Deena Abdelwahed’s original score for Tunisian LGBTQI+ play Flagranti is out now

Deena Abdelwahed has unveiled her original score for the Tunisian play Flagranti as an EP.

Having dropped on February 3 via Shouka, a French/Tunisian independent music label specialised in North African electronic and traditional music, the Flagranti OST boasts four tracks of daring, innovative club beats. Staged in Tunis last year, Flagranti is a bold fiction that sheds light on the harrowing realities faced by Tunisia's LGBTQI+ community. Abdelwahed's driving score serves as a powerful vessel in conveying the play's themes of violence, homophobia and injustice.

“For the first time in Tunisia and in the Arab World, a play bluntly addresses the homosexuality taboo. Flagranti (in the act) is a queer fiction based on the LGBTQI+ community’s alarming reality in Tunisia. Written collectively under the initiative of the NGO Mawjoudin We Exist, it has been staged by Essia Jaibi and the music composed by Deena Abdelwahed.

“For this new EP, a soundtrack composed for a 100% Tunisian project Flagranti, she teams up with the Tunisian-Lyonnais label Shouka. Faithful to her debut musical explorations, she graces us with an avant-garde dance music sprinkled with elemens typical of the Arab music diversity. Her musical touch is immediately recognizable: an uncompromising club music, filled with an energy that backs up the play’s stance, and Essia Jaibi’s commitment against injustice and homophobia. The violence of this raging music echoes the daily aggressions of the LGBTQI+ communities” reads the label’s statement.

Take a listen to the four-track EP below.