Sounds of Arabia come alive in Omar Basaad’s remix of Jean-Marie Riachi’s Sahara Al Arab

Saudi dance DJ Omar Basaad talks about travelling across the Middle East to source native sounds for his latest remix. The experience was also filmed for an online documentary.

The Saudi musician Omar Basaad, pictured, teamed up with Lebanon’s Jean­Marie Riachi to remix the latter’s song Sahara Al Arab. Courtesy Omar Basaad

Musical talents young and old teamed up to compose a new track celebrating the Arab world’s artistic heritage.

Saudi electronic-dance-music star Omar Basaad joined vete­ran Lebanese fusion artist Jean-­Marie Riachi to remix the latter's song Sahara Al Arab.

For the song, produced in cooperation with carmakers Range Rover and Sony Music Middle East, the artists went on an 11-day trek around the region to source native sounds. Their experience was also filmed for an online documentary.

“It was a great project,” says Basaad. “And that’s because it didn’t feel like a project – it felt like a fully fledged collaboration.”

Both versions of Sahara Al Arab are being played on the radio and are proving popular online. Was that the benchmark for the project’s success?

What’s more satisfying to me is that this is the first time a project has been executed this way. It wasn’t the normal client-based song that you would do for someone. With this one, the artists were left alone to express ourselves the way we wanted to. We both had the creativity to do anything in our versions. We went from Oman to Dubai to Saudi and Cairo and collected a lot of sounds from each culture to use.

In your travels, you and Riachi just happened to meet Ziad, who was chosen to sing the lead vocals on both versions of the track. How did that happen?

That was the most random thing ever. We met him in Oman and he was just this guy with an oud. He told us that he also sings and when we heard his voice, we just went “wow”. Because we could be as creative as we wanted, we just used it for the song and it turned out great.

How big a job was it to blend the hours of atmospheric sounds you obtained during the trip into your remix?

It was challenging because I used everything on the remix, from the sounds of the Cairo streets to the beaches in Oman and plenty of others. The only thing that was done in the studio was the strings – everything else is from the outside.

It is almost a documentary approach to creating music.

It was a new experience for me, to be honest. I am an electronic-­dance-music artist and I do a lot of stuff in the studio – I rarely just go out and record random stuff. For example, I remember going to the gold souq [in Dubai] and recording something that sounds like a shaker.

What idea did you have in mind when creating your remix of Sahara Al Arab?

It is about finding that balance, to tell you the truth. I had a million ideas on how I wanted to approach the remix, but you need to do it in a delicate way. If I use too much of the original instruments then it is too much of an Arabic song. If I put too much dance beats to it then it doesn’t become a remix of the song but just another EDM track. Finding the right blend of both is the trick.

With the song's success, do you hope other companies will invest money in artistic projects that use regional talents?

I do, but only if it is being done carefully. It needs to feel like a collaboration and that it is all 50/50, not simply someone cutting me a cheque and telling me to do it in their way. I have to give Range Rover credit because they gave us full creativity – and without them giving us feedback. I think it would be great if other companies do the same and invest in the arts, but it needs to be done with the artist being allowed to be creative. If not, then it just feels like client work and that’s not satisfying at all.

• Visit live.landrover-me.com to hear both versions of Sahara Al Arab and watch the documentary about the making of the track