#246 — Een hete Take (feat. Faisal)

Stijn and Kirsten open with their summer experiences. Kirsten was in Sri Lanka, but mainly calls Cactus Festival impressive: there was a strong atmosphere during the football. Stijn worked a lot during the festivals and saw most of Pukkelpop on television, which he actually found interesting because VRT MAX allowed viewers at home to follow Werchter, Tomorrowland and other festivals live. Kirsten saw New Wave on TV and initially thought the stage action was low effort, but noticed that the collective energy and the audience were enormous. They agree that television has limitations: a gigantic object above the stage and the atmosphere of a mosh pit do not fully come across in 2D.

Kirsten was initially skeptical about Gipsy because she did not hear any clear classics and ‘you had to be there’ can be a cheap defense. During the performance, that changed: the band played tightly, the audience sang along from beginning to end and a large mosh pit formed, in which she ended up in the second row. She ultimately calls the performance one of her highlights, even though she could not make sense of everything on TV, such as the large screen-like object above the stage. Stijn defends enjoyment as a criterion: if people are visibly having fun and the music sets them free, that is already a successful concert for him.

Kirsten describes Leffingeleuren as a festival where you mainly discover unknown artists who could reach bigger stages in two years. She rejects the cliché that it is only for people from West Flanders: she saw young people from Brussels camp for three days and watch everything. The festival uses different locations — tents, a church, a large hall and a café — allowing you to move constantly between concerts. She recommends Woman Chin, which sounded much bigger live than on record, TVOD and an act whose name she can no longer remember. Stijn adds Harry Mack, who immediately incorporates words from the audience into freestyle and was, in his view, exceptionally convincing.

Faisal says he saw IJsland at a local festival without any prior announcement. That made sense when the first bass wave began: he joked that he was glad he had not eaten too much because the performance came in physically. The opening track ‘Zetetek’ and the heavy but stylish production immediately made it clear that this would not be an ordinary show. A mosh pit formed and Faisal calls the performance the most spectacular he saw that summer. Afterward, he listened to IJsland much more. Stijn agrees that the combination of hard bass, control and atmosphere creates something live that you cannot get from the record alone.

Faisal says the summer was busy because of his own tour, the IJsland show and other performances, but that he put everything into the record and its live translation. The show should not only sound musically good: according to him, the songs contain clear but sometimes abstract messages, while the performance nevertheless remains festive. He considers that balance a great art. IJsland played at Dutch festivals and in smaller venues, among others; Faisal thinks the intimate club shows allow the project to be experienced better than large festival stages. He constantly remixes songs and arranges the set differently each time, so that every show takes on its own DJ-like form.

The hosts discuss Macklemore’s decision to withdraw as the opening act for Ed Sheeran after speaking out on stage with ‘Free Palestine’. Other opening acts and members of Sheeran’s band are also said to have objected to restrictions on their freedom of expression, especially because the stadiums involved are associated with pro-Israel funding. Stijn and Faisal believe that artists do not have to give political speeches at every concert, but may speak when politicians are falling short and, in their view, there is a clear humanitarian issue. According to them, Macklemore based his statement on facts and findings from international bodies, not on a call for violence.

The panelists believe Ed Sheeran should have taken responsibility instead of saying that the promoter removed Macklemore from the tour. In their view, he could have threatened not to play the show himself, canceled the tour or organized his own alternative; his financial position — Stijn says he has even bought houses for friends — made that feasible, in their opinion. Macklemore is said to have lost approximately one million dollars net and donated that amount to six organizations providing aid to people in Gaza. They find the solidarity of the other acts meaningful: they also gave up income to avoid cooperating with the decision.

Regardless of the conflict, Stijn, Kirsten and Faisal believe that a venue should facilitate a performance and not determine what an artist may say on stage. They do distinguish between freedom of expression and punishable calls for violence. According to them, the discussion about slogans such as ‘Death to the IDF’ goes wrong when such artistic or political language is read hyper-literally, while other music is allowed room for metaphor. Stijn finds it problematic when managers and venues ultimately dictate everything: clothing, lyrics and statements. An artist is allowed to make mistakes and is responsible for them, but according to the group must have a backbone of their own.

Kirsten and Stijn find it difficult to remove Sheeran’s music from playlists entirely, because he himself did not commit genocide and his music can be separated from his bad decision. Still, they feel it is inappropriate to give him extra airplay while Macklemore is being excluded. They compare this with artists who demonstrably committed abuse: in those cases, a temporary or permanent boycott may make sense. Their criticism of Sheeran is mainly about his lack of personality and responsibility. In a time when music can be technically and commercially manufactured, they believe that having an opinion of one’s own or taking a clear position remains one of the few things an artist cannot have produced for them.

A listener asks why Fabiow gets so much attention with deliberately bad, simplistic lyrics. Faisal says he initially found Fabiow interesting because he livestreamed endlessly, constantly made music and claimed to have hundreds or thousands of songs ready. He saw him as someone who first understood the mechanism of making and selling music and might later find a strong song. After a racist or offensive stunt, an apology and then the same behavior again, Faisal’s opinion changed: in his view, it no longer seems to be about music, but about views, reactions and crowdfunding. He believes such attention stunts undermine artists who write and work seriously.

Faisal notices that online discussions surrounding Fabiow are taken over by people who do not follow him and barely know his music, but use his posts to make a broader political point. As a result, a small, loud camp on social media appears to represent public opinion, while nobody talks about the music anymore. Stijn recognizes that pattern from another discussion with more than 1,500 responses: groups quickly find one another, reinforce one another and turn a topic into a battleground. The panelists therefore also see Fabiow as a victim of the polarized attention, because the discussion is no longer about his work or behavior separately, but about opposing camps.

When Dolly Parton dies, Kirsten notices that even people who know only a few songs share their sadness and appreciation online. She recognizes that feeling in herself: she did not know Parton’s catalog well and had not posted anything, but the news did not leave her unmoved. According to the group, the explanation lies in Dolly as an institution and personality. She combined music with charity, including having books sent to children who might otherwise never read them, and despite her plastic appearance remained a recognizable, self-created figure. Stijn cites her collaboration with Kenny Rogers as an example of her humor and live personality: their spontaneous teasing on stage was, in his view, at least as memorable as their duets.

The group returns to IJsland 2, which Faisal considers an important summer record. He points to the contrast between heavy titles and lyrics and moments that sound almost cheerful. In the car, he heard a dark song loudly and was particularly impressed by the fast, clearly written lyrics, as if someone were telling a story directly. In his view, the record avoids both permanent seriousness and carefree cheerfulness. Stijn notes that the three creators — Faisal, Abel and Jushef — bring together very different worlds, making the music sometimes unexpected and chaotic, but sounding unique precisely because of that.

Faisal explains that ‘Ossama Bin Laden’ began as a small, deep and dark piano motif. The creators do not build their songs linearly: lyrics, loop, beat and production emerge simultaneously and continually steer one another. Because Faisal knew he could not create the desired emotional charge on his own, he sent the producer Thomas a poor WhatsApp recording and asked him to preserve that emotion. That recording ultimately remained in the song. Birds recorded outside the speakers during a studio session and an unexpected sample from Latifa were also used deliberately. Faisal prefers such imperfect, context-shifting choices to polished production: the breaks make the song more interesting.

The three sold-out IJsland shows in Brussels and Antwerp lead to the question of whether more concerts should be added. Faisal does not want to turn the project into a strategic product for now. IJsland began as a free-form hobby group alongside their other projects; if they now have to create a new record, a larger venue or a marketable reason specifically because of the hype, he believes the shapelessness that makes the project strong would disappear. Kirsten compares it to lasagna: sometimes you have to let one dish rest before making a new one. Stijn would like to see additional shows, because ‘I have to see this live’ is, in his view, the greatest compliment for an artist. Nothing has been confirmed yet.