Habibi is an American rock band from Brooklyn, New York. They are a blend of

psychedelic rock Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...

and sixties

girl group A girl group is a music act featuring several female singers who generally harmonize together. The term "girl group" is also used in a narrower sense in the United States to denote the wave of American female pop music singing groups, many of who ...

harmonies. The name Habibi means "my love," an Arabic word vocalist Rahill Jamalifard grew up using despite her Iranian origin (the term is not in use in Iran).

Career

In 2011, former Detroiters, Lenaya Lynch and Rahill Jamalifard, decided to form a band blending their love of psychedelic

garage rock Garage rock (sometimes called garage punk or 60s punk) is a raw and energetic style of rock and roll that flourished in the mid-1960s, most notably in the United States and Canada, and has experienced a series of subsequent revivals. The sty ...

and girl group harmonies. They joined Erin Campbell and Karen Isabel, musicians from the Brooklyn rock and roll scene, who both went to LaGuardia School of the Arts. They grew in popularity and found themselves playing the

SXSW South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...

festival in Austin and the

CMJ festival CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events and online media company, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music Monthly'' and ''CMJ New Music Report''. Th ...

. They signed to Born Bad Records and released the self-titled 7-inch, ''Habibi''. In 2012, Habibi's song "Sweetest Talk" was featured in actor/director

James Franco James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor and filmmaker. For his role in '' 127 Hours'' (2010), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Franco is known for his roles in films, such as Sam Raimi's ''Spider-Ma ...

's short film series ''Episodes of an Untitled Film''. Lynch left the band due to an emergency in 2012 and Habibi found a replacement with the guitarist Caroline Partamian, who toured with the band for a year and until the return of Lynch in 2013. In 2014,

Burger Records Burger Records was an American independent record label and record store in Fullerton, California, United States. The label was founded in 2007 by Sean Bohrman and Lee Rickard, members of the power pop band Thee Makeout Party. The record/video s ...

released their debut full-length LP, ''Habibi''.

Influences

The sound of Habibi is influenced both by the garage rock/girl group sounds from Detroit as well as the Middle Eastern melody structures that were shared by Lynch and Jamalifard, who is herself of Iranian descent. Jamalifard influences are also related to her ancestry mentioning “Iran, gypsies, nomads, the inspiration of poets like Hafez . . . my travels within the country.” In 2012,

Interview Magazine ''Interview'' is an American magazine founded in late 1969 by artist Andy Warhol and British journalist John Wilcock. The magazine, nicknamed "The Crystal Ball of Pop", features interviews with celebrities, artists, musicians, and creative thinke ...

wrote "Influenced by grunge, punk, hip-hop, and Motown, Habibi's sound—and band members—meet somewhere in the middle."

Members

Current line-up

* Rahill Jamalifard - Lead Vocals, Tambourine * Lenaya "Lenny" Lynch - Guitar, Vocals * Lyla Vander - Drums * Ana Becker - Guitar, Vocals * Yukary - Bass

Past members

* Caroline Partamian - Guitar, Vocals * Erin Campbell - Bass, Guitar, Vocals * Karen Isabel - Drums

Discography

Studio albums

*''Habibi'' (2014) *''Anywhere But Here'' (2020)

EPs

*''Habibi ''(2012) *La Luz / Habibi (2015) *Cardamom Garden (2018)

References

{{Authority control Musical groups established in 2011 Musical groups from Brooklyn 2011 establishments in New York City Iranian-American culture