During the past year, I've been fortunate to collaborate on several exciting projects, including a remix for the Starfield game soundtrack by Bethesda, I’ve had my music used on multiple episodes of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, and music production for one of LEGO's advertising campaigns. Among these, one project holds a special place in my heart.

Two years ago I embarked on the journey to create a Middle Eastern inspired chill beats album called “Tales From Babylon”. This album was inspired by my grandparents who were born in Iraq and Morocco. During the research phase for this album, I took the time to listen to a lot of Arabic artists such as Umm Khulthum, Farid Al Atrash, and contemporary musicians like Tamino. Alongside this, I spent a lot of time talking to my Iraqi grandparents about their stories, their music tastes and my family origin.

This all came together in an 11 track album that featured me playing the Oud, a traditional Arabic instrument, alongside beautiful analogue synth pads, chill hip hop inspired beats and early 2000’s inspired ambient and lounge music.

For as long as I can remember, my dad has always just had music playing around the house. Usually some ambient, chill out or minimalist techno. So I’ve always had these beautiful soundscapes playing throughout my life, almost like a soundtrack to being at home. But my first tangible experience with music was when my dad showed me “Children of the Grave” by Black Sabbath when I was 8 years old. Since then, I feel that I’ve just explored all of these genres on much deeper levels. I’m always incorporating ambient elements into a lot of my work and I used to play guitar in a Deathcore band.

When I was around 9 my dad took me to get keyboard lessons, but I ended up getting bored and just playing with the sounds on the keyboard. I asked my dad where we can get more sounds and he told me that I need something called a synthesiser but they’re very expensive and complicated things. I always think back to this moment because I realise that to this day, it’s how sounds are created and put together that interest me more than the specific melodies going on in a track. It's not that I don't appreciate a catchy melody, but I find myself more captivated by the sounds crafting the melody rather than the melody itself.

Learn how to be friends with people. Note: This doesn’t mean “Networking”. I mean, make genuine connections with other people that you enjoy spending time with in the music field. Making music with people and growing your careers together is a lot more enjoyable than doing it alone. If you align yourself with driven, passionate and like minded people, you will find yourself thriving and being fulfilled in the years to come, regardless of where any of you are at now. Just be real.

I started producing and mixing in my family home when I was 15 so a lot of the time I had to work with headphones because I just couldn’t be playing music out loud at 1am. Nowadays, I enjoy composing and producing with monitors but once it comes down to the mixing stage, I’m usually in my headphones and using the monitors and other sources as references.

A large part of my work involves using samples to create drums. I’ve now started building these drums completely inside my LCD-X before I even take them to the monitors and they are perfect every time. Everything is balanced, hitting hard and groovy. Once I start building up the rest of the track I’m constantly referencing my LCD-X to make sure my mix is sounding good. Once I get to the final stages of the tracks, it’s back in the LCD-X to make the final adjustments. I really feel like I can trust the LCD-X. I’ve had extremely positive feedback on my work from clients and from my peers as well. Truly an incredible piece of hardware.