Khaliji (music)

Khaliji music (also spelled Khaleeji; Arabic: الموسيقى الخليجية meaning Gulf music) is the music of Eastern Arabia, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf and it is popular across the Arab world. It is traditionally characterized by heavy use of the rebab, oud and other string instruments such as the violin, the occasional use of habbān, and the inclusion of percussion instruments such as the mirwas, tabl, and duff drums. Khaliji music first started as a bedouin tradition with poetry sung by a tribe's shaa'ir, which means poet, usually accompanied by a rebab, the lyrics dealt with tales of honor, love, camel riders, and glory warriors.

Khaliji music has roots going back more than 1,000 years, to the Islamic period, under the Umayyads and Abbasids in Baghdad, Iraq.[1] In the modern era, Kuwaitis were the first commercial recording artists and composers in the Persian Gulf region; Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia pioneered the Khaliji genre into its modern form in the second half of the 20th century and soon became the focal point of the industry, but in recent years the UAE has had an arguabely bigger impact with musical artists such as Hussain Al Jassmi, Ahlam, and Mehad Hamad dominating the charts, and their songs represent different music genres, in which many of them are Khaliji.[2][3][4][5] The Khaliji scene is primarily populated by Iraqi, Emirati, Kuwaiti, Bahraini, and Saudi artists today.[2][3][4][5][6] Along with its main Arabian style, Khaliji music can also sometimes incorporate few elements of East African along with the Arabian genre such as Liwa, Moradah,and Sawt reflecting the region's ethnic history.[7][8]

In recent years, a new Independent scene has started to emerge in Arab states of the Persian Gulf that aims to challenge the sociocultural norms of modern Khaleeji society through a sound that's distinct from traditional Khaliji music, the scene has been coined as "Alternative Khaliji" by Kuwaiti-American musician +Aziz.[9]