Repressive societies have a habit of repressing the arts along with everything else. But artists are hard people to keep down, and Mark LeVine met musicians determined to play their music despite official disapproval.
LeVine wrote about them in Heavy Metal Islam, and two years later, the Arab Spring broke out, turning several governments in the Middle East and beyond on their heads.
So LeVine went back to visit the musicians he met, to track their progress through protest and upheaval and more oppression, in the sequel We'll Play till We Die: Journeys across a Decade of Revolutionary Music in the Muslim World.
The author joins us for an overview.