Red Bull Music Academy Presents: Oddisee and Good Compny Live in Dubai

Acclaimed American rapper-producer will perform live at Stereo Arcade, with support from regional indie acts

Dubai, UAE, September 26, 2016:  On October 5, Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) presents the acclaimed rapper-producer Oddisee live at Stereo Arcade in Dubai with his band, Good Compny, and support from Zeid Hamdan with Maii Waleed, plus an aftershow performance from UAE rock band Jay Wud. Entrance is free and doors open at 9pm.

Both Oddisee and Zeid Hamdan are former participants at Red Bull Music Academy, an annual event that brings world-renowned producers, composers and performers together with some of the world’s most talented up-and-coming young artists for lectures, workshops and collaborative recording sessions. The Academy is hosted in a different city each year, and this year’s RBMA (the 18th edition) will take place in Montreal.

Past RBMA alumni also include UK artists Katy B and Mumdance, LA soul singer Aloe Blacc, the Grammy-winning Mexican singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade, Egyptian electro artist Bosaina, and Bahraini producer Cosmo.

Oddisee (real name Amir Mohamed El Khalifa) has been performing for well over a decade, but a conscious decision to focus on substance over style means he’s spent much of that time in relative obscurity. It wasn’t until his official debut solo album, People Hear What They See, dropped in 2012 that Oddisee’s name began to resonate beyond a dedicated core fanbase in the DC underground. “A lot of people don’t understand that philosophy, but there’s longevity in obscurity,” he told Complex following the album’s release. “With me it’s all intentional. If people don’t know about a lot of my records, I don’t want them to. I don’t make an effort with every release to familiarize people with my previous releases for several reasons. If you’re constantly being discovered by a new audience, it gives you a long shelf life.”

While Oddisee cites old-school artists including Rakim and A Tribe Called Quest among his biggest influences, his music is consistently cutting-edge and surprising. His acclaimed 2011 LP, Rock Creek Park, for example, was an instrumental record apparently inspired by riding his bike around Washington. He happily incorporates Bon Iver and Marvin Gaye into his music, gathers sounds from soul and funk, plays with time signatures, and generally does whatever he wants with little regard for industry trends or peer approval. Like many of his fellow RBMA alumni, Oddisee has always focused first on creating the kind of music he wants to make. All of which makes him one of the most exciting artists working in hip-hop today. 

Although he was born and raised in America, Oddisee’s Sudanese heritage, on his father’s side, has given him a strong connection to the Arab world, and he’ll take to the stage at Stereo Arcade in the UAE with his live band Good Compny for a gig that will resonate not only with hip-hop fans, but with all lovers of creative, truly original music.

Support on the night comes from another RBMA alumni, Zeid Hamdan – the Lebanese musician-producer who’s been at the forefront of the Arab indie movement since the late Nineties when his electro duo Soapkills kickstarted the underground scene in Beirut. He’ll be performing with one of his many longtime collaborators, the Egyptian singer-songwriter Maii Waleed. Together, the pair have put a new twist on Arabic music, blending Hamdan’s idiosyncratic analogue electro sound with Waleed’s unique voice. 

The after-show soundtrack will be provided by UAE-based rockers Jay Wud, led by the Lebanese frontman of the same name. The band blend metal, classic rock and grunge influences into a hard-hitting, melodic, guitar-driven sound that always gets the audience’s adrenaline pumping.