Tania Saleh sings and draws children’s games

It’s been more than 20 years since Tania Saleh became an essential face of the Arab alternative scene, more precisely since her album Al-Jil al-Jadeed (The New Generation), released in 2002. Since then, she has multiplied her experiences, between cinema (songs from films Caramel et Now where are we going? ? by Nadine Labaki), the bossa nova rhythms in Few Images (2014) or the committed texts mixed with electro accents in Intersection (2017).

By choosing to sing for children with Children’s play, the Lebanese artist is part of a certain tradition of alternative Arab singers who have put their talent at the service of a repertoire that is wrong to consider as minor¹. If some, like Marcel Khalifé and Oumayma Al-Khalil, also made very political choices for this type of piece (“ Tefl w treatment » — The Child and the Plane —, « Lewlad w el-dhib » — The children and the wolf —, album At the Border, 1980), other artists like the Palestinian Rim Banna (April Blossoms. Songs from Palestine, 2009) or more recently Faraj Suleiman (Faheem, 2021) have helped to democratize the idea that children also deserve the attention of professional artists.

An album to listen to… and see

Designed at a time when music became dematerialized, Children’s game is both an album and an object. The musical opus consisting of 10 songs in Lebanese Arabic, original creations by Tania Saleh, will be released on November 11, 2024 on all known music platforms. It is already announced on YouTube with the first clips in the form of animated films. As for the object – both a coloring book and an album booklet containing the lyrics of the songs and their translations in French and English – it will be available before the end-of-year holidays, with a launch party planned in Beirut and which the artist hopes to maintain, despite Israeli aggression.

Tania Saleh attended art school and had a life as a graphic designer before being tempted by music. Concerned about the visual universe of her albums, she has always accompanied them with original creative work, in photography, drawing or graffiti. During the production of his album Intersection, she notably highlighted this street art which experienced its golden age in the Arab world at the time of the Arab revolutions. In Children’s gamea common thread connects the music and the book: the artist’s drawings, handmade watercolors that she then scans and animates to make videos of the songs. Some of these drawings are available in black and white for coloring. She explains:

The idea is to be able to listen to music in the most accessible way possible on my phone, but to have an object with which I can create a bond with the children, particularly in the meetings which will take place in the refugee camps by example, in Lebanon and elsewhere.

And the children in all this ?

Children’s play, first album that the artist has recorded in Paris since moving to the French capital in 2022, is a long-standing project that was precipitated by events. Tania Saleh had long entertained the idea of ​​an album for Lebanese children inside the country and in the diaspora, but on October 7, 2023, the genocide and the massacres that followed happened:

I have an album already ready for adults, but it wasn’t the time for me to talk with the adults. I wanted to do something for the children, for someone to think of them with everything that’s happening, all this destruction they’re experiencing. We must not lie to them, act as if nothing had happened, but the colors, the drawings are there to tell them that this whole war is going to end.

In fact, the songs oscillate between the essentials of the children’s repertoire – the alphabet, the days of the week, the lullaby -, but allow a double reading where the history and current events of the region – Lebanon, Palestine – are well present. So it is with the piece “ The Jar » (Le Voisin), telling in a frantic rhythm the story of this house which burns while the man who inhabits it is absent and « the key is in his pocket ». A subtle reference to the keys that Palestinians, driven from their lands since the Nakba, take with them, with the hope of one day being able to enjoy their right of return. We also easily guess the identity of this “ Big monster » from 7^e track which « attacks village houses and burns olive trees », and which takes the form of a giant military boot in the clip. The tribute to the Gazans is more explicit in the song “ Dawwi » (Brille) dedicated « with much love to engineer Houssam Al-Attar », a child from Gaza displaced with his family. He was nicknamed “ le Newton de Gaza » for having succeeded, using wind energy, in bringing electricity back to the tents of the displaced.

Neither denigration nor autarky

The pieces of music like the booklet highlight a clever mix of Phoenician mythological or historical references, promotion of the Arabic language – particularly among children of the Lebanese diaspora in non-Arabic speaking countries – and references to Western classics, like Mozart’s piece “ Twelve variations on “Ah ! would I tell you mom? » (reprised in melody for the alphabet or with the song « Twinkle Twinkle Little Star ), or the reference to the fable of “ The Cicada and the Ant » in the music video for the song « Moussiqa » (Musique). « I want to show our children that, of course, we can take things from Western culture, which has its richness, but we also have beautiful things of which we should be proud. It’s not exclusive. »

By giving children to listen to songs made from real texts and professional musical composition and distribution, with a strong emphasis on instrument solos, Tania Saleh hopes to make her contribution to a certain form of musical education, where the major and minor chords of Western music mix with the quarter tones of Arabic music. Leafing through the booklet Children’s play, we come across a curious inscription in Phoenician letters: « It means “Love and Peace”. » What more could we wish for the children of Palestine and Lebanon? ?