47SOUL and Pedro Coquenão / Batida - Barzakh Festival

Diverse global cultural streams come together on 1 stage for 2 days

47SOUL and Pedro Coquenão / Batida on Wednesday, Feb 28 @ 7:30pm | The Ex + Fendika, RAM, and Al Nuban Folklore Troupe on Thursday, Mar 1 @ 7:30pm

The Red Theatre

Past Event

Barzakh Festival – Day 1 – 47SOUL and Pedro Coquenão / Batida

A musical meeting place of genre-shattering artists featuring Arabic Dabke, electronic Angolan EDM, Haitian vodou rock, Ethiopian traditional + Dutch punk, and Emirati roots.

Book for both days. Get your 2 day pass and save. See Get Tickets and Ticket Info. Limited availability, Book early!

“Picking a favorite from this swathe of divergent talents is both foolhardy and arrogant – and would be missing the point of Barzakh entirely. It seems impossible anyone who attended either day did not leave without their eyes opened, and their mind broadened.” – Rob Garratt, The National (UAE)

Wednesday, Feb 28 @ 7:30pm

47SOUL blasts electro Arabic Dabke sound through underground music scenes.
Pedro Coquenão / Batida combines old 1970s Angolan sounds with modern electronic dance music.

47SOUL Trailer

47SOUL blasts their Electro Arabic Dabke (Shamstep) sound through underground music scenes, rapidly amassing fans in the Arab World and Europe since they were formed in Amman, Jordan in 2013. On top of the beats that have been bumping in the Arab World for centuries, 47SOUL hypes it up with analog synthesizers, hypnotic guitar lines, and shattering verses from the four singers. Every show ends in relentless dance and trance from all parties involved. The members — Z the People (vocals & synths), El Far3i (darbouka, MC/Vocals), Walaa Sbeit (percussion, MC/vocals), and El Jehaz (guitar & vocals) — are rooted in Bilad Al-Sham, spanning the divides from Amman to the Galilee to Ramallah and the rest of the Palestinian Diaspora. Their lyrics, mixing Arabic and English, call for celebration and freedom in the struggle for equality, inside Bilad Al Sham and throughout the world.

Pedro Coquenão / Batida Trailer

Pedro Coquenão is better known in the musical scene as Batida, the name for the radio show he created 10 years ago on the National Portuguese Radio and RDP Africa, to share news from the Afrotronic music scene. Soon it became the name for an artistic universe that he has developed, featuring music at the center, with records made of own compositions released on Soundway Records, remixes for favorite artists, and shows presented on hundreds of stages across the world. In addition to music, Pedro’s show features homemade objects and instruments, dance, and video, all tools in a constant search for reconstruction / deconstruction of his memory, experiences, and interactions.

“delivered with a brilliant imagination and intelligence and the flux between trad Angola and modern electronic music and the direct communication of hip hop is a great fusion that cranks the past into the future without either discipline losing its edge…potent brew of hip hop, shimmering Angolan music, fractured beats and deep dub bass into a new music all of his own.” – Louder than War

Pedro has already played in festivals like Central Park Summerstage (US), globalFEST (US), Glastonbury (UK), Womad (UK), Roskilde, (Transmusicalles (FR), Les Nuits Sonore (FR) and Eurockéennes (FR), and venues and arts center like Lincoln Center (US), The Kennedy Center (US) and the Cleveland Museum of Arts (US), among many others.

Batida’s show was featured in the August 2015 edition of Les InRockuptibles magazine as one of that year best shows. Maxime de Abreu described it as “A show completely out of format, classy and fascinating from beginning to end. Images, dance, music, staging and committed discourse here is more of the same, while mixes and invents a language in itself – that of Batida.”

“It’s just on another level in terms of how he presents his show, how he approaches his music making, whether he is DJing or performing live, or adding visuals, philosophically just how he goes about his business.”- Gilles Peterson – BBC6 Music

“This may well be a game-changing 21st century electronic African dance album” – Songlines

“A sound that is thoroughly modern, but which tastefully references what came before” – BBC

Having already in the past chosen his self titled album as one of the records of the year, recently Gilles Peterson invited him to be his guest on his BBC 6 Music Radio show, highlighting him from the Lisbon music scene that he considers “Massive”. “It’s just on another level in terms of how he presents his show, how he approaches his music making, whether he is Djing or performing live, or adding visuals, philosophically just how he goes about his business.”