The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, December 2, 2016 — 5

My grandmother’s apartment 

in Tehran has a balcony overrun 
with various herbs and tomato 
plants. It runs across the back 
of the living room, a cozy white 
platform 
that 
overlooks 
the 

patchwork quilt of the rest 
of the city. I like to escape to 
it right at sunset, when my 
grandmother and mother are 
usually in the kitchen, cutting 
open pomegranates to eat as a 
snack before dinner. Their voices 
tumble around green bowls with 
seeds as red as the sun as it begins 
to sink beneath the line of the 
city.

From 
my 
vantage 
point 

thirteen stories up, the constant 
blanket of dust that floats above 
Tehran makes the entire city 
flicker like a golden mirage. It’s 
my favorite place in the world, 
this balcony right before dusk, 
when my toes curl around the 
edge of the terrace between the 
pillars of the railing as I crane my 
neck up and observe the world 
around me collectively hold its 
breath. We wait, for this: a call to 
prayer.

It comes in the form of music. 

Bare, haunting vocals released 
from local mosques into the 
open air flow between buildings 
and plead to the bruising sky, to 
the women hanging wet clothes 
from clotheslines, to the men 
selling fresh kabobs. It is both a 
reminder that the time for prayer 
is fast approaching and also an 
invitation for all to join.

Although I don’t consider 

myself to be a religious person, 
let alone a devout Muslim, 
whenever I have the chance 
to visit my grandmother, I am 
still inexplicitly drawn to the 
same spot on her balcony at the 
same time, day after day. There 
is a paradoxical intimacy in 
the recitation, in the way I feel 
connected to something I barely 
understand. It is the same feeling 
I get when I skim my fingers over 
the pristine pages of my father’s 
dense Qur’an like I’m skimming 
my fingers over a lake; I’m aware 
of the inky depths that disappear 
beneath the surface, I just have 
yet to find out what they hold.

When the music disappears 

with the sun, I slip back inside 

the apartment and pass my 
grandmother as she makes her 
way to her bedroom, to where 
I know her prayer rug is sitting 
at the foot of her bed. Her call 
is to prayer. I’m on the way 
to the kitchen. My call is to 
pomegranates, and the fruit, as it 
breaks open in my mouth, tastes 
like sweet familiarity. I suspect 
her prayer tastes like somewhat 
of the same thing.

I haven’t had a chance to visit 

my grandmother or her balcony 
in years, a fact that is a constant 
weight on my chest. I can’t 
imagine what it must be like 
for my parents, as immigrants 
in a foreign world. My mother 
holds tight to the music of her 
childhood, playing traditional 
songs as she sashays around 
the kitchen in the evenings. My 
father holds tight to a different 
kind of music: the rhythm of 
tradition. Every year, during the 
fasting month of Ramadan, my 
father breaks his fast two times a 
day. During both times, the sky’s 
pre-dawn or post-dusk blue black 
sky watches from the window: 
while my mother commanders 
the main course on the stove, 
he 
assembles 
bread, 
yogurt 

and cheese on the table and 
waits with one eye on the clock, 
counting down the seconds until 
he can eat.

During both times, he plays 

a prayer from his phone, and 
the dua as it comes through the 
tiny speakers fills our kitchen 
with peaceful reverence. The 
quiet words unfurl like flowers, 
revealing petals upon petals of 
history, with roots that slip down 
my father’s chair like ivy, turning 
into ley lines that connect him to 
the family he left behind.

My old friend’s house in 

Rochester Hills, Mich. has a 
balcony bereft of any decoration 
except for a few wooden chairs 
haphazardly scattered around. 
It runs along the entirety of the 
back of her house, a bleak wooden 
ledge that overlooks the rolling 
expanse of her lawn. It was here 
that I found myself sitting one 
day in the middle of the summer 
between middle school and high 
school with my friend sitting 
opposite, pressing a small bible 
into the palm of my hand. I took 
it with reluctance, because the 
edges were unfamiliar and bit 
into the creases of my fingers. She 

took out her own copy and held it 
easily, worn down edges molding 
perfectly to the cadence of her 
grip. It was here that I received 
my first lesson of Christianity, an 
idea born through the marriage 
of her constant desire to talk 
about the religion that meant 
so much to her family and my 
endless boredom of repetitious 
summer days.

I was sure that the day would 

be taken up by extensive lectures 
and readings, but instead she 
pulled out an iPod shuffle from 
her pocket, which, according 
to her, was filled with different 
Christian songs of worship. We 
spent the rest of the afternoon 
going through the entirety of her 
collection, and while many of the 
songs went over my head, glossy 
with a decadence I wasn’t used to 
hearing from religion, I focused 
instead on how my friend listened 
to those songs: eyes closed with 
her head tilted up towards the 
sky, like the sun and songs she 
knew by heart had come together 
to form a perfect harmony, a call 
to home. 

I am not a religious person. 

But I still have the Bible my 
friend gave to me all those years 
ago resting in a drawer. I like to 
take it out sometimes and rifle 
through the pages. It reminds me 
of the absolute joy she found in a 
chipped blue iPod Shuffle. 

I am not a religious person. But 

some days at sunset I like to lean 
my head against the glass of my 
apartment window as the familiar 
call to prayer echoes through my 
speakers into the empty corners 
of my room. It transforms into 
my grandmother’s balcony and 
instead of the city of Ann Arbor, 
I am looking at mountains that 
stretch up from the horizon 
like earthy heart lines. I still 
don’t understand why my feet 
constantly bring me to the same 
spot on the same balcony. I don’t 
understand, but maybe I don’t 
need to.

Maybe all I can do is quietly, 

simply, listen — to a friend as 
she sings the church hymns her 
mother taught her, to a father as 
he breaks his fast to a prayer he 
remembers his father reciting a 
thousand times in the past, to the 
music in religion because it can 
sometimes be the music of home, 
wherever that may be, whatever 
that might sound like.

SHIMA SADAGHIYANI

Daily Arts Writer

The sounds of faith can provide comfort even to the nonreligious

How to find home in the 
sacred music of religion

TV REVIEW

Maybe 
you’ve 
sworn 
off 

dystopian 
thrillers. 
“That 

was 
so 
middle 

school,” you say. 
The genre had 
its 
renaissance, 

after 
all, 
and 

now you’ve put 
your Mockingjay 
pins to rest. But 
with a brilliant 
cinematographer, 
a fresh setting and a punchy 
eight-episode arc, Netflix’s new 
original series “3%” sucks you 
into the craze all over again. 
The streaming giant’s first all-
Brazilian production breathes 
new life and energy into the 
genre, perfect for the older, 
more intellectual you — and not 
just because you have to read 
subtitles.

In a futuristic society, the 

vast majority — the 97 percent 
— 
live 
a 
poverty-stricken 

existence. 
Each 
year, 
the 

population’s 20-year-olds have 
a chance to elevate their status 
by going through the Process, 
an 
elimination 
procedure 

characterized 
by 
mental, 

physical and emotional tests 
(think “The Hunger Games,” 
but less gory). Only three 
percent will be chosen to live 
out the rest of their lives on the 
Offshore, a mystical, utopian 
land of progress, safety and 

wealth.

The series opens on the 104th 

year of the Process, as 20-year-
old hopefuls make their way 
from their torn-down favelas 
to the cold, empty evaluation 

facility, which acts 
as 
the 
primary 

setting 
for 
the 

show’s first season. 
Sci-fi gadgets and 
gizmos set up the 
futuristic feel as 
the series paints 
a 
stark 
contrast 

between 
the 

progress achieved by the elite 
and the poverty endured by the 
rest of the society.

Despite “3%” ’s relatively low 

production 
costs, 
especially 

when 
compared 
to 
recent 

releases in the genre on Netflix 
(like 
“Black 
Mirror”), 
the 

minimalistic setting still works. 
Although 
visually 
bare, 
it’s 

always intriguing, as Oscar-
nominated 
cinematographer 

César Charlone (“City of God”) 
lends his genius to “3%.” The 
camera has impressive range, 
moving so uncomfortably close 
to a character that you can 
see every pore, or flying out 
to show an impressive view 
of the broken city below. The 
viewer’s experience is more 
than engaging: it’s exhilarating. 
As the audience tries to figure 
out the rules and constructions 
of the dystopia, the camera soars 
to make them want to live it 
themselves.

Perhaps what makes “3%” 

so captivating for a mature 
audience is the depth of its 
characters. 
The 
candidates 

the series focuses on are both 
collectively and independently 
compelling, 
establishing 

intriguing relationships as their 
own stories, motivations and 
secrets surface.

Primarily, the series tells 

the story of Michele, a strong, 
vengeful young woman played 
by 
Bianca 
Comparato 
(“In 

Treatment”). “3%” also features 
a 
captivating 
performance 

from João Miguel (“Cinema, 
Aspirins, and Vultures”) as 
the deceptive leader of the 
Process, who has a few secrets 
of his own. At times, like the 
dystopian-thriller 
genre 
in 

general, the show can venture 
into soap-opera territory — 
due to the life and death of it 
all, perhaps. But paired with 
well-developed and intriguing 
characters, the overly dramatic 
acting is not so much a turn-
off, but rather another step in 
establishing the intense and 
binge-worthy feel of the series.

Considering today’s extreme 

political and social climate, 
fantasizing about another world 
is not so crazy. So whether you’re 
seeking full-bodied escapism or 
just an hour-long distraction, 
the 
gorgeous 
Portuguese 

dialogue and the vision of a 
brilliant cinematographer begs 
“3%” to be your next break from 
reality.

DANIELLE YACOBSON

Daily Arts Writer

Netflix’s ‘3%’ transcends its YA roots

B+

“3%”

Episodes 1 & 2

Netflix

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

The first time I tried composing, 

I severely underestimated the 
difficulty of the task at hand. 
My fellow seventh graders and 
I had been tasked with creating 
personal melodies that were to be 
performed in front of the entirety 
of the middle school orchestra, 
and I jumped at the opportunity 
to display my self-proclaimed 
musicality and artistic prowess. 
I wanted to make something 
beautiful, some sort of never-
before-heard chord progression 
that would latch onto heart and 
soul, tracing shudders into the 
spines of all who heard it.

But 
no 
matter 
what 

combinations I tried, I couldn’t 
spin my sky-high expectations 
for my composition into reality. 
My beginnings fell flat, clattering 
to the ground in soft puffs of dust 
instead of blooming into sparkling 
life like I’d hoped they would. 
Notes that I’d never paid attention 
to before my musical tinkering 
took on ominous visages of their 
own, radiating a stubborn aversion 
to any sort of cooperative union 
despite my pleading. Everything 
I tested sounded awkward and 
out of place, as if I’d somehow 
managed to discover the musical 
representation of a gracelessly 
gangly calf.

Even more paralyzing was 

my acute fear of accidentally 
plagiarizing music that already 
existed. In the rare instances 
when I thought I had the start 
of 
something 
even 
remotely 

acceptable, it didn’t take long 
for me to realize that the reason 
the tune seemed familiar was 
because it was similar to a long 

forgotten television jingle or, in 
one instance, the theme song to 
“Mr. Bean’s Holiday.”

I don’t know how I settled 

on a final version to perform. I 
remember going back to my seat 
with my cello in tow, filled with 
an all-consuming dissatisfaction 
with my piece and what I once 
considered 
to 
be 
a 
natural 

musicality. When the grades came 
out, I was surprised to have gotten 
full marks on the assignment, but 
even that didn’t do much to dull 
the slight bitterness I still had at 
myself for being unable to meet 
my own standards.

I haven’t tried to compose in 

the years since, mainly because 
I’m more focused on writing for 
my artistic outlet now. However, I 
still encounter the same dilemma 
whenever I’m stuck with writer’s 
block. 
There’s 
nothing 
more 

frustrating 
than 
feeling 
like 

your creativity has been trapped 
behind a very thick, very tall and 
very concrete wall that exists for 
no reason at all.

For people like my parents, 

who appreciate my writing ability 
but are immediately dismissive 
of anyone who chooses to pursue 
a career in the humanities, 
writer’s block is laughable, even 
more evidence that there’s barely 
any distinction between those 
who study the art of the word 
for years and mere students. 
They 
don’t 
understand 
the 

indescribable, 
thriving 
nature 

of creating, because it has never 
played much of a role in their 
lives. The problem is made worse 
by the fact that creativity is not a 
definitive subject with specific 
rules and regulations; the concept 
of creativity itself heavily relies on 
its immeasurability.

I think of creativity like a rice 

paddy — the more rice you plant, 
the richer the soil gets. Being a part 
of an environment that actively 
encourages creativity not only 
has a positive effect on my mental 
state but also my productivity 
overall. Writing is a very personal 
activity that I take a lot of joy in, 
and it’s not only hurtful but also 
disheartening to have something 
extremely meaningful to me 
treated so indifferently.

The problems that I faced when 

I first started out with my seventh 
grade composition still pop up 
every now and then when I sit 
down to write. Sometimes I can’t 
get my sentences to flow the way I’d 
like to, and they’ll sound as wispy 
and formless as an unrosined bow 
over clean strings. Other times, 
I’m simply unable to convey the 
exact picture I’m trying to paint 
no matter how many phrasings 
I try. Worst of all is when I can’t 
even fit sentences together. I’ll sit 
in front of my laptop for hours at 
a time, feeling the exact same way 
I did six years ago when I was 
cramming random notes against 
each other, desperately hoping 
that the sharps and flats would 
assemble into some semblance of a 
satisfactory song.

However, if writing were easy, I 

probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much 
as I do. Part of the allure of writing 
is the uncertainty surrounding the 
end result; even when I have a clear 
idea in mind of what exactly I want 
to create, I have no way of knowing 
precisely what’s going to show 
up on the page. I’ve changed and 
grown in countless ways since that 
20-measure composition, and one 
of the most important things I’ve 
learned is that obstacles such as 
writer’s block never truly go away, 
even as you get older. The only 
thing you can do is keep on trying.

SAMANTHA LU
Daily Arts Writer

The beautiful frustration of creating

If making art were easy, we wouldn’t enjoy it as much as we do

Thrilling Brazilian series breathes new life into old tropes

Looking back to 2014, the 

year brought us Vince Staples’s 
Hell Can Wait. In the years 
following, 2015 gifted Kendrick 
Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly and 
2016 brought, uh, 21 Savage’s 
Savage Mode? Yeah. And Kodak 
Black, D.R.A.M., Lil Yachty and 
the like. 

Socially conscious rap seemed 

to have peaked in 2015. Lamar 
warned us of political divide 
in the form of “DemoCrips and 
ReBloodicans,” 
Lupe 
Fiasco 

talked of “watching Gazans 
and 
Ashkenazis 
ride 
roller 

coasters” and Vince Staples 
questioned 
“Black 
sellin’ 

crack for the white man.” For 
a genre arguably founded and 
bolstered early on by the moral 
implications of its content, such 
lyricism marked the final stages 
of a healthy evolution.

That being said, objectively 

“good” rap doesn’t need to be 
socially conscious. Listening 
gratification certainly comes 
from a nuanced perspective on 
a type of American life foreign 
to the majority of the audience, 
but it’s possible and likely more 
plausible to derive pleasure 
from purely enjoyable music.

Important 
rap, 
however, 

does need to have substance, 
and 
substantialism 
hasn’t 

exactly 
defined 
this 
year’s 

releases. For instance, “Black 
Beatles,” Rae Sremmurd’s hit, 
has 
gained 
more 
notoriety 

for its accompaniment of the 
viral “Mannequin Challenge” 
than for its actual musicality. 
Not even a Gucci feature can 
save the rest of the track’s 
underwhelming flow. It now 
seems like singles earn their 
mainstream badge based on 
meme-ability.

Put into more collegiately 

relevant 
terms, 
everything 

popular, everything “playable” 
from this year, would make 
for an unbelievable pregame 
playlist. You know, not the 
type of stuff you listen to for 
fulfillment (or enlightenment 
for that matter) but the boiled-
down bangers, songs like Yo 
Gotti’s “Down in the DM” and 
Yachty’s “Minnesota.” Jump 
on a table, maybe throw some 
shit, do some funny dances. 
This mood necessitates a basic 
criterion: a vibey beat, an 
infectious hook and a chant to 
mouth along so as to not look 
stupid. 2016’s offerings pass 
that test, they just might not 
pass a more enduring one.

This may sound completely 

old, crotchety and pretentious. 
Hell, it pretty much is old, 
crotchety and pretentious. Not 
to mention, to function within a 
generalization, especially when 
it comes to music, is bad. It’s just 
that increasingly, “meaningful” 

music seems like an exception.

Indeed, rap as a whole seems 

comfortable 
on 
its 
current 

trajectory toward a singularly 
“bumpable” genre, and 2016 
helped solidify that. While 
the virtuous persevere — A 
Tribe Called Quest’s We Got It 
from Here... Thank You 4 Your 
Service, Vic Mensa’s There’s 
Alot Going On, Isaiah Rashad’s 
The Sun’s Tirade and even 
Schoolboy Q’s Blank Face LP, all 
releases from this year, expand 
upon 
Lamar-esque 
tensions 

— to an increasing extent, 
we’re listening for fun and not 
fulfillment.

To be sure, the visibility is 

what seems different. Last year, 
emotionally-charged anthems 
like “King Kunta” and “Alright” 
got airtime, whereas this year, 
nothing remotely related to the 
public affairs of this country 
has successfully crossed over 
into 
the 
mainstream. 
And 

it’s November. There’s a mix 
of 
guilt-free 
bangers 
and 

meaningful statements filling 
out the landscape of rap at this 
moment, but the imbalance in 
exposure is what defines its 
current climate.

Maybe that’s the point. Trap, 

drill, bounce, cloud, whatever 
— they’ve always coexisted. 
Variety gives the genre its most 
potent flavor. Ultimately, it’s 
our obligation to find our own 
happy medium.

EARDRUMMERS

“Hey! You! Give us our shirts back!”

JOEY SCHUMAN

Daily Arts Writer

The most iconic hip-hop songs of the year had memes, lacked meaning

The state of rap in 2016: A need to 
balance the style and the substance

MUSIC NOTEBOOK
MUSIC NOTEBOOK

