Ibrahim Maalouf - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)

hi everybody Welcome to kxp Welcome to our YouTube channel my name is Derek maone I'm a DJ here at kxp I do a show called focusing on music throughout the world I've been doing it for a long time and I've had many and amazing artists here at our studio at in Seattle I am really really happy right now because somebody I've been following for quite a while whose record with aneli Keo was my favorite record of 2023 I'm talking about the French Lebanese trumpet player composer so many things Ibrahim Malo he's here right now and I'm stoked [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] a [Applause] [Music] the [Music] [Applause] a a [Music] a Ibrahim aloof here at KP thanks for watching thanks for supporting us here that was a gorgeous track the next track is very special because it is going to be with Abraham's daughter Lily this is really quite lovely wait for it [Music] oh every time you say I love you I follow you and I follow you [Music] again every time you said I need you I sherish you and I treasure you again but don't you see the pain in my heart the love that I Jo the heart I can't hide the Sor in my eyes what everybody said about you that I shouldn't trust I shouldn't already said [Music] all the dreams I had about us They disappeared and vanished far away but don't you see the fear saw my [Music] face the strength that Express the power I go the pray in my heart [Music] n [Music] the power that I got the pra my heart so love me all I the the pr so let I go [Applause] [Music] Let's do an outro Ibrahim Alo from Paris on kexp Seattle now the Bay Area 92.7 thanks for watching thanks for supporting thanks for listening thanks for celebrating [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] oh the [Music] a [Music] n [Music] you are watching kexp I'm Derek maon and I just want to tweak the algorithm a little bit just to get you excited Ibrahim alouf is here right now he once played in front of six million people I think that makes him the biggest star we've ever had here at kexp [Music] la [Music] oh [Music] a oh [Music] l [Music] the [Music] the [Music] a [Music] a [Music] [Applause] a [Music] Ibrahim thanks for being here that was beautiful thank you very much for receiving us can you introduce the band sure uh FR delport on the guitar uh with been working together for approximately 15 years now and he's pretty much everywhere I I go he's following with his beautiful sound and his um amazing energy uh Mi pvan on the saxophone he is uh definitely one of the musicians that I prefer on Earth he integrated in his playing on saxophone all the cultures where he's from but also where he is living and all kinds of aspects of this instrument that um you cannot find with anyone else in it's it's really unique and uh um we we we share so much together on stage and uh Lily is my daughter she's uh she's 14 years old and uh she has a lovely voice and uh um we we actually we worked together long time ago when she was very young and she was uh singing featuring one of my songs on letine Symphony and the album called 40 Melodies when I was celebrating my 40 40 years old anniversary and uh and later I told her that one day maybe she will be I will be playing and featuring one of her songs and basically this is what we are going to do here perect perfect thanks for being here you guys sound great really really a pleasure thank you um can you tell us why you selected the songs to play for us here uh each one of them yeah um Fly With Me the first song uh is uh uh is part of my new album that will be out uh in the end of uh this September MH and the album's name is trumpets of mange and um Fly With Me the the whole album is a celebration it's a big wedding celebration and fly with me is the promise is the moment when you make the promise MH so I wanted to introduce everyone to this album through this promise uh the second song is another uh is another song of This Album and it's called orir and it's about uh at the very end of this journey the this big celebration that starts with the wedding it starts with the proposal and then the wedding and the love celebration and and at the very end you know there is this part when the children they leave and they fly with their own wings and they are completely free uh from us basically and I called it orir and it celebrates the freedom of our children uh the third song is uh very new since it's going to be um on an album that will be released in more than a year and a half now from now and it's called Uh far away and it's a collaboration with my daughter Lily uh it's about it's a Love Song and uh it's going to be part of an album called time x the ibraim maluf electronic experience okay uh this is what we've been touring in the United States and in Canada uh in um April and May and uh the last song uh is a song from my last album called capacity to love the album is a rap album but we kind of um transformed it in a very acoustic Trio mhm uh and the the and the name of the song is feeling good and it's simply about feeling good okay on the album it features uh an amazing rapper his name is dear Silas but the way we play it here is completely different and it's more about the solos okay perfect thanks for sharing that you guys are great but this is interesting because you're playing with your daughter and this whole journey in many ways started with your dad uh who's a legendary trumpet player in both classical and Arabic classical and I asked the ether to give me some questions uh from me from social media and one of them came up uh the quarter uh notes that you're playing that originated with your father on this uh very amazing trumpet player that you trumpet that you have here that has um the four valves yeah the the the in the when my father started um learning about trumpet when he in the' 60s he he was in the Lebanese Mountain he was a farmer in the libanese mountain he didn't know so anything about trumpet or about classical music or he just knew a little bit about singing Arabic music and that's all that's it you know he used to play some AUD also the Arabic a yeah the loots um he wanted to adapt the trumpet uh so that it can play Quon and the Arabic mams so he had this crazy idea to add a valve so when he arrived in France to study with Maurice Andre who was the big classical Trumpeter in the world like biggest one he he he had the chance to study with him and he told him I have this idea could you help me um you know make it real so morrice Andre went to the company he was working with who was Selmer actually and they built this this trumpet this design and you know I uh um this is this is my Heritage from my father this is my only Heritage from him and U I'm proud to to be able to hold a trumpet an instrument that was invented by him by my own father and that allows me to blend all the cultures that I love into one music you know it helps me mix um my Arab Origins my Lebanese origin my middle eastern Origins with everything that is Western about me and all the musics that I like you know playing I love playing pop music electronic music jazz and you know um so so it's it's extremely interesting for me and that's why I I keep you know spreading the the the word about about this invention but it's going even further than that because now you're actually performing with your daughter like you were performing with your father so I'm curious how does that work in a context of like okay I'm going to continue this I'm moving beyond just this one narrative I'm going to continue um and how does that worked with you guys I've I've always um I've always loved teaching I I think it's a big you're an educator right you're actually teaching at a conservatory yeah I still teach and I've I've been teaching since the age of 17 so I I I my my father taught me everything when I was already 9 10 11 12 13 14 years old he he he literally gave me uh uh like a um how do you say a job you know like offering me the chance to have something that I can make a living with you know at a very early age so when I was young I I I was thinking that I'm I'm so lucky you know and I'm uh blessed to have someone who gave me this so it felt to me very natural that at some point I have to give back not to him but to the new generations and to my own children also you know so when I heard that Lily uh was interested actually she she she had um um there's a turning point she came with me uh a few months ago uh to the 90th years old 90th anniversary of Quincy Jones where I was invited to play um it was a an amazing stage with a Stevie Wonder John Legend uh Jennifer Hudson Samarai Joy just crazy crazy U Jacob Kier crazy crazy uh stage and she was here and she used to listen at that time she used to listen more to like French rap and things like this and Southern something changed and this is why I believe that music can change people oh yeah know I have nothing against French rap but as some point I wish my children you know are interested in um like great quality of music and great interesting artists so something changed in her mind and she started playing piano by herself she started playing guitar by herself and singing and I heard her voice and I was like wow well luckily she doesn't play trumpet now that's a good thing but obviously she can sing and I I'm going to try to help her the same way my father helped me and the the same way I actually try to push everybody I meet who has a talent you know every time I have the chance to do it so why not with my own children M I've heard you work with a variety of different artists from all over the place that I know that you're like you're not you don't have a lineage connecting with that so I'm just you know my one question was when you come in you're a talent you know how to play what do you bring to that what do you when you're work working with like um uh Vin seagull or you're working with kijo or somebody like that how do you what's that first process like for you I think it starts from when I was uh 13 14 15 I used to take my trumpet put the radio on and try to fit my sound to any kind of music that comes out from the radio you know and every song whether it's French singing or World music or jazz or classical every I was like you know the the old transistors you know turning to another station try to play with it turning to another try to play why because I wanted to feel comfortable everywhere I step everywhere I go I wanted to feel comfortable so from this um way to see music I understood late later you know after 20 30 years of playing that I can bring maybe a little bit more than just the trumpet sound you know and bring a picture like a bigger picture of what music can be and the collaboration with Angelique for example uh was definitely one of those where you know Angeli's idea to work together on the queen of sheiba makba and uh and she told me what do you think about this poetry she wrote poetry and she show she showed it to me and I said wow this is very inspiring it's a mix between African culture Middle Eastern culture Arab culture let's create a world where all these matches and yeah I think you know it's I try to be humble with this but I I believe that that the way I see the world and the way I see music maybe sometimes can possibly hopefully help people understand each other it's it's like creating a language where everyone agrees everyone feels something so we all share the same common point which is emotion why does music work like that why is it like one of the few forms and I asked this to a lot of artists why is it the music transcends language culture history I have no clue I have no clue but but it does but but it does and and it it saved me it it literally saved me you know when I was a kid we used to speak Arabic at home because as you said my my family wanted to go back to Lebanon after the war we nobody knew that it would last so long so they thought it would be like 2 three years and then we would be back but at some point you know the Civil War lasted almost 17 years so they had to put us in schools in France so once I was at school in France I couldn't understand any word from the teachers from my of from my friends I used to speak only Arabic so French was completely something else for me so when I was at school my only way to communicate to people was to sing to play music and it helped me it saved me in a way you know uh blend into the French culture but through music and through my own identity being accepted by people because I'm playing music uh that that definitely means a lot to me and I and because I experienced it myself I know it works so I don't I don't know why but I know it works it just does but you became more than accepted a I have to tell everybody you know in our audience right now you are huge especially in the French speaking world in the Arab world and so this is an interesting pivot I believe where you could with your instrument and with his philosophy actually influence the World At Large and so I'm honored to have you here thank you very much you know trumpet in music is just trumpet and it's just music right but I'm a dreamer and I think people who feel emotions are also dreamers and if we all dream together the same dream that might give us some hope maybe for the future and when you see how the world is right now all upside down um we don't have so much left other than dreams and music you know and sharing some good moments with you with the audiences with our families our friends people we respect and we love you know that that's the way we dream now yep it always goes back to the roots the things that connect Ibrahim thank you for being here thank you for receiving me deeply appreciated thanks everybody this is kex uh please support us and uh keep listening and keep watching bye discover new music at listener powerered kexp.org