By Layla Moallem
Picture By Danielle Raab
Sonnet 130
This single is the outcome of a beautiful encounter between Layla and the highly acclaimed musical producer and Balkan Beat Box founding member Tamir Muskat.
What started as an improvised session in Tamir’s studio, in which Layla found herself rapping Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 onto Tamir’s beats – became a long journey of exploration, trying to understand and reinterpret the sonnet – written in the 17th century, through their own eyes today.
This chance encounter with Tamir led Layla back into the music world and after a guest appearance in Sefi Zisling’s debut solo album “Beyond the things I know”, this is her first release as a solo artist.
The song, titled “Sonnet 130”, features Israeli-Ethiopian rapper and singer Jah-Zee, spitting out a verse that aims to correspond with the original sonnet, and starts with the evident question “Why are you talking Shakespeare to me?“.
The text written by Layla, suggests that Shakespeare’s thoughts about Love, Beauty and Gender as Implied from the sonnet, are still as relevant as ever.
In the sonnet, Shakespeare mocks the false comparison of a woman lover to an ideal beauty standard – for us, this message carries an important essence we wish to spread out to every women out there: Be yourself, Love what is and accept yourself as you are.
The views expressed in this post are the author’s own.
