Arab music comes to America (page 1 of 2)

When Raymond Rashid says his company is one of the oldest and largest wholesalers of Arab music in the world, it's easy to believe him. Throaty, melancholy classics like Umm Kulthum jostle for space on his shelves next to modern-day raï masters like Khaled. Rashid's shop feels like a Middle Eastern music paradise - until you see the yellow New York taxis drive past the window. Then you remember that this is not Beirut or Baghdad - it's Brooklyn.

"Arab music is a very competitive business in America these days," said Raymond, who owns and manages Rashid's from a building just off Brooklyn's famous Arab drag on Atlantic Avenue, across the East River from Manhattan. "There are now five Internet wholesalers for the United States alone. But we're the oldest surviving Arab music company in the world and we're still going strong."

Though the former claim may be exaggerated, Rashid's is certainly more than just another ethnic record shop in New York. From being the first record distributor for legendary 1940s Egyptian artists like Farid Al-Atriche to being the world's first Arab music website in 1995, the company has played a significant role in the history of the Arab music industry. And by American standards, the family-run firm's story starts way back: not with the sale of a record, but with the sale of a car.

In 1938 Raymond's father, Albert - a Greek Orthodox Christian from south Lebanon - had recently graduated from the University of Detroit. One day Albert received a telephone call from Cairo. "It was people he knew there, who told him the Egyptian composer Mohamed Abdul Wahab wanted a new car," said Raymond.
Albert, a shrewd businessman, immediately used all his available funds to buy a four-door Ford. He then stuffed it full of spare tires - "He knew there'd be no spare parts available for it in Egypt," said Raymond - and drove it up the gangplank of the first available ship from New York to Beirut.

Albert drove the last stretch from Beirut to Cairo himself. When he got there, he presented the car to Mohamed Abdel Wahab, who had just completed a musical movie, The White Rose, a landmark in Arab cinema. "Abdel Wahab was so glad to get the car, he turned to my father and told him to be his agent in the United States," said Raymond. In the 1930s, when Arab pop music was mostly recorded in Europe, a foray into the American market was a major joint business venture. Albert returned to Detroit, where he started Rashid Music Sales Co. Inc.

Immigrants. Albert successfully showed The White Rose, and other films sent over by Mohamed Abdel Wahab's publisher, the Baidaphone Record Company of Cairo. Large numbers of Syrian and Lebanese workers in major cities in the United States - Detroit, New York - turned up to the cinema halls and bought records from Albert by mail order.

"My father was a pioneer in the mail-order business," said Raymond. He himself has continued with mail order in the digital age, founding the first Arab music net venture, www.rashid.com, in October 1995. Albert, who died in 1990, also opened two book and record stores in New York - in Manhattan and Brooklyn - and started Orient Records, a label that catered to the growing demand for US-produced Arab instrumental music.

Through its six decades of trading in Brooklyn, Rashid's has kept close links to the stars of the Arab world. The shop's walls are plastered with pictures from Raymond's business trips to Cairo and Beirut, sharing dinner and drinks with iconic stars of the past two decades. He grins next to Mohamed Mounir, the legendary Nubian jazz star -"You can't tell, but that was four AM, " Raymond fondly recalls.