Ghazi Al-Mulaifi is a Kuwaiti musician whose brother is Tareq Al-Mulaifi of Cobra Club whom I’ve posted about a few times. Both brothers are super talented and have completely different music styles (like opposites) which is amazing to see. While Tareq is into 80s inspired cinematic synth-pop music, Ghazi on the other hand is interested in Kuwaiti pearl diving music and global jazz. He formed the ensemble Boom Diwan where he and traditional Kuwaiti musicians combine Kuwaiti bahri (sea) music with global jazz for the purpose of creating new Kuwaiti music that revives a musical tradition of dialog and exchange. It’s a bizarre combination but going through their Instagram account it actually seems to work really well.
In the fall of 2018, Ghazi was approached by Bill Bragin who is the executive artistic director at the Arts Center at NYUAD. He was inquiring about six-time grammy award winner Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra (Arturo is the son of the late and famed Chico O’Farill). Arturo was looking for musical ties between Afro-Cuba and the Afro-Khaleej and he and Bill visited Kuwait and stayed with Ghazi for a few days. Ghazi invited the members of his ensemble over and that meeting resulted in two Cuban-Khaleeji Project concerts, the first took place in 2019 (video above) while the second took place virtually a few days ago (video below).
It’s all pretty fascinating and I love the fact they’re looking for ways to keep the traditional Kuwaiti pearl diving music alive. If you want to listen to more of Ghazi’s music or if you’re just curious to explore all this further, here are some links:
GhaziMusic.com
KhaleejiMusicAlliance.com
@Boom.Diwan
NYU Abu Dhabi introduces new course on Khaleeji music
4 replies on “The Cuban Khaleeji Music Project”
First time you ever post about music that isn’t absolutely crap. This was quite good actually.
And that’s your backhanded compliment of the day.
hahahahahaha
That was music for the soul. Jazz and fusion at that! I especially loved the birdland one.
Great going Mark and thank you for posting this!
Not to fuel any sibling rivalry but Ghazi > Tareq IMO. More of this please!