Beginning his music career in 1994, Omar Souleyman has reached the level of being an international star by emerging as the new sound of Syria. Bjork describes his music to be “Syrian techno”, which takes in the overdriven Arabic keyboards and looping rhythms deployed by his sole Korg-cranking keyboardist-composer, Rizan Sa’id. After listening to some of his songs, I can see why he has become so popular. It is not your typical Arabian styled songs. It has a catchy rhythm to them.
On Tuesday, when Mr. Souleyman made an appearance at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn in his usual attire: brown leather jacket over a floor-length tunic, aviator sunglasses, a red-and-white-checked kaffiyeh. In his performances, he would sing rhythmically in Arabic, never in English, and still drew in the Western crowd.
After reading about Souleyman, I realized that lately there has been a revival of the techno type music in mainstream as well because many of the popular songs today possess that sort of techno “taste”. For example, Usher’s “DJ Got Us Falling In Love Again”, Far East Movement’s “Like A G6”, or Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite”, all have a piece of techno element present in the beat.
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Interesting techno, while it still retains the flavor of the indigenous music of the region.