#3 SAMPLES OF WORK - LIVE PERFORMANCE FROM B7L9 SHOW, JAN 2025

SAMPLES OF WORK #3

An Orientalist samples documentary footage from Irish filmmaker Bob Quinn, known for his work exploring the cultural connections between Ireland and the Arab world. Quinn’s theory, developed notably in his documentary series Atlantean, challenges conventional Western narratives by proposing that Irish identity, music, and traditions share ancient roots with North African and Arab cultures.

By weaving Quinn’s footage into An Orientalist, BADABADA deliberately fractures and reclaims the traditional “Orientalist” dynamic - the binary of observer and observed, colonizer and colonized. In Quinn’s framing, Irish people did not study Arab culture from a position of superiority or exoticism, but rather to recognize a  cultural hybridity. In this sense, BADABADA’s use of Quinn’s work becomes a form of "meta-Orientalism" - a reflection on how the gaze toward "the Other" inevitably reveals something about the self.

By blending Palestinian and Irish histories, and challenging the rigid separations that colonial narratives create, BADABADA flips Orientalism inside out: the Irish and Arab subjects are no longer passive objects of study, but active participants in a shared story of survival and resistance. The track An Orientalist humorously, but sharply, exposes how the act of "studying the Other" is often, at its core, a study of oneself.

Track 1: An Orientalist (Live in B7L9)

This track reworks the traditional Irish tune Is Trua Nach Bhfuil Mé in Éirinn, popularized by the Bothy Band. The original melody - meaning "It's a pity I'm not in Ireland" -  is re-tuned using the microtonal Bayati Maqam and set against a dynamic electronic backdrop. Through this fusion, the song explores themes of diaspora and displacement, reinterpreting the Irish lament through an Arab musical lens.

By blending Irish and Arab traditions, the piece reflects the artists’ shared experience of leaving home and adapting to life abroad. Drawing on the parallel histories of mass displacement and emigration in both Ireland and Palestine, the track expresses the heavy legacy of forced migration - alongside the liberation, confusion, and longing that come with becoming an outsider in a new place.

The song opens with a striking sample: a clip from an American television program, in which researchers attempt to reconstruct the vocal cords of an Egyptian mummy. This bizarre and unsettling scene serves both as a commentary on orientalist tendencies - the impulse to "resurrect" and interpret ancient cultures through a Western lens - and as a metaphor for the artists' own experience of trying to piece together a sense of identity in unfamiliar surroundings. It captures the strange, almost archaeological process of settling into a new culture while carrying the emotional weight of a distant homeland.

Track 2: Arabian Spaceship (Live in B7L9)

The track Funeral March evokes the emotional disorientation of displacement, drawing particularly on the memory of the Nakba. We introduce the piece with archival footage from a 1990s American television show, offering a simple, neutral explanation of the historical events that laid the groundwork for today’s ongoing genocide. Musically, we experiment with microtonal polyphony to capture the disorienting sense of being uprooted and flung. The track also weaves in inspiration from Requiem for the Croppies by the renowned Irish poet Seamus Heaney - a reflection on the failed Wexford rebellion of 1798 at Vinegar Hill. In Heaney’s poem, the barley carried by the rebels in their pockets takes root and grows from their mass graves, becoming a symbol of resilience - a message that no matter how brutally invaders attempt to erase a people, those who belong to the soil will rise again.

Track 4: Funeral March (Live in B7L9)

Track 4 - Funeral March (Live in B7L9)

BADABADA is a Tunis-based duo formed by Emad Lulu (Palestine) and Milena Minta (Ireland), exploring the historical connections between their homelands.

Their name plays on the Arabic phrase باد ابادة, meaning "they committed genocide." It mimics the absurd, childlike sounds of the English language failing to encapsulate a foreign reality. Specifically, BADABADA is a symbol of how Western media narratives sanitizes, infantilizes, and in turn, creates consent for the ongoing atrocities they commit in Gaza today. Through their sound, BADABADA plays with this surreal reality, slipping through the broken lens through which both their cultures have been perceived by imperialist powers throughout history. 

BADABADA uses electronic music to fuse Maqamat, Irish traditional melodies and curated samples. Their sound is the reflection of a shared history of resistance against settler colonialism and oppression, blending traditional elements with modern electronic sound design to create a multi-genre musical experience.

Track 2: Arabian Spaceship (Live in B7L9)

thisisbadabada