Omar And the Eastern Power

(MA/EG/KR)

South Korea is the last place one would expect to find the blues of the Sahara Desert and the spiritual gnawa music of North Africa. But the 21st century is full of such beautiful ironies. In a world where globalisation breaks down borders whilst politics rebuilds them, there are musicians who choose to live precisely in the space between these two movements: inhabiting countries that are not their own, singing in languages other than those of their childhood, turning the migrant experience not into a problem, but into a language. Omar Benassila arrived in Seoul from Morocco. The drummer Zaky Wael came from Egypt. The Korean members grew up on the other side of the world.

It all began in Jeju, the volcanic island in the south of Korea, known for its lava fields, its female fishing divers and its constant wind. It was on this unlikely island, in a small fisherman’s cottage, that Omar Benassila settled in 2015 to write songs. He had arrived in Korea a decade earlier, becoming part of the live music scene in Seoul’s Hongik district, playing jazz, rock and classical music with Korean musicians, and taking part in artist residencies. In Jeju, he found the tranquillity needed to hear what he had to say: something that evoked the Sahel, Morocco, gnawa trance and the Sahara desert. He shared the songs with Zaky Wael, the Egyptian percussionist living in Seoul. Wael fell in love with them immediately. Two Korean musicians joined them: Oh Jin-woo on guitar and Tehiun on bass. The band formed in 2016, with a name that is, in itself, a statement of identity: Omar and the Eastern Power.

The music of Omar and the Eastern Power is what happens when nostalgia for the desert meets the percussion of the Nile, both filtered through Korean musical sensibility: disciplined, precise, with a deep connection to rhythm rooted in millennia-old traditions. Moroccan gnawa blues provides the trance and spirituality; afrobeat provides the groove and collective energy; dub creates space and silence; psychedelic rock makes everything explode when needed. The lyrics, written by Omar, are chronicles of migrant life. Joy and sorrow, hard work and love, longing and the wonder of discovering that the world fits into a song. Omar himself summed it up perfectly:‘We believe that music is one. And genres and styles are a bit like borders between countries. That’s why we try to go beyond them.’

In a fragmented world, Omar and the Eastern Power unite the Maghreb, the Nile and the Far East in an irresistible dance.