Psychedelic Desert Funk band Jamila & The Other Heroes will be sharing the video for their second double concept single, BORDER SYNDROME احلام بلا حدود via Springstoff / slowtrane. This follows the release of the single earlier this month as well as YABA يابا, the first track of the concept double single, which was supported by BBC Radio 6’s Cerys. The five-piece has performed on several notable stages including Fusion Festival 2019, Rudolstadt Festival, the Klangfreunde World Music Festival, the Feminist Chouftouhonna Festival Tunis and supported the famous global pop band Bukahara.
The band released their debut album, SIT EL KON. ست الكون (The Grandmother of the Universe) in 2020 and has already received support from the likes of CLASH Magazine, Vogue Germany, OZY, Last Day Deaf and Psychedelic Baby Magazine, amassing over 143,000 Spotify streams and counting. Jamila & The Other Heroes merge psychedelic rock with elements of funk and Arab folklore. To achieve their unusual sound, they take inspiration from a variety of musicians including Yasmine Hamdan, Aziza Brahim, Dina El Wedidi, Erykah Badu, Fatuma Diawara and Tony Allen. While totally unique, their resulting sound sits close to the likes of Alsahra & The Nubatones, El Morabba3 and Altin Gün.
Jamila & The Other Heroes was formed in 2016, based in Berlin but coming together from a variety of different backgrounds bringing influences from the Middle East and Latin America. The frontwoman, Jamila Al-Yousef was born on the day the Berlin Wall came down, and is the daughter of a Palestinian medical doctor who came to Berlin as a refugee after losing his home in the Six-Day War in 1967. More than just a love for music drives the band as they aim to break down prejudices towards people with histories of migration and asylum and make the abundance of cultural diversity more visible and audible.
Elements of dance, magic, hope and fine cinematic elements come together to create the video for ‘BORDER SYNDROME احلام بلا حدود’, directed by Philipp Wenning. Jamila & The Other Heroes play with perspective while they showcase the current difficulties many people face and contrast it with a futuristic border-free Middle East that comes after the pain of war, human rights violations, and being separated. Inspired by her own discrimination experience while crossing borders, Jamila Al-Yousef presents a strong idealistic character who understands the importance of working towards a more accepting world.
“Let’s build a place of togetherness where everyone is allowed
– no matter what name or passport –
live in freedom of moving souls and healing hearts, but yet we are seperated, geographically so close, but further away than the stars.”
Speaking of the creation of the video, Jamila tells us: “My dream of a togetherness that is crossing borders became true with the production of this music video. Half of the film crew in front and behind the camera were Palestinians and Syrians, while the other half people from all over the globe such as Russia, Germany and Argentina. All of us are stranded in Berlin looking for freedom. We were co-creating something very special, imagining a utopic safer space. We were living through discriminatory situations again and thinking about where we escaped from or what we wanted to free ourselves from to be together in this space through art was really empowering”