Zeinab Shaath

A Restored Piece of Palestinian Sonic History

More than 50 years ago, teenager Zeinab Shaath recorded a set of revolutionary folk music — the first English-language songs to lift up the Palestinian cause to the wider world. Inspired by Vietnam-era protest music from Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, “The Urgent Call of Palestine'' record was intended to share the stories and messages of Palestinian resistance to an international audience.

The first song Shaath composed in her parents home was the titular “Urgent Call of Palestine,” with lyrics from the Indian poet Lalita Panjabi. At just 16 years old, she began playing folk music on a guitar that her sister brought back from studies in the U.S. As young people across the West took to the streets to protest the American imperialist war, Shaath saw parallels in the fight for Palestinian liberation and set out to celebrate that struggle in her musical poetry.

Shaath’s stirring performances of “The Urgent Call of Palestine” song galvanized leading Palestinian artists, intellectuals and youth. In 1973, Shaath was immortalized in a starry film shot by exiled Palestinian artist Ismail Shammout in the mountains of Lebanon.

Shaath recorded three other songs that drew on the poetry of luminaries such as Mahmoud Darwish, Mueen Biseso and Abd El-Wahab Bayati. The resulting 7-inch album was designed to reach the global stage at a time when artists, writers and musicians across the Arab world created art highlighting the Palestinian struggle. Armed with a guitar and her dulcet voice, Shaath went on to perform across three continents, carrying her hopeful message to young people across the world.

Record labels Discostan and the Majazz Project are honored to reissue a lovingly remastered version of “The Urgent Call of Palestine,” bringing Shaath's songs of protest and solidarity to the ears of a new generation. Shaath’s place in a global history of anti-colonial protest music has until recently been overlooked.

As the world again turns to the liberation of the Palestinian people, we invite you to listen to an far-reaching voice for the humanity of a people long oppressed, until the Palestinian flag flies in Jerusalem again.

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The album is licensed from artist Zeinab Shaath. Any profits from the sale of the record will be donated to the continuing efforts of Majazz to create an archive of Palestinian music as well as relief efforts for the Palestinian people.