Omar Offendum

Omar Offendum is a Syrian-American rapper, spoken word poet, and theatrical storyteller with a unique ability to draw in audiences from various backgrounds and generations through his signature blend of Hip-Hop and Arabic poetry. Over the course of his 20-year career, he’s been featured on prominent world news outlets (Aljazeera, BBC, PBS, LA Times), lectured at a number of prestigious academic institutions (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Northwestern, UT-Austin, SOAS, Georgetown, American University of Beirut), collaborated with major museums and cultural organizations (LACMA, Penn Museum, Ithra, Shangri-La, Arab-American National Museum, The Brooklyn Museum), and helped raise millions of dollars for various humanitarian relief groups (UNRWA, Islamic Relief, Karam Foundation, ANERA, Syrian-American Medical Society). In 2022 Offendum was invited by the Qatar Foundation to perform at over a dozen matches during the FIFA World Cup festivities in Doha. He was also named a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow (2018-2019), an Arab America Foundation “40 Under 40” award recipient (2020), and a member of both the Pillars Fund fellowship cohort for Muslim Narrative Change (2021) and the RaceForward Butterfly Lab cohort for Immigrant Narrative Strategy (2022). His recent foray into theater with the off-Broadway hit production “Little Syria” has earned him a spot in The Public Theater’s distinguished “New York Voices” commission program for the 2023-2024 season, while selling out multiple runs at iconic venues across the United States (Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, The Center for Artistic Performance at UCLA, HERE Arts Center in SoHo, and Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater in NYC) … After spending 17 beautiful years in Los Angeles, Offendum currently resides in the great state of New York with his wife and two little children, whilst forever daydreaming about the jasmine tree-lined streets of Damascus.

An accomplished Palestinian musician based in New York City, Zafer Tawil is a virtuoso on oud, violin, and qanoun, and is a master of Arabic percussion. He has performed with numerous musicians, ranging from the pop star Sting to avant-garde composer/performer Elliot Sharpe to masters of Arabic music such as Simon Shaheen, Chab Mami, Bassam Saba, and George Ziadeh, among many others. Zafer has composed music for a number of film soundtracks, most recently Jonathan Demme’s My Favorite American (not yet released), Rachel Getting Married, andthe documentary Until When. He has held workshops on Arabic music at numerous universities throughout the United States. CDs include “Mumtastic,” by Shusmo; Gaida Hinawi’s debut CD, “Levantine Indulgence”; and two CDs by Amir AlSaffar’s Two Rivers: “Two Rivers Musicians,” and the yet-to-be-released, “Enaana.”

Born in Brooklyn, New York to Syrian immigrants & having a classical Arabic musician as a grandfather already set the palette for what Thanks Joey would be exposed to – Fairouz, Om Kalthoum, Abdel-Halim Hafez with a little bit of Jay Z, BIGGIE SMALLS, Nas etc. Thanks Joey met his long time collaborator/artist/friend, NIKO IS at 13 years old in Orlando, Florida and the two immediately began creating music together. In 2009 Joey established the Colours Of The Culture label on which the 2015 NIKO IS’ album “BRUTUS” was released in collaboration with Talib Kweli’s label, Javotti Media. In 2018, Joey released his first instrumental album inspired by the works of Khalil Gibran entitled “On Beats.” He also produced the 2018 NIKO IS album “UNIKO” which was also released in collaboration with Talib Kweli and featured artists from around the world including Curren$y, Tego Calderón, HAIKAISS, and more. He is currently working on multiple projects set to be released on Colours Of The Culture in the near future.