Haya Zaatry interview

Reflecting on her debut album, Rahawan, released earlier this year, Haya Zaatry says “I see everything as structures.” By ‘structures’ she means musical and physical, as you might expect from someone who is a qualified architect and an active musician. But she also means social, cultural and personal structures, how we live with them and how we resist them. 

Zaatry says that architecture and music for her are both means to pursue the creation of space for people to live and be their authentic selves. While architecture provides a perspective on personal and communal space from a physical point of view, music creates spaces, metaphorically, where people can question and challenge the restrictions of political and social structures. 

Born in Nazareth, Zaatry moved to Haifa to study architecture, which she practices in an NGO combining human rights and planning. In the meantime, she has been releasing singles and participating in the Palestinian music underground. In Haifa and other cities, she says, they are reviving the live, independent music scene. Her singles mostly comprise of vocals and guitar, the traditional tools of the singer-songwriter.

Joni Mitchell is one of her greatest influences. In Zaatry’s words, “she lives with me.” She discovered an Arabic equivalent in another singer-guitarist, Souad Massi. But with Rahawan she moved beyond the guitar, searching a broader palette, experimenting with a spacious, cosmic sound on keyboards. Her lyrics are replete with spatial reference: her hometown, her house, exile and borders. But they also tell a story of change.

The album begins with an almost child-like perspective. Then, halfway through, the simple, intimate song ‘Plumeria’ relates the death of her grandmother in poetic images: ‘The green almond tree has flowered again, its petals have fallen.’ For Zaatry, this passing meant confronting loss, death and love in a different way. And so it is with the subsequent songs, which are bolder and unapologetic, creating new spaces and new ways to confront them.

Of course, one inescapable element of this for Zaatry is the Palestinian situation, where questions of identity and borders are part of everyday life. She crowdfunded the album, as this was the only way to write about her identity without being censored.

Singing in a Palestinian dialect, she describes personal experiences, but the subjects are universal. The music itself has a brooding ambience, dressed in Middle Eastern colours, but it is driven by indie rock-style drums and guitar. With the music, as with everything on this album, the dialect is local, but the language is universal.

As for the future, Zaatry feels that her most natural place is creating and connecting with people through music. She will be touring the album and appearing at festivals this year. With this, she hopes to be building more metaphorical spaces for people to be their authentic selves.  

Read the review of Rahawan in the Songlines Reviews Database

This interview originally appeared in the June 2022 issue of Songlines magazine. Never miss an issue – subscribe to Songlines today

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