Shusmo: Funky New Yorkers With Middle Eastern Roots

Tareq Abboushi leads the New York band Shusmo with his buzuq, a kind of Middle Eastern lute.

Photo: John Rogers

The Arabic word shusmo is a place holder for something whose name you can't think of, similar to the English "whatchamacallit." That makes it a good fit for the New York band Shusmo, whose combination of traditional Middle Eastern instruments and Western funk can be tough to classify.


Led by the Palestininan-born Tareq Abboushi, Shusmo has a new album titled Mumtastic. Abboushi tells Weekend Edition Saturday guest host Jacki Lyden that he grew up hearing both Western and Arabic music in his hometown, the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"There was a lot of classical Western music in the house because my mother taught piano," Abboushi says. "And when you're in town, when you're in a taxi, when you're in the marketplace, you're going to hear lots of classical Arabic music — and whatever was pop at the time."

Abboushi says he was heavily influenced by his parents' collection of Western rock music, which included records by Led Zeppelin and The Beatles. That influence is easy to hear in the Shusmo song "Longa Nakreez," which features plenty of complicated riffing.

Other songs onMumtastic dip into jazz and Latin sounds, which stem from Abboushi having studied jazz in New York. That's where he met his Peruvian collaborator, Hector Morales, who plays drums, congas and cajon (a box-shaped Peruvian percussion instrument).

Read more on: http://www.npr.org/2011/08/20/139758617/shusmo-funky-new-yorkers-with-middle-eastern-roots?ft=1&f=7