"The club is analogous to a church: it’s a communal space, where the music becomes a secret language". DJ Hadi Zeidan
Maybe we just had a not-bad summer at AG… but we are turned on to the communal and healing power of music again.
To that end, read this piece from Melissa Chemam from the Markaz Review, profiling the Lebanese (but Paris-based) DJ Hadi Zeidan,
“The democratization of music tools helped the music process; I found them easy to use. I love their ‘DIY’ elements,” he confesses. “I believe almost everyone is an artist, or wants to express themselves in some way, but they need to find means to do so. When I started electro music, the software had become abundant, and the tools responded to what I was looking for.
:I’ve never felt bound to one instrument only, so it opens many routes for me. This approach to music was also developing in Beirut at the same time. So, it allowed me to stay connected with my roots, while experimenting with sounds.”
Zeidan has found a home in a very iconic music venue, La Bellevilloise, in northeast Paris, where he started to perform as a DJ, and became a resident. He created his Beirut Electro Parade too, inviting other artists to perform with him, such as Dimitra Zina, Lebanese Underground, Bakisa, Boshoco, and Jad Taleb.
“The Bellevilloise opened a space for me,” Zeidan says. “I ended up being there so much, with five special nights as a DJ a year, that it directed me in many of my compositions. In 2017/18, when composing in my home studio, I always had this space in mind. Then I evolved to perform in other venues as well, like the New Morning.”
Zeidan believes that space can mold the art of music. That’s how he was inspired to launch the Beirut Electro Parade and his Paris-Beirut events. “I wanted to represent Beirut’s music scene across the globe, as it’s where I had my first musical education. Music can be a vibration, wherever you are, there’s an energy. I consider myself a dance floor artist; I love DJ-ing.
“To me, the best training, the best way to display music, is the dance floor. It feels more like an opera house or a theatre to me, where the music resonates with us, humans, and when it is transformed into movement. To me, when music is at its purest form, it’s with a community dancing to it.
“In that way, the club is to me analogous to a church: it’s a communal space, where the music becomes a secret language, and can even take a spiritual dimension for many people. And I love Paris for that. It’s a very liberated space.”
More here. And embedded above, a 2019 set from Zeidan (which does all the talking).