The other day I stumbled across a curious piece of information that I had not known until then: there is a rumor that the Lebanese diva Fairuz performed a “miracle” during her visit to Brazil in 1961. According to this rumor, the artist made it rain in the drought after her performance of song “Shatti ya Dini” (rain, O world). This story is mentioned briefly in the book “Popular Culture and Nationalism in Lebanon” by Christopher Stone. The author does not mention the story because he thinks it is real, of course, but as evidence of the aura of Fairuz – to this day the main voice in Lebanon. One of the theses of Stone’s book is that the songs by Fairuz, 87, were key pieces in the discursive construction of the Lebanese nation.
The passage in Stone’s book took me to vinyl second-hand bookstores, until I finally found a copy of the vinyl recorded by Fairuz during his 1961 tour. The album “Min Haflat fi al-Brazil wa-l-Arjantin” (Brazilian concerts and Argentina) was released in 1962 in France, bringing together just two songs: “Dabket al-Mijana” and “Cantos Populares Libaneses”.
The musical intersections between Lebanon and Brazil are not restricted to this vinyl. One of Fairuz’s most iconic songs, “Aatini al-Naya wa-Ghani” (Give me the flute and sing) was written by singer Najib Hankash during his years in Brazil as an immigrant. The lyrics are a poem by Gibran Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese living in the US.
It is also remarkable how much Brazilian music has influenced Lebanese culture. According to an article by Gabrielle Messeder, migratory ties partly explain the impact of Brazilian genres on the eastern Mediterranean. Also important in this process was the work of Fairuz, who re-recorded a series of bossa nova classics.
I leave, below, an excerpt from the vinyl recorded by Fairuz on the 1961 tour:
Also listen to Fairuz’s song “Aatini al-Naya wa-Ghani”:
