes of trying to make some sense of the present.

  ( http://piratebeirut.com)

 
1 we were struck by love  #humanity's special power 02:06
2 maksur   #diasporics 02:56
3 rahou  #resurface 04:00
4 ya deeb  #ritornello 02:38
5 parabolic mirrors   #containers 02:29
6 cyan triangles  #present cacophony 01:49
7 tufgng   #prizmatic remux 02:16
8 nseet  #this well of privation 02:21
9 rated raqs   #things that quicken the heart 03:05
10 crepusculars sunrise  #3rd mind 

HERE 

 

El Iqaa – SuperExtra( 2013)

1 Jjjjadid 02:44 

2 Geomantic Romantics 02:12
3 Tik Tik Tek 03:41
4 CoBoys Parlay 01:08
5 Opium Red Handkerchiefs 02:35
6 She's So Jupiter, I'm More Jupiter 04:02
7 Suite for Southwest - I - 28th Color 04:38
8 Suite for Southwest - II - Midnights Under Bypasses 03:27
9 Suite for Southwest - III - Static Vertical 03:05 

10 MetaStatic 06:10

11 As Soon as You Start Thinking About the Beginning. Its the End 03:01
12 Bellerophon Orbiting A Sun Like Star 04:28
13 Come Sunday (corniche edit)

HERE

El Iqaa – Rising to a Level of Blissful Stability (2013)

 

1 A Sea of Grief is Not a Proscenium 03:30
2 Party of god 03:06
3 Night Eyes 05:06
4 Over Palms (drones) 03:25
5 Entities With Uncertain Boundaries 04:25
6 Turning the thousand poems into a shapeless indeterminate heap 01:27
7 1 raised to the power of infinity

HERE


Joe Namy's official site