Meet Kaan Wafi, the Syrian Producer Raising Awareness of the Refugee Crisis Through Sound

Since the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, 12 million Syrians have fled the country, leaving for nearby Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, as well as the European Union. The Bashar al-Assad regime's brutal attacks on civilians following the Arab Spring uprisings and the developing proxy wars have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, destabilized the country's infrastructure, and driven millions of Syrians to risk uncertain futures via dangerous escape routes and overcrowded refugee camps.

Kaan Wafi, a Syrian musician who makes ambient electronic music, has been living in Berlin for the last two and a half years. He's one of the hundreds of thousands of people who have settled in Germany since Chancellor Angela Merkel set out to lead the EU in granting asylum refugees. In Berlin, Kaan found a growing community of expat artists and began collaborating on visual art and music, occasionally performing in refugee camps and cultural centers.

In September, Kaan self-released his debut album, Pieces From Exile, which combines traditional Syrian music with Dilla-influenced hip-hop beats and jazz. Inspired by projects such as Saqi Books' 2014's Syria Speaks anthology, which featured over fifty Syrian artists and writers sharing their experiences of the violence in the country, Kaan recorded Pieces From Exile to express his own feelings of displacement and speak out against the atrocities committed by the tyrannical Assad regime. "I wanted to tell the stories of those we lost under Assad's barrel bombs and the ones who drowned while crossing the Mediterranean for a better life," Kaan told THUMP via email. "Stories of those displaced inside Syria and in neighboring countries without access to education or medical care."

The LP is largely instrumental, combining the traditional sounds of oud music with keys and downtempo hip-hop beats. The instrumentation is ominous, meditative, and dissociated, occasionally swelling with hope or defiance. An emotional track titled "Tyrant's Shore" is back-to-back with one titled "German Lesson," coupling conflicting feelings about the various places refugees get to call home. And as with Syria Speaks, Kaan also brings in other voices; samples of activists speaking during protests and interviews creep in and out of the mix, the most chilling of which is a clip of abducted human rights lawyer and activist Razan Zeitouneh responding to a question about concerns for her safety with the words, "I am not afraid for myself anymore. Death became a normal thing to us in Syria."

The album came out on vinyl, with 25 unique screen printed LP covers, each by a different artist and showing a fragment of a famous medieval tile panel from Damascus as a comment on community shattered and rebuilt. Upon its release in September—accompanied by an art exhibition at the BOX Freiraum gallery in Berlin–Kaan Wafi announced that all proceeds from the record, including vinyl, tapes, and digital downloads, would be donated to The White Helmets, a Syrian civil defense unit of volunteers who rush in to rescue civilians from barrel bombs deployed by Assad.

Kaan Wafi is a pseudonym. He is reluctant to give out his given name, much of his backstory, or any other personal information that could result in retaliation to family members who are still in Syria. Despite these constraints, we were able to catch up over email and chat about the making of the album, the situation in Syria, and other Syrian diaspora artists making inspiring work.

Can you talk a little about your background as a musician? What were some of your projects prior to this?

I used to take classical piano lessons—nothing crazy like a conservatory, just once a week at home. My mom is obsessed with Chopin, so she got me into classical music. I was always into improvising and writing my own stuff, which kind of pissed off my piano teacher. But even Mozart and Chopin improvised. I still love classical music, but I got into jazz because I felt like there was less boundaries. I also play guitar, and am learning the Oud. Pieces From Exile is my first release.

What inspired you to do the record?

This record was inspired by Syrian activists, poets, filmmakers and artists using their art to fight tyranny and oppression. I wanted to tell the stories of those we lost under Assad's barrel bombs and the ones who drowned while crossing the Mediterranean for a better life. Stories of those displaced inside Syria and in neighboring countries without access to education or medical care.I was also really inspired by a book that I read titled Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Front Lines while making the record (by Malu Halasa, Zaher Omareen and Nawara Mahfoud). It's a testament to the courage, creativity and imagination of the Syrian people. It's an incredible project and a great read.

I was also inspired by film producers and activists whose cameras captured and documented the assaults and bombardments of the Assad regime. Basel Shehadeh was one of them. He was killed during a government assault in the neighborhood of al-Safsafa in Homs. He worked at the UN in Damascus and also studied film in the States—god bless him! And film producer [and fellow Berlin exile] Orwa Neyrbiyeh and director Talal Darki, who made Return to Homs, one of the most important documentaries of the revolution. And other filmmakers such as Wiam Simav Bedirxan, who co-directed the documentary film Silvered Water, which was also produced by Orwa.

But if you really wanna know what's going on in Syria, you need to follow The 47th, who was featured on the Washington Post's list of top Twitter accounts you must follow to understand Syria. He's also my Homsi cousin, and there's a track on the record dedicated to him.

The record mixes what sounds like more traditional music with downtempo instrumental hip-hop. What are some of your musical influences?

My favorite Oud players are Munir Bashir and Nasser Shamma. I've been listening to a lot of music from Angola, like Artur Nunes and os kiezos, and also a lot of Fela Kuti, who's a human rights activist and a political maverick. There's also a lot of influence from Art Tatum and Bill Evans and my favorite jazz pianists. And I love Dilla, Aphex Twin, and badbadnotgood.

Did you collaborate with other musicians on this? What are the vocal samples from?

The track "Für Razan" is dedicated to Razan Zeitouneh, a Syrian human rights lawyer and civil society activist documenting human rights abuses committed by the Assad regime. She was the recipient of the 2013 International Women of Courage Award. That same year, she was abducted along with three other activists by members of an armed group in the city of Douma. Her fate and whereabouts remain unknown. The sample I used is the last interview she gave before she was kidnapped. At the end of the interview, the connection was lost and the reporter said, "We seem to have lost Razan Zeitouneh."

The second track on the record is called "Salam, to Simav." On March 15 earlier this year, I was at a demonstration for the fourth anniversary of the Syrian revolution here in Berlin, and I recorded this guy singing a capella. I went back home, laid the sample, played some keys over it, and sampled it on the MPC. He came over the next day and recorded some oud on top. But I kept the recording from the street because it was more raw. Raman is a Syrian Oud player, writer, and activist. We often play together in refugee camps and other gigs.

Tell me about the art exhibition that accompanied the album's release.

The exhibition "Pieces From Exile" took place at BOX Freiraum in Berlin, and featured works by Syrian artists. Arranged as a square, the 25 unique screen-printed covers of the LP [made up] the center of the exhibition. The 25 covers show an image that is related to a late medieval tile-panel from Damascus, which is now at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. On the one hand, it's about relics—transferred or "exiled" fragments of a threatened and destroyed culture and community. On the other hand, it's about the shaping of a new kind of context. While the original image in the museum has gaps, our cover-square [provides the] complete picture. The artwork was printed and designed at the Berlin Weißensee School of Art in collaboration with the refugee-initiative kommen & bleiben. Further photographic works as well as literature [are included] in a bilingual, English/Arabic booklet in LP format.

At the opening of the exhibition I performed to the crowd with a wall in between. The performance [was meant] to draw a parallel with hearing the news [about what is going on back in Syria] when in exile—like an absent presence. The proceeds from the first 25 records was donated completely to the Syrian civil rescue organization, The White Helmets. The last record, along with the 25 silk-screened-covers, was acquired by the BOX Freiraum to support film-maker Wiam Simav in building a school in the Syrian city of Idleb.

What are your feelings on the way the UN is handling the refugee crisis?

While the UN is busy expressing their "deep concern" and "regret" at the displacement of Syrians, the international community has done little to get rid of the root the conflict: the Assad regime. We feel frustrated and let down after all the empty promises and lack of political will by the international community to stop the bloodshed—it's absolutely despicable! You have a tyrant that won't let go of daddy's chair, with full support from the Russians and Iranians. He's a nutcase! He even named a park in Damascus after North Korea's founding father, Kim Il-sung.

On the humanitarian side, Europe finally woke up to the flow of Syrian refugees after [about a] dozen children's' bodies washed up on their shores. Neighboring countries can't handle the crisis on their own anymore. Lebanon, whose total population is 4 million, took in almost 1.4 million Syrians—that's more that 30% of the country! The UN is "running out of money" and the UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) is totally underfunded, making life at the camps unbearable.

How do you feel about the media's representation of the situation in Syria?

[On October 30], world leaders met at the fancy Imperial Hotel in Vienna to discuss Syria (where not one Syrian, was invited by the way). That same day, Assad's air force bombed a crowded market in the city of Douma, killing 67 people. Did you hear about it? I didn't think so. These massacres barely make headlines anymore! May 2015 was the bloodiest month this year, with at least 6,657 people killed, according to monitoring groups, mostly by massacres committed by the Assad regime. That same month, a breed of birds was endangered of extinction because ISIS took over the region where this bird is found, and there goes your breaking news! Both evils are fighting against the revolution, but to be able to get rid of ISIS or to put an end to the refugee crisis, we need to first topple the dictator.