This podcast explores how music is perceived in conservative societies like Yemen. Through Ahmed's journey of learning and making music, we try to understand the cultural, social and the religious constraints of playing and making music and how these constraints are connected to people's perceptions.

Ahmed is similar to musicians in communist Hungary or Czechoslovakia. The restrictions of the state (in the Hungarian case) or society (in Ahmed's case) affect musicians, serving as a motivation for artists to be more creative and innovative in their approaches. They played music secretly and created an unofficial musical life their own.