Even by Lebanon’s standards, the period from 2019 to 2021 was a turbulent period in the country’s history. In October 2019 protests against political corruption and the government’s poor handling of the stagnating economy erupted across the country. A new government was formed, yet this too crumbled in the wake of the huge explosion that rocked Beirut’s port area in August 2020. Rolling blackouts, shortages of fuel and medicines and general economic woe kept the protests – many of which were driven as much by women as men – continuing well into 2021.
If the problems are still very much present, the turmoil did have one unexpected result. Previously keeping to their own districts of Beirut, the musicians in the city’s underground…