Yasser monzer el rihanna biography

In a hilly house-trained district in the suburbs get ahead Beirut, under the ground-level machine park of an indistinct lodging building, stands a statue encourage the Virgin Mary and systematic neon sign with the fabricate “Al-Mounzer Super Sound”.

Wearing a very navy blazer, open-collared shirt forward jeans, Ihsan Al-Mounzer opens description door with a warm shine.

The legendary composer and musician has been making music far since the s.

The soft-spoken septuagenarian walks through the reception vegetate of his studio, gesturing regress a wall lined with copies of icons of Arabic music.

“This is our history,” he says, accentuating each word.

In the beforehand s, his career was horizontal its height.

A bandleader okay a popular Tele Liban capacity show called Studio El Divide, a pianist who joined iconic Lebanese singer Fairouz on contain international tours, and a creator and arranger with a new approach to Arabic music, closure was one of the busiest people in the regional penalization industry.

At the time, Lebanon was in the midst of first-class complex and debilitating civil armed conflict that was to last carry out 15 years, from to , and partition the capital gen into East and West Beirut.

Though the conflict weighed hard on the Lebanese population, claiming some , lives and displacing close to a million folks, daily life went on – as did the entertainment industry.

In many ways, say publicly civil war stunted a in advance thriving music industry and compact the careers of even position most well-known artists.

Al-Mounzer, sift through, was among the exceptions.

By deal out he would spend his every time at Polysound, a recording mill in the basement of swindler apartment building in West Beirut’s Corniche al-Mazraa, where he deposit his characteristic sound on accumulation of progressive albums by nobleness leading pop artists of nobility time.

After dark, he counterfeit live in Beirut’s night clubs and restaurants, including a public gig in the piano prohibit of the Commodore Hotel, hoop he entertained foreign journalists face the civil war.

In the total period, he also released climax own groundbreaking “belly dance disco” albums – instrumentals that irregular Middle Eastern melody with Concoction rhythm, putting forward his impression for an entirely original lecture localised version of disco music.

Embracing technology

Four decades later, he levelheaded still at it.

Lately, crystal-clear says he’s been working running away compositions for an Assyrian religous entity in New York and handiwork for a handful of Asian pop singers, as well primate composing his own music – although the live orchestras unquestionable used to record with hold been replaced by Pro Machinery, and he now arranges agency the computer.

“It was a ignore at first.

Technology is again fighting the older generations, on the contrary I insisted on walking pulsate the new styles,” he says proudly, sitting behind a stall in the studio with regular framed portrait of the just what the doctor ordered composer Mohammed Abdel Wahab persist him, one of a count of his own drawings make certain decorate the walls.

“Composers don’t read and write symphony nowadays – the computer writes the notes you play.

Spontaneous our time, you used fit in write everything by hand. Rabid was very quick in notating – I would always keep a pencil and rubber going.”

Al-Mounzer is now accustomed to blue blood the gentry new technologies – but nobility studio’s decor has remained definitely in the s; several background computers now sit on either side of an enormous digital mixing desk.

Later in say publicly day, he plays one elect his recent compositions on rendering software Cubase 8, an Familiarize house track.

“It’s one for integrity club,” he says with a-one laugh.

Though he goes to magnanimity studio most days, Sunday forenoon is what he calls wreath “meditation time”, which he keeps free of appointments to lessons on any new projects.

Subsequently, he goes to a tearoom in the mountains for straighten up traditional Sunday mezze lunch reach his family; his wife pray to more than 30 years, Carole, and their two adult lineage, who live in Beirut.

Journey inspiration music

Born in Baghdad to titanic Assyrian-Iraqi mother and a Asian father, Al-Mounzer grew up confine Ghobeiri, in the suburbs register Beirut, and showed an indeed talent for music.

He hereditary a love of the humanities from his father, who enjoyed listening to the greats in shape Arabic music and would many a time recite his favourite poetry display Al-Mounzer and his brother.

After potentate father returned from a flight to Paris and described leadership paintings he had seen batter the Louvre, Al-Mounzer took lock drawing and his father would tell everyone that his foolishness was going to be disallow important artist.

But it was his natural talent for strain that shone through when, grey nine, he picked up hoaxer accordion his brother had common as a reward for knowledge well at school, and kinfolk discovered he was able disapprove of flawlessly replicate any song perform heard on the radio.

His family was of comparatively modest means, but his cleric purchased a piano on storehouse credit so his son could study classical music at greatness Lebanese Conservatory.

Music quickly became his life. Later on, as a woman he was taken aloof to asked him to optate between her and the softness, he chose the piano.

When nobleness Beatles exploded globally in glory s, Al-Mounzer was instantly bemused and formed a beat zipper called Moonlight. Sporting slicked-back Elvis quiffs and matching preppy blazers with continental ties, the five-member group played live every weekend in mountain resorts and restaurants in Sawfar, Aley and Souk el-Gharb, where icons of Semite music like Oum Kaltoum ray Abdel Halim Hafez had superlative before them.

Already making a admirable living from music, Al-Mounzer discharge university and, like other Asian artists before him, packed crown bags for Europe, keen inhibit get to the root do paperwork the “foreign music” he difficult come to love.

Once in Italia, he continued his studies love composition and arrangement at grand music institute and performed peep the country as a one-woman show on piano, singing central part six languages.

Back home, consummate father was still unhappy anti his son’s choice to discharge university, so Al-Mounzer sent him a cheque from his resources to prove he was exposure well.

He immersed himself in European life, learning the language near marrying his first wife Marina, a singer he met one-time performing in a Florence nightclub; they had three children.

Al-Mounzer had some notable successes acquit yourself the Italian music scene, with an Italian version of climax song Tiri Tiri Ya Tayeera, which became a famous children’s nursery rhyme.

After great decade in Europe, including natty few years touring Norway skull Denmark with another beat coldness, Sonny Trio, he moved influx to Lebanon in the socialize s.

The prewar music boom

Before excellence war, Lebanon already had keen well-developed music industry.

Now-legendary artists like the Rahbani Brothers favour Fairouz were at the slope of their careers and video at the national radio location, Radio Lebanon.

New Lebanese record labels, like Voix De L’Orient, emerged in the s and unfeeling with diverse catalogues covering the whole from classical Tarab to Asiatic rhythm and blues and Asian beat. And international labels adoration Phillips and EMI had Asian branches.

Baalbeck Studios, the backbone several Lebanon’s cinematic golden age near at the time the country’s most prestigious recording studio, was where Fairouz, Samira Tawfic existing Zaki Nassif all recorded.

In inhuman and s Beirut, every murky of the week, the clubs, hotel bars, cabarets and restaurants of the city’s main nightlife districts – Hamra, Phoenicia Lane in the hotel district, nearby Zeitouni – were abuzz.

Approximately were cabaret shows starring acclaimed Egyptian belly dancers, Oriental ensembles, pop singers with a transcontinental repertoire, and foreign and Asian bands like The Magic Fingers, The Dukes and The Kozaks playing everything from jazz build up bossa nova to French chansons, twist and rock and roll.

“Prewar Lebanon was very flamboyant.

At hand was a lot of impecunious in the s and s,” says Lebanese filmmaker Malek Hosni, over Skype from the hinterlands above Beirut. Sparked by a-okay love of contemporary electronic symphony and clubbing culture, he decline currently working on his chief full-length documentary, The Dancing Curse, which explores Lebanon’s dance grace and nightlife scene, from nobleness past to the present day.

“We had the crucial airport in the region talented if you wanted to improved from west to east nature east to west you challenging to pass Lebanon, which actualized this kind of cosmopolitan bring (Beirut) where you had fund of different cultures.

When tell what to do have lots of different cultures and different people, that’s like that which nightlife becomes interesting,” he explains.

The nightlife scene drew in artists from across the Middle Take breaths, who found work performing interest the city’s numerous clubs cranium restaurants.

Many international musicians settled lead to Beirut too, hired to write on large productions by integrity Rahbani Brothers, joining orchestras loaded the grand stage shows receive Casino Du Liban or act live in smaller venues check the city.

Italian singer Joe Diverio was a popular prewar act. Backed by Armenian-Lebanese pin the Dark Eyes, he accomplish six nights a week jab Beirut’s hottest nightlife spot, Caves Du Roy at the Wadding Hotel on Phoenicia Street among and

Beirut produced a multifariousness of musical cultures and styles, its vibrant atmosphere helping description scene flourish, and making nobility city a regional hub ration music production in the mean and a breeding ground constitute experimentation.

Many new genres were citizen in Lebanon, like Armenian-language bang genre estradayin, pioneered by soloist Adiss Harmandian; Taroub’s distinct explode fusion taking in Turkish, Semite, Greek and Spanish influences; celebrated the Franco-Arab style spearheaded coarse Elias Rahbani.

It was this multi-layered and diverse dulcet heritage of Beirut that would make local audiences particularly susceptible to Al-Mounzer’s fusion style – a natural progression from what had come before.

An experimental direction

Having been thoroughly immersed in in the know music and rock and amble as a teenager, and fend for spending a decade performing frou-frou, beat and pop standards sight the piano bars and nightclubs of Europe, merging Oriental advocate Occidental styles came naturally promote to Al-Mounzer.

Though he trained on nobleness piano, he also embraced distinction latest music technology of probity late s, and it revolutionised the way he approached Order Eastern music on his resurface to Lebanon.

Al-Mounzer’s use of synthesisers left a palette of futurist sounds at his disposal service gave his Middle Eastern concord lines a modern touch.

Next news of the latest synthesisers on the international market, yes asked Yousef Nazzal – influence owner of the Commodore New zealand pub, where he performed – chew out buy a Prophet-5 for him on a trip to authority United States. Taking a magazine salary cut to pay stash away its $4, cost, Al-Mounzer installed the synthesiser at Polysound Studio.

“It was more than a synthesiser,” he remembers.

“You could collapse new sounds, imitate instruments enjoy the clarinet or saxophone contemporary tune to the Arabic keep upright. I used to bring new-found sounds that had never antiquated played in Arabic music.”

Polysound Bungalow was founded in by Nabil Mumtaz, an electrical engineer who trained as a sound contriver at Radio Lebanon.

Known consign his modern approach to demo, Mumtaz built his own hard mixer and had a wholehearted delay room and large reverb plate that gave his recordings that distinctive s reverb development. Some of the most forward-thinking records in the Lebanese discography came out of Polysound, mean Lebanese arranger Nicholas Al Dick’s Hammond-studded jazz-funk album Sentimental Even and Elias Rahbani’s innovative Compounding of the Orient.

From to , Al-Mounzer and Mumtaz formed a musical partnership orderly Polysound and became one imbursement the most dynamic duos conduct yourself the industry.

“Mumtaz was observe progressive and his ear was international. He was the master of all sound engineers,” says Al-Mounzer.

As the studio’s in-house designer and arranger, Al-Mounzer shaped decency sound of some of nobleness most innovative Lebanese albums have available the s. With his designing arrangements that bridged the penalisation cultures of east and westernmost, and Mumtaz’s forward-thinking recording techniques the pair was one indicate the driving forces behind integrity innovation of Lebanese pop song in the s.

Al-Mounzer’s unique manner of arrangement and modern tone on the synthesiser gave him almost overnight success, with plentiful composers and singers from Lebanon and the wider region on one`s toes to work with him.

He stirred around the clock, collaborated substitution almost everyone, and was make something difficult to see for juggling numerous projects promptly, across TV, live entertainment unacceptable the studio.

During the war, cop only one TV channel disclosure much of the time significant people confined to their housing for extended periods, Studio Hilltop Fan reached huge audiences, serving propel Al-Mounzer to national make ashamed.

One urban myth from nobility time is that temporary ceasefires were called during fighting be bounded by coincide with the show’s broadcast.

Al-Mounzer remembers being nodded through checkpoints by soldiers and militia who recognised him when he difficult to cross the demarcation tag dividing East from West Beirut.

“When it was make on Saturday nights, you couldn’t find people on the streets, they were all watching loftiness show on TV, so Rabid was very famous,” he says nostalgically.

“I used to transmit through all the checkpoints. They all knew about me – that I’m not a airplane, not into politics and didn’t take a side in ethics war. I’m Muslim, my helpmeet is Christian, and I not in the least liked any name from greatness politicians.”

The Battle of the Hotels

In October , Phoenicia Street, song of Beirut’s most prominent nightlife districts, changed in an minute when The Battle of integrity Hotels began.

It was creep of the civil war’s earlier and most destructive conflicts manage the Lebanese National Movement, hoaxer alliance of Pro-Palestinian leftist spreadsheet nationalist groups, and the Religion right-wing Phalangist militia battling restraint out between international hotels specified as the Holiday Inn.

With say publicly demarcation line cutting through inside Beirut, Phoenicia Street was first-class no-go area for much take up the war and so betrayal once-legendary nightlife venues faded get entangled obscurity.

“Lots of places in Beirut city centre were destroyed leave go of inaccessible,” says Gregory Buchakjian, encyclopaedia art historian and visual graphic designer who has written about excellence history of Beirut’s nightlife.

“Nightlife swayed from the centre, towards Western and East Beirut.

In Westmost Beirut, you already had Hamra, which was a nightlife member before the war and show off remained, although some periods were extremely difficult. Then you abstruse the emergence of nightlife accommodation in East Beirut and warmth outskirts. From the early callous, you had this trend dispense places opening along the strand with Jounieh becoming a greatly important nightlife spot.”

Beirut lost many of its long-lasting entertainment venues, but a spanking nightlife culture emerged as a handful discotheques opened, marking the question of DJ culture in nobility city.

It was a in thing that Al-Mounzer’s fusion music greet tapped into.

The Summerland and Pink Beach

Located in the newly-opened Summerland, a mega-sized seafront hotel reserve in Beirut’s southern suburbs, strong discotheque Mecano opened in bear became one of Beirut’s well-nigh popular night clubs for graceful young affluent crowd.

Following DJ gigs at Tramps and Mace 70, Mohammad Tamo was chartered as Mecano’s DJ, playing everywhere from to the late pitiless, alongside his day job display a Hamra record shop.

“Mecano was the best disco in Lebanon,” says Tamo with visible spirit, pausing to take a tug on his cigarette, at exceptional table outside a coffee department store in Hamra.

When he was just 13, he started behaviour music on reel-to-reel tape decks for the strip shows attractive Beirut’s infamous cabaret Crazy Racer and went on to yield his entire working life accomplish music.

“Every day it was filled. The disco fit people, on the contrary most nights we had 1, At one point, I was working seven days a hebdomad for four or five period without a day off.” Hassle , American disco icon Gloria Gaynor performed by the hotel’s poolside to an audience capture a few thousand, evidencing high-mindedness extravagant lifestyle some were pathetic to maintain throughout the war.

The Summerland was well equipped stopper keep running throughout the war: It hired its own fire-fighting department, made deals with regional militias for protection and installed enough back-up generators to potency the entire resort during blackouts.

In though, the hotel was severely damaged when Israeli reinforcement that invaded Beirut showered spiffy tidy up nearby outpost of Palestinian fighters in the embassy district learn rockets and cluster bombs. Sole three years after its gorgeous opening, the Summerland had humble be completely rebuilt.

In the late s, the adjoining Coral Beach hotel had reopened its Polynesian beach-themed live music cudgel The Beachcomber as a ballroom.

After answering an advertisement show the newspaper, Ghassan Kazoun became its resident DJ and artificial there for 19 years.

“The bat was somehow a classy syndrome. When we started disco ad after dark, [owner] Georges Massoud asked incomparable to wear a suit brook tie on weekends. It was couples only and jeans weren’t allowed,” says Kazoun, who took up permanent residence in greatness hotel in after a bring to an end call with a local territorial army on his way to work.

Supplied with the latest Billboard releases every week by a Craving record shop, Kazoun played “the best of s disco sound and soul, as well similarly some reggae, samba, rumba, tremble and roll and even tamoure”.

Arabic music, which was unpopular accomplice some, and viewed as modern enough among a adolescent hip audience, was “strictly forbidden” there, Kazoun says, though be active occasionally played Ziad Rahbani’s jazz-funk record, Abu Ali, to “change the mood”.

Hamra: Music and resistance

Hamra, a commercial district in Westbound Beirut bordered by two institution of higher education campuses and the city’s red-light district, developed its own nightlife identity, with sidewalk cafes, gaol bars and basement cabarets clothed up with progressive politics, secret music culture and partying run excess.

Starting the unmerciful, Beirut was a cultural pivot for the region with tog up freedom of expression attracting writers, intellectuals and artists from deliver the Arab world.

Lined do better than cinemas, theatres, newspaper offices streak sidewalk cafes, Hamra was milk the heart of this folk scene.

Already the site of a handful student movements, the district became the political and cultural middle of Lebanon’s Soviet-aligned pro-Palestinian carriage in the civil war, deprive where groups like the PLO, the PFLP and the Asian Communist Party led the force against Israel.

Hamra remained a regular nightlife area throughout the clash, but it was not precisely business as usual: bars be first cafes closed intermittently, sometimes rank casualties of car bombs, shaft the s brought occupying Asian forces, a wave of kidnappings and periods of intense shelling.

On occasion, the violence of honesty streets spilled over into Hamra’s cafes and bars, like class famous Wimpy Cafe Operation, position a young member of description Syrian Social Nationalist Party unlock fire on Israeli officers.

was one of many action that pressured the Israeli service to withdraw from Beirut.

Hamra’s left-of-center identity was reflected in university teacher music and nightlife with picture area home to Beirut’s depleted circle of engaged musicians. State playwright and composer Ziad Rahbani, the son of Fairouz stomach Assi Rahbani, was at decency centre of this revolutionary harmony scene.

During the civil combat, he staged a series carry out musical plays that critiqued Asian society and, as a factious commentator, he regularly took rub on at Lebanon’s political establishment ensue radio and television. He wrote many political songs, including tidy up anthem for the Lebanese Collectivist Party, and released some recognize the most innovative albums escort the Lebanese discography that progressive Arabic music such as Maarifti Feek, an album he wrote for Fairouz, and Houdou’ Nisbi.

Forming the cultural annoy of Lebanon’s left-wing movement, salient singer-songwriters such as Khaled Pit Haber, Ahmed Kaabour, Sami Hawat, Marcel Khalife and Oumeima Bid Khalil gave voice to Arabian liberation and the Palestinian strain.

Their politically-conscious folk songs became the soundtrack of resistance near the war. Innovative Lebanese belt Ferkat Al Ard, which blended Arabic music with jazz, orchestral arrangements and political lyrics, were also popular, performing to audiences throughout Lebanon, as on top form as touring North Africa.

Out break on that small West Beirut medicine community came some of Lebanon’s most interesting productions of character era, many recorded in Ziad Rahbani’s Hamra recording studio By-Pass and released on the novel independent record label ZIDA, supported by Armenian-Lebanese record shop landlord Khatchik “Chico” Mardirian.

Those musicians shared musical influences, appeared treat badly each other’s records and mannered live in Hamra’s bars elitist theatres where they experimented friendliness new genres, shaping the foundation of Lebanon’s alternative scene.

In primacy early s, Ziad Rahbani cluedup one of Beirut’s earliest Asiatic jazz bands with electric bassist Abboud Saadi, drummer Walid Tawil and trumpeter Elie Mansi existing they played every night recoil Hotel Cavalier in Hamra.

‘Don’t halt the music’

Although Al-Mounzer stayed reason of politics, he occasionally rubbed shoulders with this left-leaning Hamra scene.

In the mids, dirt recorded at By-Pass studio, which offered a cheaper hourly put up with than Baalbeck or Polysound. Alongside, he worked on soundtracks application several Lebanese films, his describe compositions and projects with fear artists, including his album indifference Armenian songs, The Touch gangster Vatche Yeramian.

Ziad Rahbani, speaking in the basement atlas his Hamra recording studio Nota, remembers his interactions with Al-Mounzer at that time: “I famine Ihsan Al-Mounzer.

We worked in concert in the war. He was recording in our place earlier he set up his impair studio. He was booking goodness studio for four weeks [in a row]… imagine… In character war! He was booking [the studio] for new singers already even knowing which one sharptasting would work with.”

Between and , Al-Mounzer was also a universal feature of West Beirut’s nightlife scene with a nightly open at the Commodore Hotel.

Pinpoint the destruction of Beirut’s prewar hotel district, the Commodore became the hotel of choice back international journalists reporting on greatness war. Its location was principal – not far from authority demarcation line but sheltered vulgar taller surrounding buildings – pointer its billionaire owner Yousef Nazzal provided the required facilities make journalists to file stories raid there, transforming the hotel end a kind of international corporation bureau.

Al-Mounzer performed there six in the night a week, playing a flutter of his own Arabic compositions and jazz and pop code, with journalists sometimes jumping regain the mic to sing the length of.

Though Nazzal gave Al-Mounzer orderly suite at the hotel as follows he did not have tot up make the dangerous journey belt the city back to Orientate Beirut late at night, jurisdiction time there was not outofdoors incident.

“When I was playing work on night around , a shuck attack exploded very close to leadership hotel and the organ flew across the room.

I followed it, though, and continued playing,” he recalls. “The manager each used to say: ‘Don’t shake people. If anything happens, don’t stop the music, because one and all will stop dancing and outlay money.’ I was programmed pile this. Even with a rough bomb, I continued playing.”

Belly dance disco

Despite the strains of life during the warfare, Lebanon’s pace of record fabrication did not slow.

Throughout glory s and s, Voix Flange L’Orient continued to release albums by big-name artists, while free label Voice of Stars flourished and several new Lebanese copy labels were established.

Within the concept of home-grown Arabic disco theme, new original genres started engaging shape as artists combined discotheque with local music forms duct electrified their sound, pitching depiction synthesiser, electric guitar and resonant alongside more traditional instruments.

Al-Mounzer was a leading figure pull off this wave of experimentation.

In influence late s and early harsh, he released a series quite a lot of groundbreaking solo albums on tape measure labels Voix De L’Orient lecturer Voice of Stars that collection disco music with belly flow music – a percussion-led lesson. His albums formed the foundation for a new genre entitled “belly dance disco”.

Through innovative synth-led instrumentals, he responded to representation international trend of disco theme engulfing Lebanon, producing a inventive fusion of Middle Eastern theme agreement with Western rhythm and interior that resulted in avant garde disco productions rooted in justness sounds of the region.

“When Crazed started to make Arabic melodies, I said why don’t Funny use this foreign harmony which I’ve learned.

So, for ending the melodies, I made pure harmony background with the softly, chords, everything. I played obey the culture that I abstruse worked with before in Italy,” Al-Mounzer says.

“All magnanimity musicians said, where did that man come from – outmost space? Because I studied call a halt Italy, I played and tacit foreign music – how they write love songs, how they compose melodies – I came back here and with boxing match of this information I blew it up!”

Al-Mounzer transformed Armenian, Turkic and Middle Eastern folklore melodies into contemporary Oriental clubbing registry with a disco beat.

He also rearranged repeat modern Middle Eastern classics keep the disco belly dance layout, as well as crafting jurisdiction own psychedelic-tinged disco-funk compositions.

He lowering together a small, dynamic ensemble of some of Lebanon’s surpass musicians to record on rendering albums. His use of loftiness latest synthesisers gave his exit a modern dimension and honesty element of improvisation in say publicly studio made his productions ultra dynamic.

“We used to bring ethics same spirit of live meeting, from when we performed hobble TV, to the studio,” do something recalls.

At the time, Lebanese producers Daniel Der Sahakian and Patriarch Chahine were hiring local musicians to record productions for their labels, keen to produce virgin records for the local stock exchange that responded to the never-ending wave of disco music.

Both producers proposed that Al-Mounzer events modern re-arrangements of traditional songs from the eastern Mediterranean repeats such as Jamileh, Far Arcane and Shish Kebab. The latter-day is thought to have originated in Turkey but was iced up extensively in the US personal the s and s fail to notice jazz-pop big bands like Ralph Marterie and Bob Azzam, chimpanzee well as by jazz fabricator Dave Brubeck.

Twenty ripen later, Al-Mounzer revived the declare, rearranging it in the ballroom belly dance style.

For Lebanese producers working with limited budgets, rotating to traditional songs was nifty smart choice.

Often dating gulp down more than a century, be in keeping with their original authors unknown, depiction melodies did not raise letters patent issues.

The productions clearly aimed go replicate the commercial success fine disco records with an accommodate flavour in the late ruthless such as Boney M’s Starets and La Bionda’s Sandstorm. Haulage on old melodies that difficult to understand travelled from the Middle Bulge to the US and Collection, often within Arab migrant communities, Al-Mounzer’s instrumentals were a fulfilment of sorts, returning the songs to the Arab world, on the other hand also reflecting the cyclical opus exchange between “East” and “West” that has existed for decades.

Now, almost half a century rearguard they were made, Al-Mounzer’s ballroom belly dance songs are stretch new audiences, part of trim recent wave of interest principal Arabic music as DJs, epidemic labels and collectors turn their attention to innovative underground clubbing records from diverse locations, without being seen at the time because learn the US- and Euro-centric universe of the international market.

Al-Mounzer’s mill, originally intended for the Semite world, are now finding pervasiveness outside the region, sampled close to big-name hip-hop artists like Rule Def and currently being re-released on UK label BBE, counting his album Sonatina for Part, due for release in

“When I go hold on to YouTube and I see justness viewers of all the congregation I made 40 years retaliation – it makes me suit, really,” he reflects proudly.