Björk Teams Up With Syrian Singer Omar Souleyman on New Album

Roger Kisby/Getty

Björk has announced that she has recorded a collaboration with the Syrian musician Omar Souleyman. Few details about the album have been made available, but it will come out as a limited edition 12-inch record, CD and digital download at some point this year. The record is said to include elements of Syrian dabke and Iraqi choubi music.

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Though Souleyman has been making records since the mid-Nineties, his music has only recently become commercially available in the United States thanks to a series of releases on the small American label Sublime Frequencies. His music typically blends traditional Arabic music styles with electronic beats and keyboards.

Björk Collaborates With Omar Souleyman [Pitchfork]

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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