Yasmine Hamdan’s ‘I remember, I forget’ Reinforces Her Reign

When I interviewed Yasmine Hamdan back in 2017, one thing in particular stayed with me: her description of the meticulous research process she had indulged in while preparing her then-newly released second album, Al Jamilat. For most of last year, I was working with the Syrian Cassette Archives, and I would smile every time I saw Yasmine’s name among the project’s Instagram likes – a sign that she was still doing her homework.

Few albums have grown on me through repeated revisits the way Al Jamilat did. Standouts like “Café” and “Ta3ala” have lived rent-free in my playlists for eight years now, their novelty and quiet genius never wearing off. Hamdan’s third full-length solo release, I Remember, I Forget, promises a similar long-term relationship – in part because Yasmine continues a time-honored tradition among genre-defining artists: taking her sweet time between releases.

We ease into the record through the dark ambient intro of opening track “Hon (Here).” Hamdan greets us with something familiar: her unhurried, nuanced singing, and that unmistakable timbre that has become synonymous with alternative Arab music for nearly three decades. Then an ominous siren slips in, ushering the song’s layered, uneasy beats and drawing us into the album’s anxious, melancholic trip-hop terrain. “A small land, a gaping wound,” she intones – a line that could be referencing modern-day Lebanon, Gaza or both.

All three of Hamdan’s albums strike a balance between accessible and more demanding tracks. “Shmaali” lands firmly on the accessible side – a deftly crafted, dramatic composition that builds with ease toward some of the album’s most sticky rhythms, balancing tension and release, stress and surrender – contradictions that define life in Middle East. The song is drawn from a Palestinian tarweeda – a form of coded lullaby once used by women to veil longing, defiance, and memory in song.

“Shadia” nods to classic Arab tarab with Hamdan’s breezy delivery, culminating in the spellbinding late-chorus plea: “Stay with me so the night can pass – enough is enough.” The album’s titular track, “I Remember, I Forget,” feels like the perfect soundtrack to a drive through Lebanon’s lush mountains, with its equally lush beats laced with vocal samples and sporadic lines that root it in place and memory.

When I brought up, during our 2017 conversation, that Bob Dylan once described his late-2010s trilogy as uncovering American classics rather than covering them, Yasmine nearly jumped out of her seat in vindication: “Yes! Exactly!” That same passion for reviving Arab classics comes alive in “Mor,” a bold, minimal reimagining of the tarab staple “Mor Al Tajanny,” immortalized by Mary Jubran and Sabah Fakhry. Hamdan opens with the haunting refrain: “Ah, mor al tajanny, badi‘a al muhayya” – her voice soaked in reverb before an arpeggiated synth carries her through a spectral “Leili, Leili Ya ‘Ein.”

“Mor” is elegantly chased by “Daya3,” which draws on another tarab standard, “Eba‘atly Gawab.” Here, Yasmine allows herself a more interpretive approach – adding and subtracting while keeping the song’s emotional core intact.

Across three albums spanning over a decade, Yasmine Hamdan has built a near-monopoly over Arabic trip-hop – so complete that one could file an anti-trust case against her. Yet this dominance is not only earned, it feels rightful. She has reigned over this genre’s regional incarnation for as long as it has existed, and I Remember, I Forget only deepens that reign as another victory in a one-sided, beautifully melancholic battle.