Born on same day that the Berlin Wall fell, Jamila Al-Yousef—festival curator, antiracism and empowerment trainer, Berlin native and lead vocalist for the band Jamila & The Other Heroes—says her performances and lyrics take inspiration from her Palestinian father, who came to Germany as a refugee.
A musical wave has been swelling for a decade in the German capital, which one local analyst now calls “the city of choice for a new generation of cultural talent from the Middle East and North Africa”—part of the greater demographic shift that has made people of Arab backgrounds Berlin’s fourth-largest ethnic-identity group. In street jams, clubs, studios, concert halls and online, new mixes of musicians are blending notes and ideas into genre-bending, transcultural fusions.
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