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Tamir Muskat of Balkan Beat Box Interview by Nikos Monoyois |
Balkan Beat Box (BBB) isn’t your typical “world music.” Try mixing yesteryear’s folk musical influences from the eastern rim of the Mediterranean with energized electro globally present today. Then add eight multi-ethnic musicians when on a stage produce vibes reminiscent of a traveling circus. Top it off with their desire to erase political boundaries asking the question, “Our ears don’t have them, why should we?” In cities all over the planet, the people of this world are listening and dancing to the new BBB sound. Wide-Eyed spoke with co-founder Tamir Muskat, born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel as the son of a Romanian immigrant. As an accomplished drummer, Tamir moved to New York in 1995 where a variety of successful musical projects led him toward launching BBB with co-founder Ori Kaplan.
Wide-Eyed: Briefly, talk to me about the philosophy behind Balkan Beat Box (BBB), behind the music?
Tamir Muskat: I would say from a thousand angles over the years it’s about connecting cultures through this power we have with music. It’s a beautiful tool for us to just deliver our ideas and opinions. We put all of our energy, with growing up in the Middle East, in Israel, with the political situation and growing up, music was our best weapon. First of all, with all the sadness of things, we want to deliver music fanatically with positive energy. Over the years, all of us made different music always connected to Mediterranean and Eastern European sound, but some of the projects we were involved in were very mellow and dark sometimes. Then it just came time and we decided to direct it all into positive energy with crazy amounts of positive sounds, melodies, and beats. We do that in various ways, to talk and deal with subjects we cared about, worried about, or have something to say about… wrong presidents in the certain countries, etc., etc.
Wide-Eyed: When you were younger, you protested traditional and native music, which many youths do. Presently, what can you say you’ve learned regarding the importance of that cultural and native music you grew up with?
TM: I’m not sure… probably a never-ending process. I can say there was definitely a rejection from the fact of being curious of other cultures and what’s going on in the West, what the radio is playing, and what famous bands are playing. Between growing up with the most beautiful thing near you, sometimes you’ve got to go look at somebody else’s stuff just to know how beautiful it is. I think looking back, summing up the process over the years in New York and being completely open to anything that comes in while keeping these roots in the sounds and experimenting and stretching it as much as we can.
Wide-Eyed: What have you benefitted from with your exposure to New York? Is it easier to produce your kind of sound?
TM: Being in New York is kind of a heaven for multicultural experience. It’s got no wars happening… on ground. It’s an open minded environment for people to meet without having this baggage of countries and problems and wars. You can see a Pakistani talking to a Mid-Westerner with no problems. I think because of the world we grew up in, it was very important for us to get to an environment like this. Obviously, this has affected everything in our lives and in our music. This ability to communicate in a musical dialog with people from countries we couldn’t even go to… still cannot go to. Finally, really on a basic and simple level, people in general, Amercians too, people are part of a world where we do not really know what is going on.
Wide-Eyed: Do you think music can persuade the politics of the listeners, in terms of tolerance? There was one time where BBB brought a Palestinian rapper on stage in Israel, and the crowd loved it.
TM: Yes. Well, first of all, people that don’t really agree with nor have criticism with our band don’t really show up. I think the hard work is to catch those outside of our fan base with these issues. A festival in France, for example, there were 15,000 people out there and some of them don’t know the band and they’ll be there, and something really changes people’s minds. I’ve seen it so many times. A kid could come up to you after a show saying, “This is amazing that Israel has such a positive message of Americans that people don’t even know about it.” So, music definitely is power. First we’re musicians, but everything that comes with it is a blast. We can change people’s minds with this kind of stuff… showing the possibility of a dialog instead of his cousin being blown up in Palestine.
Wide-Eyed: Do you think the youth in the Middle East is being influenced this way? Some estimates claim that almost half the population in the Middle East is under the age of twenty-five. So, as these youths are listening to music like BBB, do you believe that music can act as a positive force that has the power to bring people from nations with political confrontations together?
TM: Yes, it does. It does. It’s happening and it’s giving us so much will continue our expressions. It’s a blessing how you make music and not always have this chance to experience the influx of this really directly. Touring and the shows we play, being on the road has ups and downs of energy with how much you can do every night. This is really like vodka red bull, u’know.
Wide-Eyed: Is BBB working on any new projects?
TM: Yes. Constantly. BBB as a band will release a remix album that will come out in America soon I think. It just came out in Europe. It’s a work of remixes from all around the world, some for competition, some for other reasons, we just gave away tracks and multi-track tracks and people just remixed them from all around the world. We choose our favorite ones and ones we’ve made. We’ve put it out on a nice DVD with video. We’re constantly working on our third album if you don’t count the remix one. It’s quite an amazing experience. We’ve been in Belgrade (Serbia) and recorded some local people there, and a lot of working here with people in Tel Aviv. So, it’s been really nice.
Wide-Eyed: In September you’ll be playing in Los Angeles, right?
TM: Yes, September 9th at El Rey, then San Francisco and all the way to New York.
Wide-Eyed: Hopefully we’ll be able to make that show. Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me today and good luck on your upcoming shows.
TM: My pleasure, I enjoyed it. Thank you very much and hope to see you at the show. Stop and say hi if you are there…
