Baghdadi-Viennese composer and songwriter Karrar Alsaadi, known by his stage name "Kiri," has engineered a musical sound which fuses intercontinental jazz with oriental scales. His songs are sung in the colloquial Baghdadi dialect of Arabic; a tip of the hat to the nation that raised him. Karrar’s newest collaboration on the album Jarak Qaribak produced by Israeli-Iraqi singer Dudu Tassa, and former Radiohead guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, Johnny Greenwood, hardened his conviction to bring his musical heritage to European stages.
Karrar’s love affair with music began in 1990s Iraq, under the stranglehold of Western sanctions. He recalls his boyhood in Sadr City, otherwise known as Madinat Al-Thawra, a sprawling suburb northeast of Baghdad, where a cacophony of sounds coloured his childhood: the Muezzin's melodic call to prayer, propulsive religious anthems, from Latmiyat to anasheed, Iraqi pop songs dramatising love and loss. Music, Karrar explains, is the cry of the soul. “Through music, Iraqis mourn and rejoice, in birth and in death,” he told Tamooda. Music was a lifestyle, he adds, joking about having been the "family jukebox," singing on demand, particularly during lengthy car journeys.
Karrar Alsaadi
His eventual departure from his motherland was neither anticipated nor voluntary. During Iraq's overlooked Arab Spring moment in 2015, when security forces and militias in balaclavas unleashed brutal force against civilians, Karrar and his family decided to resettle in Austria. Only his father stayed behind. Vienna opened up a new world of musical opportunities. In 2018, Karrar enrolled at the esteemed University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, and his musical repertoire began to evolve.
Moving away from the tabla and oud, instruments on which Iraq's musical curriculum focuses heavily, Karrar dabbled with the brass family before falling in love with the bronzy saxophone. He then started his own band, Kiri and Friends, which combines elements of jazz, funk, oriental blues, and Arabic and African rhythms.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Iraq is no stranger to jazz. The country has produced such musical heavyweights as Illham al-Madfai, dubbed the “Baghdad Beatle,” oud maestro Naseer Shamma, and Iraqi-Armenian singer Seta Hagopian, nicknamed “the Fairouz of Iraq.” Basra-born Hagopian was among the earliest artists to combine elements of indigenous folk music and jazz by adopting western instrumentation, not least the electric guitar. This experimentation was not only an expression of modernity but also challenged
the notion of cultural purity, diluting the supposed boundary separating Eastern and Western sounds.
Perhaps most famous of all is Dudu Tassa, the grandson of Baghdad's iconic musical duo – the Kuwaiti brothers (Saleh and Daud) – who pioneered the Iraqi folk song. Their exodus from Iraq in the 1950s, and their new lives in Israel, did not erode their popularity. What makes their music canonical until the present day is the sense of national pride it conjures in Iraqis, and their enduring lyrical prowess. Dudu has recast many of the Kuwaiti brothers’ most cherished songs, for instance adapting ala shawati Dijla to khadri chai khadri using modern electronic music, helping to keep their music alive in the 21st century.
It was 2019 when Karrar and Dudu’s paths first crossed. Dudu had made a pitstop in Vienna, as part of his solo European tour, and a mutual friend introduced them. Their shared musical affinity was immediately apparent, Karrar recalls, and marked the start of their collaboration on an album entitled Jarak Qaribak, which roughly translates to “Neighbor Dearest.” Johnny Greenwood and Dudu's album is a rare treat; a musical journey through space and time, where nine vocalists, spanning the entire Middle East, from Mashreq to Maghreb, revive ancient love songs.
The title “Neighbour Dearest” alludes to the fact that the artists are not performing songs from their native countries but rather those of their neighbors. It could be Dudu's way of saying that in music we are united, a view that was popularized in the early 20th century during the Nahda (awakening) movement. Karrar also sings Ya Mughir al-Ghazala, a timeworn love song from Yemen, from where Dudu's father hails. The album is currently touring various European cities, where Karrar gets to share the stage with the two musical behemoths, a high point of his career.
The project has further fueled Karrar's desire to keep his own musical heritage alive. His own works consist of reimagined Iraqi folk songs with the original lyrics paired with jazz-leaning compositions. This music applies rhythmic cycles and microtonal melodies commonly featured in Arabic songs.
Other songs recount true events in Karrar's life, such as Mira, about the moment his friend learned he became a father to a little girl. Most importantly, the Baghdad dialect in which he sings makes his songs relatable to an Iraqi audience. It is also a language to which entire Iraqi generations have become estranged from in exile and it reminds them somewhat fondly, somewhat painfully, of home. While there are exceptions, such as the excellent Naseer Shamma, modern jazz with an Iraqi twist is a rare thing to come by.
Karrar is currently working on his first EP, Ibsat, named after a modest floor mat found in every Iraqi household. He says that it reminds him of his grandmother and his simple life growing up in Thawra. "Every time we had guests over, she would pull it out and, although it was battered and old, we pretended it was new. Although they were poor and were embarrassed by that, hospitality came first – an Iraqi trait, as you know.” Ibsat can also mean “to please,” which is the main job of musicians. Three of the songs are modern covers of traditional Iraqi/Arab folk songs, two of which, Karrar explains, remind him of his father, who he misses dearly. By reimagining them with a modern jazz twist, Karrar not only anchors these songs in the present moment, but preserves through music what war has destroyed.
