Popular Music of Jordan

The artist and composer such as Sameer Baghdadi, the Bedouin singer of Omar Al-Abdallat (who is popular for his patriotic song known as Hashemi, Hashemi), Dianna Karazon who is the winner of the Arab version of pop idol, Toni Qattan and singer Hani Mitwasi also the winner of the Jordan awards in the year 2010 are possibly Jordan’s biggest artists. Other popular Jordanian artists include Qamar Badwan, who won the golden prize in the year 2000 in Cairo song festival, percussionist Hani Naser, the pianist and composer Khalid Asad.

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A new group that is known as RUM has achieved the local and international popularity since its beginning in 1998, Rum has been considered as the most successful Jordanian musical group, and has gained a extensive range of supporters from the wide world, Rum has carry out some shows in Morocco, Tunisia, Palestine, Syria, France, Netherland, Turkey, Kazakhstan, United States and Germany. The main issue that contributed to the Rum group’s big success is the fact that the group carries out the original compositions by Tareq al Nasser (the composer, initiator and leader of the group) and many of which were composed for Arabic television drama series that have achieved wide popularity in the Arab world and include the Television drama series such as Nihayat Rajol Shuja, Al Kawaser, Al Jawareh, Yawmeyyat Mudeer Amm, Al Malek Farouq and many others, the group also carries out songs, rearranged Jordan folklore and instrumentals. Rum group has stood in for Jordan in many international occasions and one of the most significant performances that took place at the John Kennedy center for the performing arts in Washington DC take place in March 2009 as part of the Arabesque arts of the Arab world festival in the United States.

The sign of the rhythm on the other hand has gained local popularity with its Oriental-Jazz ethnic combination; the band has been performing since 2004 and currently produced 2 albums. Many Jordanian singers permanently use western melodies and combine it with the Middle Eastern music that bring a fresh new generation of music. The provocative female singer known as Malak EI Nasser is known for her extremely seductive video clip who is another famous Jordanian singer.

Amman, the capital of Jordan, has been a trend of alternative music in the last two years. The rock bands that combine the western and the eastern influences are continually becoming the most popular. Ethereal was a popular oriented rock band the early year, they were the first band in Jordan that have a large base of supporters, their music was played on the local radio stations. They came first when they represented Jordan in the European youth festival in Turkey in the year 1999. Presently there are some famous bands in Jordan like JadaL Distorte D, and IIIusions who are popular for their pure classical rock pattern. A hard rock guitarist, Naser Mestarihi who is from Jordan on his father’s side, the alternative music scene in Jordan boomed after 2008 with the emergence of the post rock band known as EI Morabba3, and other bands like Akher Zapheer, Autostrad and several others.

The Arabic hip hop and the Arabic rap musicians in Jordan also contributed to the musical scene. These musicians include the names like Khotta Ba, Torabyeh, Arab Mc’s EI Far3i, Amer Al Taher and Al Hevy.

The heavy metal scene in Jordan is known for a fairly large underground heavy metal that is always wrongly linked to Satanism causing the people to attack it. Instances of Jordanian metal bands included Relics of Martyrs (Thrash/Death metal), Chalice of Doom (doom/Death metal), Tyrant Throne (death metal) and Ajdath who is presently living in Poland. Other bands such as Augury (known as Black metal), and Darkcide (Doom/Death metal) had to stop because of lack of assistant or band members staying in the country, but not all the metal band are linked to the Satanism, as some of the metal bands are not Satanist for instance.

One of the prominent artists in Jordan is the Faqir family that stayed more than 100 years. Jordan’s western radio station, play a total works of 99.6 towards opening the new local musicians, which include many of the western pop singers such as Al’a Ayypoub, Humam Ammari and Walid Karadsheh.

The well-known indie rock scene gave popularity to musicians like Kais Khoury, Hani Mitwasi, Yousef Kawar and Ibrahim Baggili as well as the cowboys from Jordan; a band that is managed by Yousef Kawar himself. Other important genres in Jordan is hip hop; which was famous through DJ Shadia (Shadia Bseiso) through her country radio concert of the 5^th element, which was the only  concert throughout the Middle eastern to broadcast in the three different countries weekly (such as Syria, Lebanon and Jordan) from 2005 to 2008. DJ Shadia who formerly opened for the global stars such as 50 Cent, Sean Paul, Akon and Massari, and also other well-known hip hop musicians include Last standing Poet and MC Niz-r.

In the present time, Jordan electronic music scene is rising speedily within the Jordanian youth, and has become essential in the musical tastes in Jordan. Many outburst and unknown techno gatherings occur, and the electronic music is presently reaching the number one of the status in music genre in Jordan.