Quoz Arts Fest 2024 | Omar Offendum
Omar Offendum
Music
Omar Offendum’s unique concert experience takes audiences on a journey from the hakawāti cafes of Damascus, to the gritty streets of New York City where hip-hop culture was born.
Date
25_Jan 2025
Starts
12.00AM
Venue
Main Stage
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Offendum, a renowned rapper and poet, is joined by his longtime musical collaborators, Oud virtuoso Ronnie Malley and acclaimed DJ Thanks Joey, for this genre-bending performance that seamlessly bridges continents and generations.
From melodic Oud improvisations and to hard-hitting drum beats, this performance will be loved by all ages.
About the participant
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). In July of 2024, Offendum was given a City Council Citation by Council Member Shahana Hanif of Brooklyn for his outstanding cultural contributions to the City of New York. 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 NY with his wife and two little children whilst forever daydreaming about the jasmine tree-lined streets of Damascus.
