Forward Music is a Lebanon based independent record label specializing in World Music.
Contents
 | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Music entertainment |
| Founded | 2001 [1] |
| Headquarters | Beirut , Lebanon |
Key people | Ghazi Abdel Baki |
| Website | forwardmusic |
Forward Music is a Lebanon based independent record label specializing in World Music.
| | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Music entertainment |
| Founded | 2001 [1] |
| Headquarters | Beirut , Lebanon |
Key people | Ghazi Abdel Baki |
| Website | forwardmusic |
Forward Music was established in 2001 by Ghazi Abdel Baki as a music label that pools together the cooperative efforts of young artists from the Middle East. It aims to encourage new and creative trends in the musical arts, blending the various cultural currents that meet and interact in new fusions and fresh perspectives. It hopes to draw on the rich musical past of the Arab world and the array of contemporary influences to find new musical dialects. Forward Music is committed to making an authentic contribution to our ever-changing culture and to the growing global dialogue of World Music.[ citation needed ]
Today, Forward Music is a leading independent label that produces and distributes the work of several respected musicians and singers in the Middle East. [2]
In 2007, one of Forward Music's projects, "Al Muwashahat", received The BBC Awards for world music . [3]
In October 2010, Forward Music acquired 13 album licenses from the record label Incognito, further expanding its music catalogue. [4]
Later, In 2011, Forward Music opened its state of the art Live concert venue in Beirut: The Democratic republic of Music (DRM). DRM hosted 300 concerts in the span of 3 years with artists such as: Stanley Jordan, Tony Allen (musician), The Musicians of the Nile, Henri Texier, Souad Massi, The Herbaliser, Ilham al-Madfai, Joey DeFrancesco, and many others including the label's artists and a myriad of musicians from Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon. [5]
The music of Lebanon has a long history. Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon, has long been known, especially in a period immediately following World War II, for its art and intellectualism. Several singers emerged in this period, among the most famous Fairuz, Sabah, Wadih El Safi, Nasri Shamseddine, Melhem Barakat, Majida El Roumi, Ahmad Kaabour, Marcel Khalife, and Ziad Rahbani, who—in addition to being an engaged singer-songwriter and music composer—was also a popular playwright. Lydia Canaan was hailed by the media as the first rock star of the Middle East.
The culture of Lebanon and the Lebanese people emerged from various civilizations over thousands of years. It was home to the Phoenicians and was subsequently conquered and occupied by the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Ottoman Turks and the French. This variety is reflected in Lebanon's diverse population, composed of different religious groups, and features in the country's festivals, literature, artifacts, cuisine and architecture of Lebanon. Tourism in Lebanon is popular with periods of interruption during conflict.
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