I can’t recall when I first heard of Omar Souleyman but I was fascinated by a couple of things:
1. He has released over 500 tapes of his music
2. He is Syrian but creates music that’s a mix of various styles of the region including Kurdish, Turkish and Arabic music
3. He collaborates with Mahmoud Harbi who ‘chain smokes cigarettes while standing shoulder to shoulder with Souleyman, periodically leaning over to whisper the material into his ear’. And Souleyman delivers the line in song. You can see this in the clip below, and I hope you enjoy this upbeat, and offbeat song as much as I have.