Dj Nocturna Interview With Mickey Weems and Marwan Kamel from the City of DJinn Project

The City of DJinn  project began as an invitation by Mickey Weems,  Project Coordinator to send Marwan Kamel and Micah Bezold to travel from Chicago to Hawaii to perform as the City of DJinn and bring Muslim musical artists to perform and discuss Islam, Sufism, mysticism and transgression to Hawaii. Weems submitted a proposal and was granted by SEEDS IDEAS and the Department of English at UH Manoa. Kamel and Bezold are both students of Sufism who take traditional Arabic music and give it an American twist as their version of drone rock.  When Covid 19  struck, it didn’t stop the musical duo from completing the project and they started to work remotely and the collaboration extended to include some of the following artists: DJ Chris Chartier, hip-hop activist Navid Najafi, Poet Yasmine Ruhia, Sama Essa of Oman, DJ Russell Dement-Trent, DJ Yves Kline, violinist Patrick Park , KTUH Honolulu and myself, DJ Nocturna who helped coordinate the interviews. There’s a whole list of people to thank for this project but it could not have been possible without the undying passion and dedication of Mickey Weems  

Kamel and Bezold ground their music in the intricacies of maqam, the classical system of melodic modes in Arab music and Amercian rock. “I went through a punk phase,” he recalled, but was not satisfied with American music and the instruments with  which he had become familiar, first the violin as a child, then the guitar. Eventually, he encountered his true love, the buzuq, a long necked string instrument found in Syria and Lebanon. As rooted as he is in classical Arabic music, one might suspect that his second love is innovation. But he finds much of his energy is dedicated to resurrection. 

This multitasking duo, City of DJinn create post-Tarab – a longform sonic tapestry of dark, psychedelic, drone rock that draws from experimental music vernacular as well maqam tradition. Their arsenal of instruments ranges from electric buzuq, modified quarter-tone acoustic-electric guitar, violin, fretless electric guitar, foot pedal drums/cymbals, darbuka, daf, DIY stompbox and samplers. 

https://cityofdjinn.bandcamp.com/releases

https://somnimage.bandcamp.com/album/city-of-djinn