Omar Souleyman (SY)

To us Westerners, Omar Souleyman is a recent discovery of the legendary Seattle label Sublime Frequencies and a relatively obscure artist with only three albums to his name, including last year’s excellent Jazeera Nights. But in his Syrian homeland, this gentleman with dark sunglasses is an enormous star with a discography of over 500 (!) studio and live albums (well, cassettes – to be strict). His roots lie in the extraordinarily popular regional genre of dabke, traditional music played at weddings in Arab countries, but his music adds influences from Western dance music, leading Björk to describe his sound as “Syrian techno.” Call it what you will, but you don’t have to be an expert on Middle Eastern music to let Omar carry you off onto the dance floor.