3 Extraordinary Digital Creators from the Arab World
By: Arab America Contributing Writer / Mariam Alyakoob
Alaa Wardi
Alaa Wardi is an Iranian singer who is based in Saudi Arabia and covers many Arabic songs. Many of his songs that he covers, some featuring acapella songs, can be found in his youtube channel: Alaa Warda, which has over 1 million followers. One of his most well known videos, titled the Evolution of Arabic Music was uploaded six years ago and got over 31 million views. The video shows him singing famous Arabic songs dating back to before the 1900s all the way up to the 2010s. Famous artists such as Abdel Halim Hafez, Fairuz, Amr Diab, and many more.
Other than covers, Alaa Wardi also creates mashups of English and Arabic songs with other musicians that he uploads on Tiktok and youtube. One example of the mashups that he makes is mixing Dua Lipa’s song Levitating with Samira Said’s song Al Bal:
Remie Akle
Remie Akle is a creative artist that expresses her voice through song, visual art, poetry and acting. She has a thriving instagram, @remiakle, with over 200,000 followers. She is also active on youtube and TikTok. On both platforms, you will find her using spoken poetry accompanied with shifting visuals.
Akle hails from Lebanon and much of the art she creates revolves around social commentary. One incredibly famous piece she has is titled “Baklava Got Legs”, in which she notes how women in Lebanon are catcalled and referred to as the famous Middle Eastern dessert, Baklava. That video got over four million likes on instagram:
Anas Bukhash
Anas Bukhash is an Emirati digital creator who works in many fields. He is an entrepreneur and a businessman, who is the founder of two companies: Ahdaf Sports Club and Bukhash Brothers Co. He is also the host of the incredibly famous talk show ABtalks, which can be found on Youtube and even Netflix.
The purpose of ABtalks is to interview famous celebrities from across the world, but focusing more specifically on the Arab world, and showing the raw sides of these celebrities. Bukhash will typically try to understand how each celebrity is doing emotionally and understand more about their childhood and who they are as a person. Some of these hour long interviews have over millions of views. Some of the celebrities Bukhash has interviewed include Rahma Riad, Shaquille O’Neal, Nelly Karim, and more!
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