In honor of Arab American Heritage Month, here are some diverse musical selections by Arab and Arab American musicians.
Brooklyn based indie/electro-pop musician Arianna Abdul has released two EPs and numerous singles as well as toured internationally and performed at Lollapalooza. Abdul never considered a career as a musician until she released the song "Babydoll" in February 2022. She recorded the song in her bedroom and was convinced by a friend to put it on TikTok. The song went viral and landed her a record deal. CCTV is her second EP and features the single "Bury You.”
Letters from Iraq expresses the love and pain of lives lived by the people of war-torn Iraq. Actual mailed letters and their stories are transposed into eight gripping programmatic compositions by Iraqi-American composer and oud player, Rahim AlHaj with string quintet (2 violins, viola, cello, contrabass) and percussion. He says, “Music can make us laugh, make us cry, make us march into war. I want to make music to make us realize peace.” These recordings are of deep emotion and great beauty, melding mastery of Iraqi and Western classical genres alike to form something entirely new.
Melhem Barakat, also known as Melhim Barakat or Abou Majd, was a Lebanese singer, songwriter, and composer. Barakat was a renowned singer in Lebanon and the wider Arab world. He toured Australia, South America, Canada, and the United States.
Violinist and composer Layale Chaker's debut album Inner Rhyme is woven as a suite that explores aesthetics of Arabic poetry. Composed between Beirut, Paris, and London over the course of two years and recorded in New York over the summer of 2018, the album unveils musical threads that are mapped through the rhythmical cycles of the twelve classical Arabic poetic meters, the fluidity of oral and free forms, the abstraction of language into the physical contour of verses and the percussive potential of words.
Dick Dale is universally acknowledged as the man who singlehandedly invented the sound of surf guitar. This unique compilation features all his early singles, between 1958-1962 (several of which are hard to find elsewhere on CD) plus his legendary debut album, Surfers Choice. This body of work traces Dale’s evolution from regular teenbeat pop/R&R vocalist to the “King of the Surf Guitar,” a phenomenon which he effectively kick started via the first ever surf intro, “Let's Go Trippin,” in September 1961. Also featured here is Dale's signature tune, "Misirlou,” which became synonymous with Quentin Tarantino's 1994 movie Pulp Fiction. Dale’s signature sound was heavily influenced by his Lebanese heritage, particularly the Middle Eastern music he grew up with in Boston. His iconic, rapid-fire guitar technique, which he called "the pulsation," was directly inspired by the drumming patterns of the tarabaki and the playing style of the oud.
Jordanian American pianist who mixes middle eastern music, Lebanese, pop, and classical music. He has performed before thousands around the world including Queen Elizabeth and Nelson Mandela.
Allem Alby is a studio album by Amr Diab, released on February 4, 2003. It contains 13 tracks, including the single "Ana Ayesh." The album left a lasting imprint in Arabic music in terms of the great development in musical arrangements and melodies. It contains a variety of musical genres, including hip-hop, R&B, pop, and rock.
Emel Mathlouthi, also known professionally as Emel, is a Tunisian-American singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, and producer. She rose to fame with her protest song "Kelmti Horra" ("My Word is Free"), which became an anthem for the Tunisian revolution and the Arab Spring. MRA (which means woman) includes the singles "NAR" and "Souty (My Voice)" and was released on vinyl, CD, and digital. MRA was conceived with a completely female team of musicians, singers, and producers.
Only streaming on Freegal Music+
A Star is Born is a 16-track compilation album by legendary Lebanese singer Fairuz. Released in 2015 by Annajm, this 56-minute collection features earlier works and highlights her unique style that bridged traditional Eastern music with modern Western influences, featuring songs like "Aal yadl al yadi," "Ya tara nessina," and "Rih el chimali.”
Yasmine Hani Hamdan is a Lebanese singer, songwriter, and electronic music producer based in Paris. She's known for her smoky, melancholic electro-pop that blends new material with reworked traditional songs. Hamdan sings exclusively in Arabic, a personal and political statement about her identity and heritage. On her sophomore album, Hamdan has enlarged her creative vision well beyond the 'Lebanese trip hop' that characterized her work with cult Beirut duo Soap Kills. With new producers Luke Smith (Lily Allen, Foals, Depeche Mode) and Leo Abrahams (Brian Eno), collaborations with high profile musicians such as Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley and renowned New York all-round performer and composer Shahzad Ismaily, and a diverse range of songs and imaginative arrangements, she explores a wider palette of Middle Eastern pop possibilities.
Ya Nass is the debut solo album by the Lebanese singer Yasmine Hamdan, previously a member of the band Soap Kills and one half of the duo Y.A.S. The album's title translates from Arabic as "Hey People.” Hamdan has described the album as being influenced by the Arab Spring uprisings of 2010. While Yasmine's vocals are definitely connected to traditions of Arabic music (to which she takes an unconventional and fresh approach), the structures and arrangements of the songs are very remote from its codes, and take in elements from contemporary Western electronic, pop and folk music.
Mayssa Karaa, also known professionally as Mayssa, is a Lebanese American singer-songwriter currently based in Los Angeles, California. She was the featured vocalist on the Arabic version of Jefferson Airplane song, "White Rabbit" on the American Hustle Soundtrack.
Souad Massi is an Algiers-born, Paris-based artist who has spent much of her career singing truth to power. Oumniya (My Wish), her sixth album, is a poetic treatise, delivered in Arabic and French, on betrayal, freedom, gender equality and the competing gravitational forces of home and homeland. Like activist singers of other lands, Massi’s songs are often nuanced; bitter lyrics served with soothing music, allowing them to travel farther, penetrate deeper. Her sound palette is eclectic, folk and chaâbi with dashes of reggae, country and fado, and the voice she raises in defense of her compatriots, based on her own experiences, is soft and warm.
Franco-Algerian singer-songwriter and guitarist Souad Massi began her musical career fronting the heavy rock band Atakor, but their political subject matter caused controversy in her homeland. After relocating to Paris, she embarked on a successful solo career. She fuses traditional North African music with Western influences, such as American folk and country music, rock, bossa nova, calypso, and poetic singer/songwriters like Leonard Cohen. Sequana is her tenth studio album.
Kareem Roustom is a Syrian-American composer, music director, and university teacher, noted mainly for his compositions of contemporary classical music, film scores, and his collaboration with pop music artists, such as Shakira and Tina Turner. Roustom's music has been characterized as "rooted in two worlds," with references to both Western and Middle Eastern literary and musical traditions. This soundtrack to the documentary, Encounter Point, won the Best Musical Score Award at the 2006 Bend International Film Festival.
Neil Sedaka was an American singer, songwriter and pianist of Lebanese Jewish descent. Beginning his music career in 1957, he sold millions of records worldwide and wrote or co-wrote over 500 songs for himself and other artists, collaborating mostly with lyricists Howard Greenfield and Phil Cody. Some of his hits include, "Calendar Girl," "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," "Love Will Keep Us Together" (as sung by Captain & Tennille), and the songs "Stupid Cupid” and "Where the Boys Are" (made famous by Connie Francis). Although the album Emergence was not a sales success, it has acquired a cult following among Sedaka's fans. Four of its songs made their way onto 45 rpm singles releases: "I'm A Song (Sing Me)" backed with "Silent Movies" and "Superbird" b/w "Rosemary Blue." Of all the albums Sedaka recorded, he considered Emergence to be his favorite.
Simon Shaheen is a Palestinian-American oud and violin player, and composer. His work incorporates and reflects a legacy of Arab music, while it forges ahead to new frontiers, bracing many different styles in the process. Blue Flame is world fusion with a commercial twist. On this intriguing collection, Shaheen melds Arabic, jazz, Indian, North African Mediterranean, and classical music via his expertise on the oud and violin with compositions that often display congruity with Western pop song structure.
Omar Almasikh, better known by his stage name Omar Souleyman, is a Syrian singer. He began his career in 1994 singing at weddings and has since released numerous records and performed all over the world. He produces a modernized version of the traditional dabke. Omar Souleyman's fifth studio album pays homage to Erbil, the city in Iraq that offered solace and embraced Souleyman during recent uneasy times. The move to Erbil came rich with new experiences and friendships best celebrated in joyous songs dedicated to a new chapter of life.
Teen Idle is the musical moniker of New Jersey-based producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Sara Abdelbarry. Inspired by the multitude of pop and rock artists she used to watch on MTV starting at 8 years old, Abdelbarry knew there was a special magic about music she had to experience for herself. Growing up in an Arab-American family, Arabic music was always playing around the house during her childhood, even just from her parents and grandparents singing in the kitchen. Nonfiction is her debut full-length album; characterized by dreamy indie-pop and nostalgic rock influences. The album acts as a personal, autobiographical memoir, featuring tracks like "Saccharine," "Birthday Cake," and "Norway."
Herbert Butros Khaury AKA Tiny Tim was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and musical archivist of mixed Eastern European Jewish and Lebanese descent. He was known for his wide vocal range, including a deep baritone and falsetto. Much more than a novelty act, he was a music historian. He sings in a crooning baritone voice here on his tribute to Russ Colombo, a very popular singer and actor in the 1930's.
Habibi Funk: An Eclectic Selection of Music from the Arab World is a compilation dedicated to re-releasing music from the 1970s and 1980s in which artists from the Arab world mixed local and regional influences with musical interests that came from outside of the region. Even though the name suggests it’s all about funk music, the focus is more than just that. Often these influences might be inspired from Western popular music such as soul, pop, and rock but it’s not limited to that either. Other genres include Arabic zouk (a genre originating from the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe) like Mallek Mohamed’s music, Algerian coladera (a popular musical style from the Cape Verdean islands) or Lebanese AOR, which means the process of musical influences displayed on this compilation was much more versatile than just taking Western music as a blueprint and translating it with a local accent. This is the seventh album in a series of compilations from Habibi Funk Records. The label states, “We hope that the music we release helps as a tiny, tiny piece of a larger puzzle to establish a diverse, more nuanced yet adequate idea of how musically vibrant this very diverse region once has been and also still is.”
Compilation featuring big name Lebanese classic singers such as Fayza Ahmed, Odette Kaddo, Fairuz, Souad Hashem, Sabah, and Zouhour.
Lebanese Songs from the 50's: History of Arabic Song is a compilation album featuring iconic mid-century Lebanese music, prominently featuring Fairuz, Suad Hashem, Nour El Houda, Najah Salam, and Shiraz. It highlights early, classic Lebanese repertoire.
Khalani walafto is an album by Nadia Yasmine, a Kabyle/Algerian Raï and Maghreb pop artist, released on June 10, 2025.
In 1974, American composer Frank Zappa recorded a TV concert movie in his private rehearsal hall, but there were tech issues that caused the video to be shelved in the `Vault' for 50 years. Now, with advanced post-production, we present the stereo soundtrack to Cheaper Than Cheep. This intimate 2-hour concert reveals the newly restored original vault audio masters.