Has anybody ever heard of Ustad Mawash? She’s an Afghan vocalist, an older lady, apparently very very fond of shiny jewelry and throwing kisses to the audience, who sings traditional Afghan music.
I heard her perform tonight with the Ensemble Kaboul, a group from various places around the world (one guy is originally from southern India, somebody was from Germany, two were Afghans in exile, from France I think) that plays traditional Afghan music.
They played numerous Asian stringed instruments (Afghanistan is in Asia, contrary to CNN which sometimes calls it part of “the Middle East”) that I’d never seen before, really odd-looking but cool sounding drums, and all the musicians sat on the floor on colorful rugs the whole time to play.
Glad you had a good time. For a minute there, I thought someone had stolen your laundry.
There’s all kinds of interesting music that comes out of that region. Scientists tracking human migration patterns through blood and DNA sampling say that that region (Afghanistan) was the point of dispersal to both Europe and Asia after humans came up out of Africa.
Oops. I spelled her name wrong. There’s an H in there (Mahwash).
She was the only woman in the group and, surprisingly (to me), she didn’t have so much as a scarf on her head, and she had on LOTS of glittery jewelry. I guess being in exile allows you to do that. She sang so beautifully, though.
I’m kind of surprised that nobody’s heard of her. The fliers stated that she was “the best female traditional Afghan singer in the world” or something like that.
