Cairo Rising Project

CAIRO RISING RECORDING PROJECT

April 19, 2011

Cairo Rising Recording Project

A collaborative project (album recording/concert/website/feature documentary film) of young Arabic fusion artists recorded in Cairo documenting the uprisings in the Middle East.

We hope to humanize the changes in the Middle East through the presentation and documentation of music and youth culture of the region. We are planning on documenting the democratic protests and revolutions in the Middle East by creating a collaborative music project resulting in a recorded album, live concert and live concert recording and a documentary film of both the artists in their environment and the live concert recorded in Cairo.

The musical component of the project will be will be a compilation album of revolutionary Arabic fusion artists in collaboration with other Arabic musicians and American and European remixers and producers. The project will focus on young Arabic rock musicians, rappers and singer/songwriters. We seek to record musical artists who express their desire for a more just and democratic world through music and song. We plan on recording mostly in Cairo, Egypt and the project will include artists from Tunisia, Algeria and the Arabic disaspora as well.

We are also planning on producing and recording a live concert in Cairo of the artists selected for the project. This would be recorded in front of a live audience and would by used to release a live concert album and documentary film.

Using mobile recording technologies, we will set up temporary recording sessions in cafes, private homes and schools to quickly capture songs and performances that express the desire for freedom in the Middle East. Once the sessions have been recorded, the files will be brought back to San Francisco for editing, arrangement and final mixing.

Once the mixes are complete, the album project will be pitched to larger cultural institutions for world wide distribution. The list of organizations we plan on contacting include: National Geographic, Peter Gabriels Real World label, Six Degrees Records, Sterns Africa, Wrass Records, etc. In the event that one of these larger organizations does not pick up the project, the Embarka Record label, owned by project founder Jef Stott, is prepared to release the project world wide.

Additionally we will be producing a feature length documentary film to further document the creative process and insights into the artists point of view on the current situation in the Middle East.

We will also be creating an elaborate website to document the projects progress and it’s results. The site will include interviews, blogs, photos, video clips, artists biographies and music excerpts from the new recording sessions.

The project coordinator and producer will be composer/producer Jef Stott, who has been working with Arabic and Northern African musicians (as well as Turkish, Persian and Balkan artists) for many years and has released dozens of musical projects. He holds a degrees in both cultural anthropology and a masters in New Media. He is an accomplished Middle Eastern musician in his own right. Mr. Stott will handle all recording productions, editing and final mixing of the projects musical compositions. His reputation in the world music industry will be an asset to the success of the project. He will also be directing the feature film. He has a wide professional network of colleagues at large record labels, journalists, film producers and cultural institutions and Universities.

All profits will be shared evenly with the participating artists. All performances and artistic contributions will be documented through contracts and written agreements to ensure payment and transparency of accounting. Pre-existing songs used in the project will be non exclusive to the project allowing the artists to maintain control of there compositions. Collaborations between Arabic artists and the project producers will be co-published by both parties.

Financial contributions to the project will be used for the following:

  • transportation of the producer to and from Egypt
  • producer accommodations in Cairo for 3-4 weeks
  • initial contributing artist payment
  • recording session fees in Cairo (if any)
  • additional recording and editing in San Francisco
  • mixing fees in San Francisco
  • film editing and final mix
  • project publicity and promotion

We sincerely hope that you will be able to help us with this project. It seems extremely timely and important that the artistic expression of post revolution Arabic culture is documented at this time.

More project information can be found at http://jefstott.com/cairo-rising

and on youtube at-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1RAPNSZoEA

Thank you in advance for your interest in the Cairo Rising project!

~Jef Stott

San Francisco, CA

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