Mashrouʼ Leila is not a bandʼs name. It is not a proper noun per se; Mashrouʼ Leila is Arabic for ʻan overnight projectʼ lusting out a microphone, a violin, a bass, two guitars, drums and keyboards. It started out as a music workshop at the American University of Beirut in 2008, an open platform for students of architecture and design, somewhere to experiment with sounds and make things audible. Haig Papazian, Carl Gerges, Hamed Sinno, Omaya Malaeb, Andre Chedid, Firas Abou Fakher and Ibrahim Badr have enjoyed this sound fetish savoring its façade of nonchalance and feeding on its lack of genre – sustaining their collective as Mashrouʼ Leila, an experiment. 

You can hear Leila, cascading melts of masculine vocals only suspended with thrusts of violin, beats and bass – attacked by neurotic melody that means no harm – sometimes tender, even sometimes on pause. Through the music, you can smell where Leila has been, in bed sheets, on sidewalks, jasmines in riﬂes and spilled coffee on dresses as she made you play with aubergines, dancing her dance. Music has constantly been their place to play with things, to match and mis-match, a project. 

In the various performances, Mashrouʼ Leila is a constant attempt to taste and produce, more than happy to harvest anyone from the audience as a guest in their encores. They have performed around Lebanon since 2008, playing in various venues in Beirut, taking over supposed public piazzas as well as clubs, pubs, hybrids and the such – they also played in Zahle, Sour, Jounieh, Saida and Deir el Qamar, each of which pushed forward their thinking about how to go about their music, lyrics and performance. It is only when Mashrouʼ Leila goes live, that you can actually catch a glimpse of Leila. As it talks to you of Beirut, the city that tastes of the absurd, the product of its day-to-day experiences, its stubborn security and lack of the latter, its musical bombshells, incoherent sexuality and thrusting pleasure…narcotic pain – as it brings forward hints of Arabic Tarab, rock, to folk pop, electro, you can see Leila in every man and woman in the silent- come-raving audience. In this trajectory, they participated in music workshops and concerts in Amman and Cairo to maneuver their way into a pan-Arab music scene, to know and to announce, more importantly to grow, musically. 

In March 2009, Mashrouʼ Leila won the Lebanese Modern Music Contest jury prize and public vote organized by Radio Liban in partnership with CCF, Incognito and the Basement. They recorded their debut album with B-root Productions, released in December 2009. The music in the album is a reclamation of the aftertaste; sequel-ing a dose of Beirut.

written by Raafat Majzoub

Faraj Suleiman (1984) is a Palestinian a composer and pianist. His music is strongly influenced by Arabic/Eastern melodies and rhythms. He often incorporates those scales and modalities in his compositions. In addition to being inspired by his Arabic culture, he is also influenced by Tango and Jazz traditions.

As an Arab musician/pianist trained in classical music, he constantly searches for new forms of expression to equally appeal to his "Eastern" and "Western" listeners. To date, Suleiman composed several albums which have placed the "Eastern" piano in the centre of the composition, ranging from solo piano compositions to quartets, quintets, arrangements for choir and full orchestras.

He released a number of albums and musical projects such as : "Login", "Three Steps", "Mud", "Opening of the Palestinian Museum", "Al-Bashiq", "Love in the Cloud", "Once Upon a City”, "Love Without a Story" and lately “Toy Box”. He also composed music for theatre and film.

Today, Suleiman is considered as one of the most promising composers in the Arab world.

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47SOUL is an electro-mijwez, shamstep, choubi band formed in Amman Jordan in 2013.

The members are rooted in Bilad Al-Sham, spanning the divides from Amman to the Galilee, the Golan Heights to Ramallah. This new sound of 47SOUL has rapidly amassed fans in the Middle East and Europe by blasting the electric Arabic debka sound through underground music scenes.

On top of the beats that have been bumping in the Middle East for centuries, 47SOUL hypes it up with analog synthesizers, hypnotic guitar lines, and shattering verses from the four singers. Every show ends in relentless dance and trance from all parties involved.
Their lyrics, mixing Arabic and English, call for celebration and freedom in the struggle for equality, inside Bilad Al Sham and throughout the world.


Z the People (vocals & synths)
https://soundcloud.com/zthepeople
El Far3i (Derbakeh, Mc/Vocals)
https://soundcloud.com/el-far3i
Walaa Sbeit (percussion, Mc/vocals)
https://soundcloud.com/dub-key
El Jehaz (guitar & vocals)
https://soundcloud.com/el-jehaz


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