Category: Music

Kuwait Rising is an alternative Arab music festival which is going to be held in Kuwait this coming weekend (Jan 30) and feature artists from around the world including Bei Ru, Omar Offendum, Zeid Hamdan, Maii Waleed, Z The People, El Jehaz and Hasan Hujairi. The event is hosted by Zahed Sultan at the new DAI in Yarmouk with limited tickets costing KD20 each each.

248AM has teamed up with Zahed Sultan to giveaway two festival tickets to one lucky winner. All you need to do to enter the draw is leave a comment below mentioning the brand of the energy drink in the flyer above.

I will stop accepting entries in the comments section by Tuesday at midnight and then randomly choose one winner and notify them via email.

Rules: Only one entry per person and please make sure you use a working email since the winner will be contacted by email. If winner doesn’t respond, another winner will be randomly chosen.

Update: I closed the post for entries and using random.org the winner was #38 which is Nour AlKawass. I won’t be drawing a second back up number since I actually know the winner and have already contacted her.

Kuwaiti artist Zahed Sultan is hosting a pretty cool music festival at the end of this month featuring a bunch of international musicians including one of my favorites, Bei Ru. Bei Ru is a very talented Lebanese Armenian musician based out of LA and I’ve been listening to his music ever since his debut album “Little Armenia“.

I’ll be posting more on this event next week but for now if you’re interested in booking tickets (there is a limited quantity) here is the [Link]

If you missed the first Jam session this past Friday at CAP you can now watch most of the performances online since TJC Films just uploaded 43 minutes of non stop music. I missed the event but from the feedback I heard it’s definitely one not to miss the next time it takes place. [YouTube]

This past weekend the Dance Battle Finals were held at the newly opened graffiti park Spraybox in Shaab. I passed by to check it out and was completely surprised by how talented some of the kids were and how many people showed up to watch them.

Great event, venue and people so check out the video above. [YouTube]

BigMo – Ay Shay (Official Video) (Warning: this is satire)

A bunch of new local music video releases this month. The one above is from BigMo called Ay Shay which you can check out above while the rest of the videos including one by a new band called Galaxy Juice are all posted in the Entertainment section [Here]

I hadn’t heard of Khalli Walli until a few moments ago when I watched the parody music video above on another blog. Turns out they’re a group of Pakistani artists living in Saudi Arabia who use comical relief to highlight some of the issues facing low income workers. They’re the only non-Saudi group licensed by the Ministry of Culture and Information.

The video above is about a runaway maid who wants to leave her sponsors home but their driver doesn’t want her to leave because he’s in love with her. Watch it till the end for a surprise ending.

Check out their official YouTube channel [Here] and their Facebook page [Here]

I was able to get a hold of two tickets for ‘The Wanted’ music event that is being held by Ooredoo this coming Saturday night and I’m going to give them away to one of my readers. Although some of you might not recognize the band’s name you’ve most likely heard one of their songs before. They are an English-Irish boy band and their two most popular songs are “Chasing The Sun” and “Glad You Came” which you can hear below.

[YouTube]

So if you want to win these two tickets, all you need to do is leave a comment below with the name of your favorite song by them. You’ll only have until midnight tonight to leave a comment since after that I will be using random.org to choose one winner who will get the two tickets. Good luck!

Rules: Only one entry per person and please make sure you use a working email since the winner will be contacted by email. If winner doesn’t respond within 12 hours of receiving the email, another winner will be randomly chosen.

Update: I closed the post for comments last night and using random.org this morning the winner was chosen which is comment #177 (Tareq). If Tareq doesn’t respond to my email in the next 12 hours a second draw will take place. Thanks for participating everyone and sorry you couldn’t all win.

Update2: The original winner didn’t respond to my email after 12 hours so using random.org I drew another number and the second time the winner was #209 (Ozair).

Wataniya Ooredoo are bringing the music group ‘The Wanted’ to perform live this coming Saturday at an invite only event that’s going to be held at their Red Dome near 360 Mall.

I’m not a fan of ‘The Wanted’ but I’m curious to why they can bring big bands to Kuwait and no one else can? A couple of years back they brought the musician ‘Ne-Yo’ and now this.

The Guardian have a pretty long article on Kuwaiti musician Fatima Al Qadiri who just launched a new album yesterday. Her new album is called ‘Asiatisch’ and from the songs I heard off it I didn’t really like any of them and I’m not the only one either. But, its still cool she’s doing what she’s doing and you can check out the article on her [Here]

Thanks Simon

Kuwaiti rapper Frizzy has a new music out called ‘Kuwait City Be Like’. I hadn’t heard of him until a few minutes ago, the bloopers at the end are pretty cool. [YouTube]

Just a reminder, tomorrow Zahed will be debuting a one of a kind audio-visual performance in 3D to coincide with the release of his second full-length album ‘Eye Am Sound.’ His audio-visual performance will include a roster of international and local artists including:

Joshua Dmello (Bombay / India) Live Projection Mapping (Wolves Visuals)
Jash Reen (Bombay / India) Live Projection Mapping (Wolves Visuals)
Henry Bennett (London / UK) Opening Act / Live Cello
Jackson Allers (Beirut / Lebanon) Documentarian
Joseph Guese (LA / USA) Live Guitar
Dirar Shwagfeah (Amman / Jordan) Live Drums
Dave Scott (Amman / Jordan) Live Sound
Tamara Quaddoumi (Kuwait) Female Vocals
Zahed Sultan Main Performer

For more information on the event click [Here]

It has been three years since Zahed Sultan released his debut album and after playing live in various countries around the world, Zahed is finally going to perform in Kuwait for one night only. On April 30th 2014, Zahed will be debuting a one of a kind audio-visual performance in 3D to coincide with the release of his second full-length album ‘Eye Am Sound.’ Zahed’s audio-visual performance will include a roster of international and local artists who will be announced in the days to come. You can learn more about Zahed’s upcoming performance on my Events page [Here]

248AM has teamed up with Zahed to giveaway the following for one lucky winner:
– 2 tickets for Zahed Sultan’s debut performance in Kuwait on April 30th
– 1 limited edition ‘Eye Am Sound’ t-shirt
– 1 copy of the limited edition ‘Eye Am Sound’ coffee table book that also includes a digital download card for the new album

To participate, all you need to do is answer the following question as a comment below this post:

‘What was the name of Zahed Sultan’s first album?’

I will stop accepting entries in the comments section by Wednesday at midnight and then randomly choose one winner and notify you via email.

Rules: Only one entry per person and please make sure you use a working email since the winner will be contacted by email. If winner doesn’t respond, another winner will be randomly chosen.

Update: According to random.org the winner is #63, Jhonybravo.

This is way way better than their extremely awkward flashmob from a couple of years back. [YouTube]

Short report by the BBC on Saad Lamjarred’s visit to Al Hamra Mall a few days ago. [Link]

26 maart Kiele kiele Koeweit (1974) from Vandaag Voorheen on Vimeo.

I found the video above on Vimeo and it looked interesting since it was from 1974 and had something to do about Kuwait. But, I couldn’t understand anything since it was in Dutch so I sent the video to a friend of mine in Holland and asked him what it was about. This is what he emailed me back:

Haha… this is a funny carnival song from early 1974 about the oil-crisis of 1973. It’s because of this song the Dutch found out about the existence of Kuwait. The 4 guys were famous in the 70s because of their political cabaret show on television; Farce Majeure.

In 1973 Kuwait boycotted the US and Holland for their support of Israel in the 1973 War (Ramadan War). Because of the fear of running out of oil, Prime Minister Den Uyl took the decision to introduce the ‘oil-bon’. A maximum supply of oil for each person every month. Another measure was that cars were not allowed to drive on Sundays. Only doctors, firemen, police and others who could prove that it was absolutely necessary to use their car on Sunday were exempt. But those exceptions were only a few and basically it was a nice time in my youth, being able to roller skate and cycle on the empty highways.

The song is a simple carnival song. Kuwait, Kuwait, tickle, tickle, Kuwait, tickle, tickle Kuwait and so on.. Just funny, no offensive lyrics whatsoever. In the clip you see the official agent (honorair consul) of Kuwait in The Netherlands at that era, Mahmoud Rabbani. A nice person who earned a lot of respect from the Dutch people because of his approach. When he receives the 45″ single in the clip, he thanks the members of the group and add to this the memorable words;

‘Critisism is a good, as long as it’s brought with a sense of humor.’

Yeah, times have changed… 🙁

At first Kuwait was angry about the song and threatened with more diplomatic sanctions. They blamed the performers of the song for adding even more fuel to the fire. But, as you noticed, Mahmoud Rabbani acted wisely and became popular in Holland. Unfortunately not that much in Kuwait… but that’s another story.

A very interesting story, one I hadn’t heard about before.

Thanks Marcel