Omar Souleyman

(SY)

When he started his career as a wedding musician, Omar Souleyman could hardly have imagined that one day he would step onto the stages of some of the biggest festivals in the world, such as Glastonbury, Roskilde and now also at the MED. It all started when an American producer stumbled upon one of his countless cassettes, recording a series of compilations, whose mixture of electronic music and local sounds quickly conquered the western public – the well-known theme Warni Warni, for example, has almost 100 million views on YouTube. YouTube. Born in Tell Tamer, a village located in the Kurdish region of northern Syria, he is a true legend of Syrian music, with more than 500 albums recorded on cassette. His extensive work is, in fact, the best reflection of the enormous musical wealth of this country, bringing together traditions ranging from mawal singing to Syrian dabke or Iraqi choubi, to which he adds Turkish, Kurdish and Arab influences, linked through an imaginative (and sometimes kitsch) electronic approach, full of strings and percussion. On his return to Portugal, where he has performed several times, he will present his latest album Shlon, recorded in Turkey, where he has lived since 2011, the year he left his home country due to the ongoing Syrian civil war.