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By Neri Livneh Kobi Oz can't even succeed at failing. This is why he and his band,
Tea Packs, decided to stop
performing last year. A clear string of success on the heels of success seemed to Oz the
quintessence of boredom. He wanted to be a singer, songwriter and musician, and did it.
Wanted to be a writer - wrote a best-seller. Wanted love - searched, found it and lost it.
"But that can't even be considered a failure; it's a success because I succeeded at
failing," he says - and then found an even greater love.
Oz was feeling that what he lacked most in life was a sense of missed opportunities.
"I felt that my life was following a course of systematically realizing all my
dreams. And suddenly I felt that my ten-year plan was over, and I was left with a lot of
achievements to hang on my wall and one huge je ne sais pas in my heart."
Now Kobi Oz is more aware of who he is. He knows that he is Levantine. His road to
Levant-dom began in Sderot, the development town where he was born and raised, and
continued a decade ago when Oz and his band packed up and moved to Tel Aviv. Within a
couple of years they were able to make the transition from the margins to the mainstream
of the local music world, and in the process became a symbol of integration between
Oriental and light Israeli music. Although leading Sephardi singers continually rail
against discrimination of Oriental music and fight for its classification as authentically
Israeli, Oz is bored by the whole issue. From now on, Oz argues, don't bother to say
'Israeli' - say 'Levantine'.
Indeed, "Levantine - Delicacy for the Ears" is the legend on the door of central
Tel Aviv's Anana (Cloud) Studios, owned by Oz and Tea Packs. The studio was established last year with the goal of
creating a center for experimental, impromptu creativity. Oz asked philosopher Professor
Shabtai Milo to serve as 'house philosopher' and invited musicians, friends and other
interested parties to come in for daily gatherings, jam sessions, songwriting groups and
discussions. The result was "Etzev Avar Lagur Kahn" (Sadness Has Moved In),
released six months ago, and the current release "Disco Maniac."
Oz: "'Maniac' is the police. In certain neighborhoods, life is so dull that the only
thing of interest is when the police arrive with their flashing lights and start to turn
things upside down. That's disco. The record is about people who sit around in a forgotten
corner of life, waiting for something to happen."
The disc, like Oz's songwriting and singing, is replete with harsh social messages as well
as joie de vivre and a creative lift; it is simultaneously critical and communicative.
"'Disco Maniac' is an experimental neighborhood pop album," says Oz, "and
its artistic underpinnings are innovation combined with retro, an attempt to touch on
nostalgia through the old-time songs, but with a rough edge to it - because we didn't want
to sound too polished and saccharin - along with fascinating, creative singing
arrangements. In short, it's an incredibly post-modern album, a Levantine record."
Oz is a devoted adherent of being Levantine. "It gives you the option of choosing
which mindset you think in, choosing a different one each time. At certain times you are
religious, at others you are secular; sometimes you think along Western lines, other times
along Eastern lines. Levantinism is the availability to enjoy all worlds; it's the
ultimate form of post-modernism."
One organization that hasn't yet been brought up to speed on post-modernism, Oz feels, is
Army Radio, which recently put out a disc called "Israeli Darbouka," in which
Oriental singers sing the old-time Land of Israel standards.
"It was simply moving and heart-rending to see the soldiers of Oriental music
crossing the lines to carry out this brazen mission in enemy territory - performing Hebrew
songs - since, after all, it is widely known that Ashkenazim love Hebrew songs," Oz
says with blaring irony. "Aside from the fact that they are fine renditions of the
songs, it's been-there, done-that. Despite all the good intentions, the record came out a
little too late, after the borders between East and West have already been torn down. Now
it's a trifle banal."
Did this border ever exist for you?
"I think Tea Packs
was among the first bands to cross these lines. We crossed them and suddenly there were no
lines anymore. All at once, the fusion of East and West was just so obvious. There's no
such thing as Sephardim and Ashkenazim, no such thing as right-wingers and left-wingers.
Everyone is an individual. Take our audience, for example. Ask all the Sephardim to move
to the left side of the hall and all the Ashkenazim to move to the right side. Most of the
people would stay in the middle. The majority of the audience doesn't define itself as
Ashkenazi or Sephardi. The same holds true for the population at large.
Nevertheless, people still talk about social and ethnic tension and the Oriental singers
complain about discrimination and deprivation.
"The Oriental singers are only complaining in newspaper interviews, not in their
songs. Besides that, the problem is that most of the people appearing on TV, as well as
most journalists, are too old. So when you watch TV and read the papers, you get the
impression that there is one classic model to which everyone must aspire. The Sephardim
would say that this classic model is Umm Kultum and Abd Al-Wahab and that anything else
has to be judged against this reference standard. The Ashkenazim have other classic
models. But we are a new generation, a generation of self-awareness. We are all peacocks
inside, with many colors that we are now beginning to see. As I see it, this is what
Levantinism is all about - the ability to see all sorts of different things at the same
time."
In the last two years, Oz has been speaking to groups of young people in development towns
on the subject of "how I will realize my dreams." The basic recipe, a la Kobi
Oz: "First of all, tell everyone about your dreams. Then, even if everyone laughs at
you, they'll start helping you. Start to shape yourself and correct yourself and accept
criticism, and you will gradually get to where you want to be."
Aside from theoretical recommendations, Oz also provides practical assistance. While he
and the interviewer are sitting in a room of the studio, two bands, "Kenaisiat
Ha'sechel" (Church of the Mind) and "Sfatayim" (Lips), both of which
collaborated on the production of "Disco Maniac," walk into the studio. Members
of both bands moved to Tel Aviv from the southern development towns of Sderot and Netivot.
True to his credo, Oz openly speaks of his own dreams: "Within a year, 'Levantine'
will be bigger than all the other record companies in Israel." Essentially, he dreams
of restoring the crown of Levantinism to its former glory, to its original meaning.
How is that going to come about?
"We will drive out the dichotomy, drive out all the Jewish thinking of having to
divide things in two, in which everything is a stereotype drawn from TV or the newspapers,
in which the consensus props them up and they talk like rag dolls and play puppet-theater
roles. I'm referring to how they take up the Sephardic persona and the religious persona
and the enlightened leftist persona. Everyone recites texts written 20 years ago and waits
for the applause to come, and it's boring. The way to drive out this dichotomy is by
creating new things that lack borders, that can't be catalogued. When you have nothing to
say, don't say anything. When you feel that there is a place where you can only say that
which you are expected to say - don't bother to go. Every time you are asked a question
that is based on a faulty premise, correct the questioner. Every time you are called
secular or Sephardi, that you represent X, refuse to play along. Say - I am a little
secular, a little Sephardi, a little religious but I am always myself. A person with
simple emotions. I love, I hurt, I am angry, I am happy. I'm not a group, I am only Kobi
Oz."
When Oz speaks about Oz, he speaks about development towns. Along with what he calls a
problem of morale - "The sense that the world is against you, that you can't get out
of here, that people aren't proud of themselves" - he recognizes a huge advantage to
the cultural homogeneousness of the towns.
"The good thing about development towns is that there is no integration there, no
attempt to fuse the people into one," Oz says. "I don't believe in integration
in the sense that they take one from here and one from there and make them compete against
one another. In the development towns, there are no poor neighborhoods or good homes, the
development towns are all one big neighborhood and nobody has to be ashamed of his
culture. In Sderot, you can hear Moroccan music without being worried what the neighbors
will say, because they are Moroccan too. You could speak Moroccan, you could do everything
that people living in poorer neighborhoods in the city were too embarrassed to do. I could
be as Moroccan in Sderot as I wanted to be."
But you're Tunisian.
"Makes no difference, I feel like I'm the father of all Moroccans. There was no need
to be ashamed of culture. There was no dichotomy between Sephardi and Israeli or Western.
Which helps to explain why there are so many excellent bands from Sderot and other
development towns. Where we came from, our culture was perfectly acceptable. In Sderot, I
never felt I had to prove myself to any group, as would have been the case in an
integrated school. I'm fed up with having to constantly unify, I've had it with the fact
that we're supposed to be constantly hugging ourselves to death."
You're in favor of a rift among the people?
"No. As if they really did anything to the Sephardim. What - they took away our
couscous? They don't let us eat matboucha? So long as we're allowed to eat what we want
and listen to the music we want, where's the problem? I think that everyone has to be
himself. The world has to be like one big open Internet, in which freedom always wins out.
Surfing TV channels, I can stop at an Arab film on Jordan, I can stop on a Bernard Pivot
program on the French channel, or I can stop at MTV. Everything works out just fine - I
don't have any internal conflicts going on inside me."
When you got to Tel Aviv, did you feel as if you had walked into an integrated school?
"No, I came to Tel Aviv a whole person within himself. But we kids from the south who
came to Tel Aviv were very naive. I thought I would be going to cocktail parties and have
to wear suits, and I didn't have a suit in the closet. We thought bohemia would be this
kind of acceptance committee, an assortment of drugged-out scandalmongers who would haze
us through their initiation rites. To our surprise, we achieved success after knocking
around for four years looking for a record company. And then they started to ask us to
appear on television, and we felt as if we were being ushered into the program host's own
home, as if it was he who was serving us the water and the coffee. We didn't see the
ratings game that was being played. After ten years of this, we realized we had to stop
because we were afraid of being attached with the stigma of the artist who is addicted to
ratings and life's pleasures. Precisely one year ago, on August 31, we decided that we had
to sit at home and figure out what we wanted, about the differences between being owners
of a business and being artists, between being someone who does what the audience wants,
and someone who does what he wants."
And that's what you now say to the kids from the South, to take their possessions and move
to the big development town of Tel Aviv?
"Why not, if that's what they want? It's a waste for them to be stuck there, a waste
of time. There's nothing to wait for. Michal Yanai will not really come there, neither
will Enrico Macias, at the very most politicians or police will come."
How do you feel about the increased religiosity of the development towns? Aren't you
afraid of what's happening in Sderot and Netivot?
"I ask myself what can be learned from the proliferation of Shas. In my opinion,
Israeli politicians have to take courses in Shas, courses in social awareness. If the
state had not dropped the ball, Shas wouldn't have picked it up.
"I'm not afraid of the religious. They just happen to be people who wear black suits
and beards. The people who went to religious schools went to the same summer camp as me.
The religious are like us - they want to love, want to know, want to be happy. I would
have wanted someone to do the social work; if the religious decided to do it in the
development towns, that's better than no one doing it at all."
You said that you are religious sometimes. What did you mean by that?
"Sometimes, when I feel like it, I light candles or make kiddush."
Do you believe in God?
"Sometimes, when I feel like it. Usually I try not to give him any work to do in my
life. For me, the role God plays is being on the receiving end of my sincere gratitude. I
don't make any demands of Him, Ihave no interest in pestering Him. He certainly has better
things to do, and the line is busy. I don't have the strength to stay on hold. In general,
I'm not the sort of person who waits around, I go and do. Every day I wait with bated
breath for the next day to come. Now that I have completed my training to be 30 years old,
I already want to be 40.
What is an artist?
"It means to always be trying, always blazing new trails, and most important of all,
not to be all caught up in my own successes. Searching is not boring, recycling is. A
lesson I've learned, both musically and personally, is to know when to leave, when to let
go. That's when good things start to happen. Musically speaking, we up and left, stopped
performing, didn't know what would happen next, set up a studio and then produced two
records. When the recordings were over, I suddenly found the love of my life, much greater
and stronger than the last one, and I say thank you to God every morning. Every morning I
wake up and see an angel next to me and can't believe my eyes. So why should I
wait?".
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Friday, August 13, 1999