Habibi Funk is dedicated to re-releasing a style of music that historically never existed as a musical genre. We use the term to describe a particular sound that we like from the countries of the Arab world. The songs we chose were created in places quite far from one another and under very different circumstances. Some were written and recorded during war times, others in exile. Despite the differences, we think there is a musical connection between them. Essentially, we are interested in the musical endeavors 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, our focus is more than just that. Often these influences might be inspired by Western popular music such as soul, pop and rock, but it’s not limited to that. Some of our favourite records are best described as 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. The compilation features 15 different artists. Some you might already know thru Habibi Funk’s releases like Fadoul, Ahmed Malek, Dalton or Al Massrieen. In contrast, others are meant as an introduction to artists like Kamal Keila, Sharhabeel Ahmed, Attarazat Addahabia & Mallek Mohamed who will all release full-length albums on Habibi Funk in 2018.

Tracklist