 |
Bilal بلال | |
|---|---|
 Bilal, The Arab Gypsy Prince | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Ban Bella El Hantir |
| Born | 1983 (age 39–40) |
| Origin | Lebanon |
| Genres | Oriental Gipsy Music |
| Occupation(s) | Singer |
| Years active | 1998–present |
Bilal (born 1983) is a Lebanese singer of Nawari descent, who is notable for singing not only in Arabic, but mainly in Domari, his native language. [1]
Ban Bella El Hantir, also known as Bilal, the Arab Gipsy Prince, comes from the Dom people, a Romany Middle Eastern ethnic group that Gadjos call the "Nawar" in Arabic. Like most nomadic Domi families, Bilal's clan constantly moves from one place to another throughout the Middle East. To earn their wage during their stops, grown up men play musical instruments and sing, and women dance and tell good fortune. As for young boys, they often work as shoeshiners in large cities such as Damascus, Beirut and Istanbul. [2]
Bilal was a shoeshine boy when Greek-Lebanese producer Michel Elefteriades met him after he heard him singing an Arab Gipsy song while shining a customer's shoes on the sidewalk near his Beirut office. This was in 1997 and Bilal was only 14 years old. Elefteriades was immediately struck by his young voice and felt the artistic potential the young man had for future success. Moreover, being an eminent tziganologist, [3] he was eager to launch a successful career for an artist who comes from the Dom community and to reflect its impact positively on the image of Gypsies around the Arab world. As Bilal was illiterate and had never been to school, Elefteriades started and supported both his general and musical education, also providing him with the necessary skills and assets that would enable him to put up with the stress and responsibilities of future stardom. [4]
In 2002, Bilal started performing in concerts and was guest to major Arab TV shows on the Middle East's prime satellite television networks. The peak of his success story was his appearance at one of the most prestigious performing arts festival in the Arab world, the Baalbeck International Festival. Bilal's recordings include, for the first time in history, songs in the language known as Domari [5]
In 2012 Bilal was a guest on Coke Studio (Middle East) alongside Rouwaida Attieh and The Yugoslavian Gypsy Brass Band from the Balkan. [6]
They all come together to create a fusion where the Oriental Tarab music meets the Gypsy music with all its facets. [7]
In 2014 Bilal was featured in the book "Beirut Re-Collected" by Tamyras. [8] [9]
In the summer of 2014, Bilal released his first album entitled: Bilal The Gipsy Prince. [10]
In the summer of 2016, he performed at the MusicHallogy Festival, which was held at The MusicHall Waterfront. [11]
In July 2017, he appeared in another prestigious performing arts festival in the Arab world, The Jounieh International Festival.
In addition to being an artist, Bilal is also working actively for the recognition of his people, the Dom, who still live in poor conditions. [12] Results of his struggle are starting to show, as more people are realizing that the "Nawar" have a rich cultural heritage that deserves to be known and recognized. [13]
The music of Lebanon has a long history. Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon, has long been known, especially in a period immediately following World War II, for its art and intellectualism. Several singers emerged in this period, among the most famous Fairuz, Sabah, Wadih El Safi, Nasri Shamseddine, Melhem Barakat, Majida El Roumi, Ahmad Kaabour, Marcel Khalife, and Ziad Rahbani, who—in addition to being an engaged singer-songwriter and music composer—was also a popular playwright. Lydia Canaan was hailed by the media as the first rock star of the Middle East.
The Dom are descendants of the Dom with origins in the Indian subcontinent which through ancient migrations are found scattered across Middle East, North Africa, the Eastern Anatolia Region, and parts of the Balkans and Hungary. The traditional language of the Dom is Domari, an endangered Indo-Aryan language, thereby making the Dom an Indo-Aryan ethnic group.
The culture of Lebanon and the Lebanese people emerged from various civilizations over thousands of years. It was home to the Phoenicians and was subsequently conquered and occupied by the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Ottoman Turks and the French. This variety is reflected in Lebanon's diverse population, composed of different religious groups, and features in the country's festivals, literature, artifacts, cuisine and architecture of Lebanon. Tourism in Lebanon is popular with periods of interruption during conflict.
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Domari is an endangered Indo-Aryan language, spoken by Dom people scattered across the Middle East and North Africa. The language is reported to be spoken as far north as Azerbaijan and as far south as central Sudan, in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Syria and Lebanon. Based on the systematicity of sound changes, it is known with a fair degree of certainty that the names Domari and Romani derive from the Indo-Aryan word ḍom. However, the Domari and Romani languages do not derive from the same ancestor idiom. Domari derives from an Indo-Aryan language. The Arabs referred to them as Nawar as they were a nomadic people that originally immigrated to the Middle East from the Indian subcontinent.
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Nawar is an Arabic term for several nomad communities used primarily in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine. The term, regarded as derogatory, is used by Arabs for several diverse ethnic groups. They have historically been called "Gypsies", though as a whole they only have economic activities and lifestyle in connection with the Romani. The Dom people are especially known as Nawar.
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The Domari-speaking community in Syria, commonly identified as Dom and Nawar, is estimated to number 100–250,000 or 250–300,000 people. The vast majority is sedentary. There are semi-nomadic groups, some moving outside the country. In Aleppo, the Dom community is probably the largest, while they are reported to live in Damascus, Homs and Latakia as well. The community is highly marginalised in society, and they are referred to as Qurbāṭ and Qarač in the northern part, and Nawar elsewhere. These terms are used for various groups that mainly share socio-economic profile. The community is divided into clans.
Doms in Tunisia speak the Domari language. They immigrated to the territory of the present day Tunisia from South Asia, particularly from India, in Byzantine times. Dom and Nawar people self-segregated themselves for centuries from the dominant culture of Tunisia, who view Romani as dishonorable though clever. Historically, Gypsies in Tunisia have provided musical entertainment as weddings and other celebrations. The Romani people or Gypsies in Tunisia include subgroups like Nawar, Halebi and Ghagar.
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