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Aug. 18, 2006
Winning praise with every note
Israeli violinist is burning up the charts by merging classical
training and a hip hop vibe.
LOOLWA KHAZZOOM
When fireworks filled the sky over New York on July 4, Miri Ben
Ari decided they were for her. Having just gotten word that her
single, "Symphony of Brotherhood" (featuring Martin Luther
King's "I Have a Dream" speech weaving in and out of an
extended violin solo), was number six on the hot R&B/hip hop
charts and number 19 in the pop charts, the Israeli violinist had
much to celebrate. In the two weeks since her single's release,
she had become both the first Israeli and the first instrumentalist
to top the charts in each category.
In an era of music sampling and amid a culture where lead singers
usually get the spotlight, it's unusual for a violinist to be so
well received outside the classical and jazz arenas. Ben Ari attributes
her single's success to the timing. If she put the song out six
years ago, she noted, nobody would care about it: "It's different
today. It was the perfect time to drop it – I'm not just someone
who put an instrumental song out. I'm a Grammy Award-winner everyone
knows from [working with] Kanye West and Jay Z – [People] know
Miri Ben Ari has something to say."
"Miri has taken a classical instrument, the violin, and changed
people's perception of how they see it," affirmed Que Gaskins,
vice-president of global marketing for Reebok – which features
Ben Ari as the poster girl for their current I Am What I Am campaign.
With performances integrating classical and R&B, jazz and gangsta
rap, klezmer and dancehall, the petite 27-year-old has indeed brought
high-brow musicianship to the street level, inspiring scores of
North American youth to bang out today's chart-topping tunes on
the once-nerdy violin.
"I'm representing a movement that's turning to live music again,"
said Ben Ari. "I've got a whole new school of violinists after
me."
Ben Ari got her start as a classically trained instrumentalist in
Israel - where, as a child prodigy at age 12, she caught the attention
of violin virtuoso Isaac Stern. Following service in the Israeli
army, she packed her bags and left to study jazz at Mannes College
of Music in New York. Gigging relentlessly upon her arrival, Ben
Ari soon got noticed by jazz greats Wynton Marsalis and the late
Betty Carter, as well as by hip hop moguls Kanye West and Wycleff
Jean.
Once the heavyweights got into her act, it wasn't long before Ben
Ari had played Carnegie Hall, the Apollo and Jay Z's Summer Jam
– where she received a standing ovation from 20,000 screaming
audience members. Since that time, she has gone on to record with
pop icons Alicia Keyes and Britney Spears, to win a Grammy Award
for her violin chops on Kanye West's smash hit single "Jesus
Walks," to release her own full-length album, The Hip Hop
Violinist, and to join VH1's Save the Music Foundation.
Amid all this glitz and glamor, Ben Ari remains firmly connected
to her identity and roots. In May, she collaborated with Israeli
hip hop rapper Subliminal, recording a video, "Classit VeParsi"
("Classical and Persian"), that's now topping the Israeli
charts.
In addition, the duo recorded a single about the Holocaust.
"Anything about the Holocaust must be done in the Jewish homeland,"
said Ben Ari, explaining why she flew back to Israel for the project.
She will not yet disclose details about the single, "except
for the fact that the recording process has been very emotional
and very hard on a personal level, because of my family history."
Her paternal grandfather, who grew up in Poland, was on the last
boat the British let into Palestine. The rest of his family perished
in gas chambers. Her paternal grandmother, from a neighboring town,
was also the sole survivor of her own family. The two met after
their arrival. To this day, the maternal side of Ben-Ari's family
- also victims of the Holocaust – remains a mystery; Ben-Ari's
mother is reticent to talk about them.
Ben Ari says she recorded the forthcoming single as a way to pay
respect to her family and to all other victims of the tragic event.
"It's almost like they say, 'music is therapy,' " she
explained. "It's a way to deal. There is no other way for me."
Her current chart-topping single, she continued, was also inspired
by her family history. "I can relate to the African-American
struggle and racism on a whole other level," she elaborated,
"because I'm the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. Racism
is discrimination against a group of people because of something
that is beyond their control. If your skin color is black, there's
nothing you can do about it. If your mother is Jewish and you're
a Jew, there's nothing you can do about it.
"MLK [Martin Luther King] is the hero for the Black American
struggle. Of course, if you're coming from a struggle yourself,
you can't help comparing. Struggle always relates to struggle. It
always crosses my mind – if we had MLK in Nazi Germany, would
it have helped? Would it have affected the outcome of the Jewish
Holocaust?"
As Ben Ari gains status in the music world ("I don't want to
be a superstar," she said, "I want to become an icon"),
she promises that both her identity and violin will take more of
centre stage, with "Symphony of Brotherhood" serving as
just a taste of what's to come. "I'm going to promote live
music and live instruments as much as I can," she said. "I
know my next project is going to be like this song."
It's a different story than when Ben Ari released her first full-length
hip hop album: "I got pressured by my old management to feature
a lot of other artists – not to really have the possibility
of [focusing on violin]," she recalled. "They did it because
they wanted me to succeed. They didn't really believe in pure music.
They didn't believe that music itself – like it used to be
in jazz, with Herbie Hancock, Grover Washington – they didn't
believe it could come back, because everything today is so pop-and
voice-oriented. Nobody is doing real music. Everyone is looping
[sampling]."
Of course, she acknowledged, there are exceptions, "and I love
the exceptions, and the world loves the exceptions – but they
also can be very afraid of the exceptions, because that means breaking
the rules."
Ben Ari is more than happy to break them for everyone else. "After
I did everything I'd been told to do," she noted, "I was
like, 'Let me do me now.' And if the record industries don't get
it, they'll have to catch up with me."
Loolwa Khazzoom has published internationally, in periodicals
including the Washington Post, Self, Rolling Stone and
Marie Claire. She is also the editor of The Flying Camel:
Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern
Jewish Heritage.
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