Mashrou Leila
Performance

Mashrou’ Leila

September 28, 2019

This event occurred as part of the 19/20 Hop Presents season. This is an archived view.

These Lebanese rockers have something to say — with rousing, electro-pop anthems that tackle LGBT rights, race, religion and modern Arabic identity.

19/20 Hop Presents

With guitar, bass, drums, violin and the smoldering vocals of lead singer Hamed Sinno — who is openly gay in a region where that can provoke persecution and worse — the group mixes rock and Arabic music. Founded 10 years ago by students at American University of Beirut, Mashrou' Leila challenges the status quo in the Middle East and busts Arab stereotypes in the rest of the world.

Mashrou' Leila (whose name roughly translates to Overnight Project) fills their live performances with some of the most bittersweet ballads and raucous anthems you're likely to hear. The band's music works on two fronts: tackling subjects that are considered taboo in the Arab world and breaking the Arab image out of its orientalist mold. Their lyrics, in Arabic, are outspoken: "My life spent with rights mortgaged off to your sentiments / My history erased from our books like they were yours to claim," Sinno sings in their song Tayf (Ghost), a solemn but defiant tribute to a Beirut gay bar that was shut down by Lebanese authorities in 2013.

Haze effects and strobe lights will be used during this show.

Access a press kit (with promotional photos) for Mashrou' Leila.

Listen to Mashrou' Leila below!

“Funky, violin-adorned, socially engaged indie rock.”

 —Rolling Stone

"The band's music works on two fronts: tackling subjects that are considered taboo in the Arab world and breaking the Arab image out of its orientalist mould — all in an intricate layer of edgy melodies and strident synthetic pop."

 —Stepfeed.com

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Hopkins Center
12 Lebanon Street
Hanover, NH

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