Al-Farabi Music

Laura Bashraheel reports on al-Farabi, a band in Jeddah who try combine classical Arabic poetry with fusion music:

The band hopes its combination of formal Arabic with fusion music will attract an international audience. Their main goal is to introduce a new musical trend and appreciation for instrumental music in the Kingdom. The band is expected to release an EP (extended play) containing five songs.

“We have over 12 songs but we will include five in the album as we are still experimenting with the market and see what sort of response we get,” said Farhan.

Jeddah has a fascinating, budding art scene. I met Thamer Farhan, manager of al-Farabi, when I visited the city for the first time few years ago. He used to rap. I thought he was talented and smart, but too introverted to be performing on stage. Now it seems that he is working more on the production and management side of things. The band has an interesting concept. You can listen to them in a jam session in the video below:

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