Vinyl reissue in collaboration with BLTNM
Shabjdeed’s debut full-length album ‘Sindibad el Ward’,
produced by Al Nather, with Muktafeen’s creative direction.
In his article “If Israeli soldiers start shooting, we won’t stop the interview,” Tom Faber, a journalist for The Guardian, describes Shabjdeed and Al Nather’s music as omnipresent in the air: “I hear them everywhere. Al Nather’s sleek productions pump out of car speakers in the Jordanian desert, and Shabjdeed’s raps tumble from the bars of Haifa. And, of course, you hear it all in their home – the tumultuous city of Ramallah.”
In August 2019, with the title “Sindibad el Ward – سندباد الورد”, they released one of the most astonishing hip hop albums of the last decade. Their collective BLTNM (pronounced “blatinum”) is a distinguishing voice for hip hop in the Arab world.
Shabjdeed’s lyrics are unusual and abstract. Interviewed by Arab music platform Ma3azef he declares: “Why aren’t we capitalizing on misery? 1) It’s shameful to do so; 2) Palestinians by nature are proud of being Palestinian. […] We are used to how things are here, I sing mainly for Palestinians, so it would make no sense – we don’t sit around saying ‘look how miserable we are.’ […] The days of singing about the war are over.”
Sindibad El Ward has quickly reached the status of classic, with its fresh urgence and unpolished poetic is considered for many the “Illmatic” of the Arab world.
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Support BLTNM >
bltnm.bandcamp.com
Stream the digital copy of this record here >
bltnm.bandcamp.com/album/sindibad-el-ward 
