Yemeni Jewish junkyard band
Berlin, Germany
El Khat is a Berlin-based collective that hypnotizes audiences with a potent brew of traditional Yemeni melodies, touches of swirling psych-rock, and gutbucket grooves played on a collection of homemade instruments. The trio takes its name from the traditional herbal stimulant chewed in Yemen and throughout the Horn of Africa, and their music mimics the herb’s dizzying, disorienting effects. Led by multi-instrumentalist and composer Eyal El Wahab, the ensemble puts a contemporary DIY spin on the rich musical heritage of the Yemeni Jewish community, while paying tribute to Yemen’s golden age of traditional music.
With the establishment of modern Israel, many Yemeni Jews immigrated there and brought their music and songs with them, creating a rich recorded legacy in their new home. Yemeni music first burst on the international scene in the 1980s, when the late Israeli pop star Ofra Haza released her album Shirei Teiman (Yemenite Songs), dazzling with her otherworldly voice. Known as the “Madonna of the East,” her repertoire explored her Yemeni Jewish heritage—born in Israel to Mizrahi Jewish parents from Yemen—while bringing Yemeni tunes to the top of pop charts in Israel and the Arab world. Haza’s worldwide success was built on a musical foundation that goes back centuries, particularly the diwan, a canon of devotional songs and poems, ranging from secular love songs to ecstatic religious devotion, unique to Yemeni Jewish traditions.
If Ofra Haza represents the past of the Yemeni Jewish musical diaspora, then Eyal El Wahab represents the next generation. Growing up in Kfar Saba in Israel, Eyal El Wahab regularly visited synagogue with his Yemeni Jewish family, where he experienced his earliest musical memories singing prayers. He also participated in the centuries-old ritual of chewing khat leaves and singing old songs. His connections to his Yemeni roots were deepened during visits with his grandparents, who had moved from Yemen to a Yemenite village in central Israel in the 1950s. As a young boy, Eyal showed musical skills, playing guitar and then the cello, later joining the Jerusalem Andalusian Orchestra. Longing to explore his Yemeni heritage, he left the orchestra, and quite serendipitously, he was gifted Qat, Coffee, and Qambus: Raw 45s from Yemen, an acclaimed reissue of classic Yemeni traditional music recordings from the acclaimed label Dust-to-Digital. Eyal began learning Arabic, and drawing on his skills as a cabinetmaker, experimented with homemade string and percussion instruments using cast-off materials and recycled trash. He formed El Khat in 2019. Inspired by these old recordings and Eyal’s drive for cultural inquiry, El Khat released their debut album, Saadia Jefferson, creating a critical buzz at home and abroad with their singular take on this “displaced music.”
El Khat combines traditional Yemeni rhythms and melodies, plaintive Arabic vocals, and junkyard band instruments with modern keyboards, honing their unique sound in garages and warehouses in Tel Aviv and around the world. They have continued to expand their psychedelic sound, pushing into new territory. El Wahab has relocated to Berlin, a move that brought themes of displacement and migration to the foreground on their most recent release, Mute. The album added a barrage of detuned brass into their mix and experimented with new choral arrangements on their most adventurous recording so far. El Khat continues to forge a sound that bridges past and present—keeping classic Yemeni sounds alive while reimagining its future.