Meet the Jammer—Lialana & The Taosol Collective
Photo credit @dk__photos95
✽ For the people, tell us your name, where you're from, why you do what you do, and what is TAOSOL
L: OMG. I'm Lailana. I'm from Palestine, Lebanon, and Philippines. I'm the founder of Taosol Jam and I'm also a singer-songwriter and storyteller. Taosol is a beautiful community of musicians, singers, poets, rappers, DJs, we’re also London's first live and electronic fusion jam. So basically, I just wanted to create a space for musicians of all kinds and artists of all kinds, and creative people of all kinds, ' because we get the dancers and the painters and the artists and all involved.
It's a space where everyone can come and create something beautiful together. I have a friend that quoted this who said, “we create songs that are never going to be heard again because they are created in the moment” and then, I mean, we listen back, but...
✽ And that's the beauty of it.
L: That's the beauty of it.
✽ What does the word Taosol mean?
L: oh my gosh, if my band was here, they would roast me. Every time I say it, they all memorise it. They're like, “B!” The words Taosol comes from two words.
So the first word “tao” (ᜆᜏ᜔) is the Filipino word for “human”. And then “sol” comes from the Arabic word "tawasol” (تواصل), which means connection. So it's basically human connection through all forms of music and art and creativity and activism.
✽ In my head, Tao for me means Dao, the Chinese word for ‘the way’, and then Sol is sun, so I always thought it was ‘the way of the sun’ collective.
L: Oh, that's oh, wow. Trademark. Are you Chinese?
✽ Past life.
L: Okay, where are you from?
✽ I was born in Brazil, Celtic and Huguenot.
L: What? Crazy.
✽ Yeah, yeah, it's a nice mix.
L: So you're Brasileiro ay.
✽ Sim sim
✽ Describe your most memorable moment so far at a Taosol Jam.
L: Oh! Most memorable? Oh, my God, it' gonna take a second, actually I haven't thought about this.
✽ Or then moment when it clicked for you, and you realised, oh, this is the vision I had two, three years ago and it's actually here. Like, I've done it.
L: Yes, I have it. It's when my mom came to my first jam, my mom's first time at one of my jams. For the first two years, I was begging her, she doesn't live in London. I was begging her, please come. I think in my mom's head, she envisioned like a room full of people shouting and screaming.
My mom is classically trained, so she's from the classical world of music, so she's very much into, “three, four”. So I don't think organised chaos is her forte. When she came, I think I don't think I've ever sang that strong in my life because I was like, “my mom's right there”. And then she came on stage and everyone called her Mama Sol.
So they was like, "Mama Sol. MAMA SOL”. And my mom was like “get…me…off…this…stage. Now”. And I was like, “But, Mom, aren’t you going to sing with me?” And she's like, “I'm gonna kill you..”. Finally, seeing it through my mom's eyes. I was like, oh, my God, like, everyone around me gets it, but for you family to get it, it's just mmph.
✽ Did you grow up around a lot of music?
L: I did. Well, my mom is classically trained as a singer, but she could never pursue it because she was the oldest daughter of a family of eight, and she literally sacrificed her whole life to, she was the first one to move out of the Philippines to the UAE, and she basically got the rest of her siblings through to university. So she's been working. My mom is a hustler. But so she could never pursue music, so the second she had me, she was like, take that mic and live my dream. And I'm like, "That's my dream too now, okay! Yes”. My dad played guitar a little bit but never, he was always too busy. Same situation. Yeah. Always, different musical influences all around.
✽ So with that dream, your mom's dream, but also your dream? Where is that dream going?
L: Oh, my goodness. Oh I don't know, because The Dream five years ago is not what I thought the dream now would be, and I feel like the dream keeps changing every time because you never know where this music thing will take you. Five years ago, I didn't know I would start a jam, and I didn't know I'd meet all these amazing people from the scene. So I don't know.
✽ Are we gonna have a Taosol festival that's completely improvised?
L: Oh, my God. إن شاء الله, not gonna lie we're working on. 2027. إن شاء الله Yeah. Who knows? Maybe fingers crossed, bigger stages. We're working on recorded music right now, but it's also improvised stuff in the studio. And the sound engineer is like, please, not another 14 minute song. How am I going to edit this?
✽ Yeah, how do you organise chaos?
L: Oh my goodness. I guess you just let it happen. With the Taosol family, I've known them for almost five years now. So we're very comfortable with each other. But even when you have people that just jump on stage that you don't know, there's this immediate trust that you have with them and then whatever comes out is usually beautiful.
✽ Why do you feel like it's important to describe it as a family as opposed to maybe someone else who’d see it as a business? I feel like you see these people as your brothers and sisters, why is that important to you?
L: I know the business side of things, from work in my 9 to 5 and it's a completely different environment. I think with music because music is so..I don’t want to say sacred because, أَسْتَغْفِرُ ٱللَّٰه it’s not sacred, but music IS like [sacred], but it's NOT, you know what I mean?
How about this, because for me, in my family growing up, music was the one thing that brought people together. So music reminds me of my family the most, right? Whether it's a karaoke night. Whether it's listening to someone's new album with my dad's side of the family and just dancing. I always correlate music to family. So, when I started Taosol but also when I started writing music with other people, I was like, "If I don't feel that family vibe, then it's not right”.
✽ For other jammers that are listening that are wanting to go into structuring a song, publishing it and releasing it, can you describe a bit about the process of organising that chaos into some kind of box, even though the jam always wants to escape the box. How do you put it into some form so it can't be shared in a more timeless way?
L: So, I'll give you an example. We started this series with Notting Hill Studio. It's a small little studio in Notting Hill. A bunch of us went into the room, and we're like, “okay, let's just play whatever comes out." We jammed for seven minutes straight, and then we're like, "O, that's perfect. But we can't release a seven minute song, cause the radio won't accept it."
✽ ...
L: I know right “Come on, get out of here." But people's attention spans and all that. So, out of the seven minutes, we took the best ideas, and then we rewrote it and structured it into a three minute, or three and a half minute track. Yeah, I feel that's the best way to do it.
[some beautiful ᜆᜏ᜔ walk in for تواصل]
“Can we get your instagram from you in case we don't get to see you after. So I can keep following your music. Is this watermelon”
L: Yes, it is!
“Very cute. Obsessesed. Lovely to meet you”
L: Lovely to meet you guys
✽What is the Instagram for people to find?
L: It's Lailooneh, which is L A I L O O N E H, which is my dad's nickname for me. So when people call me on stage, "Welcome to the stage. Lailooneh." And I'm like, "Papah? Wait?”
✽Is the moon important to you?
L: The moon? Yeah. That's so scary that you brought it up. I have beef with the moon.
✽ Beef with the moon?
L: Yeah, because my name in Arabic, Lailana, it means ‘I am the night’. My are parents poetic, I don't know.
✽ Well, they read Rumi clearly. And Hafiz.
L: No, literally. Oh, my God, crazy. I had so many situations with different people in my life, that have made such importance of the moon, but to the point where it was…
✽ Let it dictate their lives?
L: No, not even that. It was just.. How do I say this? I don't have beef with them. I shouldn't say that I love the moon. Thank you, Moon, for everything.
✽ Worshiping the moon?
L: No, no, not even worshipping the moon. Maybe using the moon as an excuse to explain some actions. You know what I mean?
✽ ”It brought this out in me. I didn't mean to do it!”
L: “Yeah, it was the moon, you know. I backstabbed three people, but it was the moon!”
✽I think that’s an important point because as a musician, an artist, a responsible individual; there comes a point along this path where you have to take responsibility for your swings of emotion. And as a musician, you are powerful in your ability to swing with emotion, but there does come a point where you do have to step above that and not use it as an excuse. And take responsibility for what you're doing
L: 100%.
✽I think that's key.
L: Amen.
✽Thank you the Moon. We don't hate you.
L: We love you, moon, we love you the moon.
