Does the music stop when the bombs are falling?

Published

7 months ago

November 2, 2024

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“You either hold a weapon or you hold a guitar,” says Raji El-Jaru, Gaza’s biggest rockstar.

Months before war broke out last year, hundreds of people packed into a concert hall to hear his band perform their distinct blend of pounding guitar riffs and impassioned lyrics.

“We’ll scream our pain; can you hear the call?” he sang to the rapt crowd. “Knock, knock, are you listening at all?”

Not long after that gig, Israeli airstrikes rained on Gaza City, tearing down buildings and displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

Focused on survival rather than music, the five members of Osprey V – believed to be Gaza’s first rock band – went from dreaming of gigging in Europe to wondering if they would ever play together again.

Formed back in 2015, the group are all self-taught and cite Metallica and Linkin Park among their influences. Raji, 32, explains that he has always seen rock music as the obvious way to resist oppression. “We are the voice of the voiceless, spreading love instead of hatred and violence.”

“It’s a matter of time now,” Volodymyr says, talking about when his name will be called to join Ukraine’s armed forces.

A DJ who goes by the moniker Lostlojic, before the full-scale invasion in 2022 he was flying around Europe playing his brand of electronic music but now he’s back in Kyiv, his hometown, performing to raise money for his friends on the frontline.

In the early days after the invasion there was discussion about whether club nights should continue, says 35-year-old Volodymyr, but people needed a break from thinking about war – not least the soldiers on leave from the battlefield.

“Many of my friends who are musicians are in the armed forces. They have no time to do their favourite thing. Once every few months they create some tracks, send them to me, and I play them out.”

Last weekend there was a day to celebrate the Ukrainian language, and Volodymyr incorporated samples of Ukrainian speech into his songs to mark it – an assertion of an identity that is under threat.

“Everything is about politics, you can’t be an artist without it.”

“One of the things that music can do is unify people,” says Ruth Daniel. “It’s a way to give people a space to share what they’re going through.”

She is head of In Place Of War, an organisation that helps foster music and creativity in conflict zones. When bombs are falling all around you, she believes, music can act as a form of escapism and creative resistance.

Speaking to Sky News from the recent WOMEX (Worldwide Music Expo) conference in Manchester, she described how smartphones and social media make it easier than ever for those in conflict zones to write tracks and find an audience.

“I’ve seen people making music studios on the edge of checkpoints, making their own instruments, doing hip hop on street corners and making music with car sound systems.”

Gigs too, can be held anywhere, she says, giving an example of a club night she went to in the Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah.

“It was at a house – they basically turned the kitchen into a club. I remember leaving and there were lines and lines of police and army [soldiers] pointing guns.

“For me, the best music comes out of situations of difficulty. It’s not just art for art’s sake, it’s art with purpose and meaning.”

Mo Aziz once performed to tens of thousands of people in stadiums across Sudan as part of the popular group Igd al-Jalad. But the group’s music criticised the then-government and they were banned from performing amid a crackdown on expression.

He came to the UK as a refugee in 2017, and this year released an album calling for peace in his homeland and hoping to raise the profile of Sudanese music – traditionally a blend of African and Arabic influences.

Since the struggle for power between the army and a large militia group erupted into armed conflict in April 2023, more than 20,000 people have been killed in Sudan. There are firefights on the streets of Khartoum and a humanitarian crisis.

Mo’s mother and brother fled to Egypt, making a fortnight-long journey to escape the conflict, as the fighting led to millions being displaced.

“I was devastated,” he said. “I lost three friends as a result of the bombing in Khartoum, including one member of Igdal-Jalad.”

This unfolded as Mo was working on his album and master’s degree at Liverpool Hope University.

“I hope to show what’s happening in Sudan as well as uplift Sudanese music and put it on the international scene,” he said. “I will always dedicate my work to peace and human rights.”

Meanwhile, British-Sudanese folk singer-songwriter Saeed Gadir described the music scene in Khartoum as a “ghost town”.

“It’s really been decimated, there’s no one there. It’s a huge part of my writing,” says Saeed, who’s known as The Halfway Kid and whose new album Myths In Modern Life talks about growing up in a Sudanese migrant family.

And while he doesn’t see himself as always being explicitly political, his music is nonetheless politicised by the stories he tells and feelings he seeks to share with his audiences, he says.

“Even if you’re in London, you might get an insight into what it might feel like if there’s a coup back home.”

Sometimes there is no safe way to explore music in a dangerous place, sometimes the bombs are falling around you even as amps are plugged in and microphones set up.

That was the case in 1994, before the internet gave musicians the power to appear virtually to their fans. Back then, legendary metal singer Bruce Dickinson and his band Skunkworks were smuggled into Sarajevo during the Bosnian War while the city was under siege. The gig they played instantly became historic.

“I’d never seen devastation like it in a modern city. There wasn’t a single building that wasn’t a burnt-out shell,” Dickinson, best known as the lead singer of Iron Maiden, told the 2017 documentary Scream For Me Sarajevo.

The siege of Sarajevo was the longest in modern history, lasting nearly four years. More than 11,000 people, including over 1,000 children, were killed.

“I went out there and was just, like, how can I ever be as big as their lives need me to be for them?” recalled Dickinson.

“You could have given everything and you just felt like it wasn’t ever gonna be enough.”

All over the world, the musical tradition of building community – and resistance – in some of the world’s most dangerous places is thriving, thanks in part to social media and the ability to reach audiences around the world with live streams.

“Especially in places where people can’t get out or people can’t go in,” Ruth says. “And so that becomes the most important way of sharing people’s culture and identities.”

Still unable to return home, Raji has continued his work on Osprey V. A new video, produced in the Gaza Strip, is out soon and he hopes it will be a wakeup call to the West.

“We are normal people just like you,” he says. “We have families, we drink coffee, we wear Adidas. But we are suffering from endless wars.”

Entertainment

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs: What it was like to follow ‘the Pied Piper of partying’

Published

10 hours ago

May 19, 2025

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Sean 'Diddy' Combs: What it was like to follow 'the Pied Piper of partying'

In 1990s and early 2000s New York, Sean “Diddy” Combs was the person to be seen with.

Now on trial in Manhattan, his hair grey, his beard grown, it’s hard to imagine that he was “the Pied Piper… of the most elite level of partying of that time” – but that’s how Amy DuBois Barnett describes him.

She was the first Black-American woman to run a major mainstream magazine in the US, and based in Manhattan at a time when hip hop was at its zenith.

“Urban culture really ran the city,” she says. “That’s where so much of the money was… you had all the finance bros trying to get into Puffy (Combs) parties, all the fashion executives trying to get into Puffy parties.”

And while he was welcomed by the highest echelons of the arts and entertainment world, she says: “He was never known for being a calm kind of individual.”

Combs was “very dismissive” with her, and she admits: “Puff never particularly liked me that much.”

But DuBois Barnett would often get invited to his parties because she was able to feature his up-and-coming artists in her magazines.

From editor-in-chief of Ebony magazine, she’d go on to become the editor-in-chief of Honey and Teen People magazines, and then deputy editor of Harper’s Bazaar.

She says the man she met at those parties “lacked warmth” and seemed “complicated”.

“When he walked in the room, all of the energy changed. Puffy had his trusted individuals around him… immediately the area around him would become kind of crowded with everybody vying for his attention,” she says.

“I think that was also partially why he didn’t particularly like me because I wasn’t really vying for his attention.

“He really reserved that attention for the people that he was either attracted to… or the people that he thought were important enough to his business success.”

She says it was common knowledge that he wasn’t someone to cross due to “rumours… of what he could do”.

“There were a lot of people within journalism, within media, within other industries that were afraid of his influence and also afraid of his temper,” she adds.

“When things at parties would not go his way or somebody didn’t bring him something quickly enough, or… the conversation wasn’t going his way… he would just kind of snap and he was just not afraid to yell at whoever was there.

“There was not a lot of boundaries in his communication, let’s just put it that way.”

But she says it was a time when a tremendous amount of misogyny was running throughout music, things that in today’s culture would certainly give pause for thought.

“So many things happened to me, everything from getting groped at parties to getting locked in a limousine with music executives and having him refuse to let me out until I did whatever he thought I was going to do, which I didn’t.”

She insists: “We didn’t have the vocabulary to understand the degree to which it was problematic… it was a thread that ran throughout the culture.”

Star-studded parties were the ultimate invite

At the time, a ticket to one of Combs’s star-studded “white parties” was the ultimate invite.

She admits: “It was like nothing you’ve ever seen before… the dress code was very strict.

“No beige, no ecru, absolutely white, you would literally be turned away if your outfit was wrong. Puffy did not sort of tolerate people in his parties that didn’t look ‘grown and sexy’ as it were.”

She says people would mingle by the poolside listening to the best DJs in the world, while topless models posed dressed as mermaids and waiters handed out weed brownies from silver platters.

“It was every boldface name you could possibly imagine, just this gorgeous crowd.”

Behind the glamour, prosecutors now allege there was a man capable of sexual abuse and violence, and a serious abuse of power. Criminal charges which he’s already pleaded not guilty to and strenuously denies.

Without question, Combs had the golden touch. Expanding his music career into business enterprises that in 2022 reportedly took his net worth to around £1bn. For decades his success story was celebrated.

“I think that in the black community, there is a feeling that if a black man is successful you don’t want to bring him down because there are not that many… these are cultural forces that are rooted in the systemic racism that’s present in the United States… but I think that these were part of what potentially protected Puffy against people speaking out.”

Couple became ‘isolated and very unhappy’

While Combs had amassed a small fortune over the course of two decades which she encountered him, the former magazine editor says his behaviour had markedly changed from the first party she went to, to her last.

“The last was a post-Grammys party, in 2017 or 2018, and just the vibe was very different. He was really kind of isolated in a corner with Cassie, you know, looking very unhappy.”

For around 10 years, Combs had a relationship with the singer Cassie Ventura which ended in 2018.

Once over she filed a lawsuit that both parties eventually settled alleging she was trafficked, raped, drugged and beaten by the rapper on many occasions – which he denied. Last week she made similar claims in court.

“Cassie looked very glassy-eyed and there was a sadness about her energy. Whatever was happening between the two of them, I mean, it didn’t feel positive,” says DuBois Barnett.

“They were sort of holed up in the corner for almost the entire night… it did feel very different from the kind of jubilant of energy that he projected in his earlier incarnations.”

For Combs, his freedom depends on how these next few weeks go. His representatives claim he is the victim of “a reckless media circus”, saying he categorically denies he sexually abused anyone and wants to prove his innocence.

In particular, they say, he looks forward to establishing the “truth… based on evidence, not speculation”.

Entertainment

Eurovision Song Contest 2025 in pictures

Published

2 days ago

May 18, 2025

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Eurovision Song Contest 2025 in pictures

It’s a night of glitz, glamour and high camp, in which pop, rock, disco and opera all come together in one big Eurovision cocktail.

This year’s acts incorporate a giant gold microphone, a sauna – and of course pyrotechnics and fake ice aplenty.

Here are some of the best moments on stage in Basel.

Entertainment

Eurovision 2025: Austria wins Eurovision, as UK avoids dreaded ‘nul points’

Published

2 days ago

May 17, 2025

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Eurovision 2025: Austria wins Eurovision, as UK avoids dreaded 'nul points'

Austria has won Eurovision 2025, with Austrian-Filipino singer-songwriter JJ taking the glass microphone.

The 24-year-old singer, who originally trained as a countertenor, represented his country with his operatic ballad Wasted Love, staged on a storm-tossed ship.

The song, which was not dissimilar to that of last year’s winner Nemo, told the story of unrequited love, with a techno breakdown near the end. Austria has won Eurovision twice before, the last time in 2014 with Conchita Wurst’s pop hit Rise Like A Phoenix.

Israel’s Yuval Raphael, who survived the October 7, 2023, attacks which were the catalyst for Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza, was the runner-up with piano ballad New Day Will Rise, performed in Hebrew, French and English.

The singer was left “shaken and upset,” after two pro-Palestinian protesters rushed towards her during her grand final performance.

Organisers confirmed a backstage crew member was hit with paint but was not hurt.

A spokesman for SRG SSR said: “At the end of the Israeli performance, a man and a woman tried to get over a barrier onto the stage.

“They were stopped. One of the two agitators threw paint and a crew member was hit. The crew member is fine and nobody was injured. The man and the woman were taken out of the venue and handed over to the police.”

Israel has won Eurovision four times, and last year finished in fifth place with Eden Golan’s Hurricane.

Just as the grand final began broadcasting, Spanish broadcaster shared a message of Palestinian support which read: “When human rights are at stake, silence is not an option. Peace and justice for Palestine.”

The broadcaster had already received a warning from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) over political statements reported by Israeli broadcaster Kan.

The EBU said in response to the latter incident: “We can confirm that we have spoken to RTVE regarding this matter and made it clear that commentators are expected to maintain neutrality within the broadcasts of the Eurovision Song Contest.”

During the evening, there were also pro-Palestinian protests near the centre of Basel, as well as a small group nearby protesting with Israeli flags.

Israeli National Security Council had issued a warning to Israeli civilians in the city to keep a low profile during the competition.

In a change from last year’s contest in Malmo, Sweden, the ban on certain flags being waved by the audience was relaxed which meant Palestinian symbols could be seen in the arena.

The UK’s act – country pop trio Remember Monday – who performed in colourful Bridgerton-style outfits – avoided the dreaded “nul points”, coming in at 19th place with song What The Hell Just Happened?

However, for the second year running, the UK received no points in the public score.

The UK has had five wins at Eurovision, but in recent years have struggled to rank, with the exception being Sam Ryder with Space Man in 2022, who came second.

Last year, Olly Alexander placed 18th at Malmo, and Mae Muller was second to last the previous year in Liverpool.

The Eurovision grand final took place in the St Jakobshalle arena in Basel, Switzerland, with the winner from among the 26 performing nations decided by a mix of public voting and points from national juries.

The four-hour-long show was presented by an all-female team – stand-up comedian Hazel Brugger, TV presenter Michelle Hunziker and Eurovision veteran Sandra Studer.

There were performances by previous Eurovision runners-up Croatia’s Baby Lasagna and Finland’s Kaarija, as well as last year’s winner Nemo during the night.

Sweden had been widely tipped to win with their sauna-themed entry Bara Bada Bastu (Just Sauna), but ended up coming fourth.

Ukraine, who have made a strong showing each since they first entered the competition in 2003, and who won in 2023, came ninth.

Last year protests and politics overshadowed the singing event amid the outbreak of war in Gaza, with some calling for Israel to be kicked out of the contest.

Last year also saw Dutch singer Joost Klein kicked out of the competition by the EBU over alleged verbal threats to a female production worker, which he denied.

Next year’s competition, Eurovision’s 70th, will be held in Austria.