Song Style as Strategy: Nationalism, Cosmopolitanism and Citizenship in The Idan Raichel Project's Ethiopian-influenced Songs

Over the past decade, the State of Israel has approached pariah status in political debate, and its cultural sector and economy have been subject to boycott. Nevertheless, one multi-ethnic band has cultivated critical acclaim and a transnational audience by preaching integration and co-existence. This band, The Idan Raichel Project (IRP), advocates an Israeli society that accepts minorities and incorporates this worldview into a syncretic musical style that draws from the diverse influences of Israel's citizens, particularly from its Ethiopian minority. Yet, the IRP has drawn critique for enacting a hierarchy within the band between labour and management. Meanwhile, the IRP's approach to nationalist discourses is conventional, with the main discourses and apparatuses of the State-the military, the status of Israel as Jewish homeland-remaining uncontested. This article engages the dialectics of nationalism and cosmopolitanism in the IRP's Ethiopian-influenced songs. Through close analysis, I will argue that songwriter-producer Raichel projects a progressive nationalist ideology, framing Ethiopian-Israeli social problems within national/ist Israeli narratives of Home and Return. The band's musical texts might thus be considered a contact zone where struggles over power and exclusion are negotiated and contested in a public, global forum. Raichel's representation of Ethiopian music and musicians enacts a set of power relations that promotes nationalism and cosmopolitanism simultaneously. Through the analysis of three songs, I will argue that the IRP deploys a particular style of 'discrepant cosmopolitanism' as a deliberate political strategy, positioning the band's elite audience above polarising discussions of conflict and state legitimacy.