The Power of Redefining
[Music]
[Music]
hi
everybody salaam my name is
maisado i am an artist a musician and an
actress
well i’m mainly a singer-songwriter i
write
music i sing i compose i play a few
instruments well
play a few instruments i have my solo
work
and i’m a very proud member of kalimi an
international
band and a very proud member of them the
first palestinian hip-hop band
actually the first people to sing
hip-hop in arabic in the middle east
now dam started in 1999 2000
and i was really young back then and i
pretty much
grew up on their music i was a huge fan
i loved
every single song knew all the lyrics
and i remember even at one time
see i already knew of course that i
wanted to do music i always knew that i
wanted to do music
and i remember i was 13 14
and i was standing in the crowd in haifa
and watching a damn show
and i remember thinking will i ever be
good enough
or successful enough to do a song with
them a few
years later 2015 i become a member of
the band
2019 we release the first album with me
as a member
uh it’s called benhano mana i’m
completely in love
with this album and pretty much
changed my life but this is not really
what i’m here to talk about
good yeah this is not really what i’m
here to talk about
what i want to share with you is
actually
how hard it was for me to write the
speech
for today because see when i was first
contacted by tedx to write a speech i
knew exactly at the same
moment what i wanted to talk about what
i want to say
and how i want to say it but then
just a bit later the recent events in
palestine
started taking place and it kind of made
my whole speech irrelevant for the
moment
now the events in palestine what i’m
talking about is what we’ve seen in the
past month
happening in charge in silwan in oksa
in jerusalem
and this is nothing new of course and we
know that this has been happening for
years and years and years but
the thing this time is that there’s a
new light
on it and new actions being taken
and it’s like overnight everybody knew
that we needed to take action we didn’t
talk about it but there was this
unspeakable sink and everybody knew that
we had to take action
and everybody kind of knew exactly what
their role was every person knew what
his or her role was
and the next day we were just doing what
we needed what each person needed to do
and what this created is that it
reunified
the palestinian cause it’s not a gaza
cause
it’s not a west bank cause it’s not a
diaspora
and it’s not palestine 48th cause it
became
again a palestinian cause and it became
international and very spoken of and
it’s still happening and created a very
big wave of change now why did this make
my speech irrelevant
see what i really wanted to talk about
is how hard it is for me
and how difficult and frustrating for me
it is
to be constantly identified as a
palestinian
woman artist rather than just artists
now don’t get me wrong i love being a
woman i love being palestinian
both very huge parts of what i am but
it’s not all
that i am and see
i really i knew that i wanted to do
music before i even understood what
politics is
before i knew what being a palestinian
means before i knew what being a woman
actually meant
in this crazy world i knew that i wanted
to do music
and this comes in many forms well when
we think about it
when we speak about men when we speak
about musicians or speakers but men
we never identify them as men speakers
or men musicians it even sounds weird
saying these two words together
but when we speak about women it’s
almost impossible to not mention it it’s
like we have to
really emphasize that it’s woman
you know this is a whole subject by
itself but this is not the main reason
why this is really hard for me
and why it’s hard for me because most of
the time i find myself being invited to
events
because the event needs a woman’s voice
or because the event needs a palestinian
voice
and that really makes me question my art
sometime
am i being invited because i’m a great
artist like i want to be
or am i being invited because i’m a
woman or because i’m palestinian
if they had other options would i still
be looked at or invited or would i be
put on the side and they just go to get
whatever
first palestinian woman they can get
their hands on
see this happens a lot with me and i was
even invited to the usa a few years ago
to do a show i was the headline of the
show 16 hours flight
you know i get there jet lag everything
excited to do the show but when i get
there
i realized that the people that invited
me had actually
no idea who i was they didn’t know that
i had an album out
they didn’t know my music never heard it
they just knew
that i am a palestinian woman artist
now i really do really aspire really
dream of
being defined as an artist and being
recognized for my music and not because
i’m a woman and not because i’m
palestinian i’m gonna talk about these
things
anyway but i aspire to be able to be
recognized for my music
and to be identified as a musician but
what the recent events
reminded me of is that at this moment
i don’t really have the luxury for that
it reminded me of the importance
of amplifying voices that are usually
mistreated
misheard silenced or even killed just
because
of who we are it reminded me of the
change that this strategy
actually brought upon us and i really do
think
for me personally how i see myself i
really do feel
that speaking about this issue is a big
part of my responsibility as an artist
especially because of where i come from
and because of my background and because
of how privileged i
am see i’ve come from the most
supportive family
that a person can ask for they always
have my back no matter what
i’m forever thankful for them have ivy
and i come from haifa and these two
alone makes it
a lot easier for me to speak where
otherwise it would be
very hard to speak and i feel it’s part
of my responsibility
to document and to speak up and to talk
about whatever is happening
and also well we can’t deny and we can’t
ignore the fact
that being a palestinian woman musician
is great for the image
and i’m going to give an example my band
kalimi if you remember i mentioned us in
the beginning
well we are an international band we are
four women
two palestinians one swiss half
palestinian
and one dominican republic even me with
all these thoughts that i’m sharing with
you i would want to go see that show
without knowing the music
because it sounds i don’t know it sounds
a lot of things
and maybe that’s one of the reasons why
especially our first few shows before we
got
labels and agencies and bookings and
everything why
95 of our shows were fully
sold out without even having one song
out that people can listen to and people
still came
and i’m not really i’m not
underestimating my the music that we do
i’m in love with our music
i really love the beautiful women that
are with me i love the chemistry that we
have i love
the fusion of our voices and our music
genres and everything i love what we do
and i really believe in it
but i cannot ignore this fact
now with that being said
i really think that it’s important that
we take advantage of every stage that we
are giving
that we are given of every platform that
we are given
and to take to take that opportunity to
speak up
and with that being said you want to
invite me because i’m a woman
go ahead you want to invite me because
i’m palestinian
go ahead because i have a lot
to say and i’m going to use every
platform given to me to say exactly what
needs to be said
so let me rephrase it thank you
let me rephrase it hi my name is maisado
i am a palestinian woman musician
and i really think that we need to take
the opportunities that we have
so speak about palestine speak about
speak about silwan about about yafa
about haifa about al khalil about
razi about the diaspora speak about
ramallah
speak about al-aqsa speak about syria
and about yemen
speak about colombia speak about black
lives matter black lives matter
and the indigenous people all around the
world speak about turtle island
and the lgbtq plus community because
a huge change is coming and this
change is not coming from governments
and it’s not coming from political
parties it’s coming from
the people and it’s big and it’s
happening
and this change needs to be and it will
be
worldwide thank you
[Applause]