Among the people arriving in the European Union during the long summer of migration in 2015/16 and in the immediate years before were also musicians who positioned themselves within genres of popular music. In this article, I re-construct the musical developments of three selected musicians/bands, who fled the civil war in Syria, after their arrival in Austria or Germany: the rock band Khebez Dawle خبز دولة, the pop band Basalt, and the rapper Enana Alassar. Discussing the ways of settling in and adapting to a new life situation gives insights into the individual musical developments and the musicians’ agency to negotiate and perform their surroundings and new life situation in their music, including a handling of categorizations as musicians from Syria or “refugee” musicians in media and on stages within the activities of the so-called Welcome Culture. Furthermore, it points to general transformations in regard to music-making by Syrians and the intertwining of political and social transformations and individual music-making choices.
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„Popular Music, Forced Migration from Syria, and Welcome Culture in Germany and Austria“ weiterlesen