Singer, lyricist, composer and oud player. In the eighties Natik began his musical path, with ebbs and flows, and some pauses along the way.
In 1979, Awayez moved to study philosophy in Bulgaria, where he continued to develop musically. “Coming to Bulgaria at an early age was amazing, a new, energetic freedom blew up inside me after the social conditions back in Iraq,” he recalls. “Bulgarian music is very distinguished, and has been subjected to many cultural interventions throughout the ages. It’s difficult to live in Bulgaria without being influenced by its music.”

After his studies, some of Awayez’s Yemeni friends suggested he come and find work in their country, in which he had long been fascinated. The opportunity was too good for him to pass up and he moved in 1981.
First learning to play the Oud in the company of fellow local musicians, Awayez departed Iraq in 1979 in the face of political persecution and has spent the past few decades travelling between the Middle East and Europe.Though the album’s only began formal composition around two years ago, the foundations for Manbarani have been decades in the making, informed in part by years spent immersed in the musical culture on the Yemeni-Saudi border.

After leaving Yemen due to the ongoing civil war, Awayez founded The Art Consulate, an independent organization concerned with creating an intellectual dialogue between Europe and the Middle-East, before heading in Egypt in 2015 to manage the art project ’Missing Rooms’. Eventually settling in the city and shifting his focus towards production of Manbarani, fostering a musical kinship with esteemed multi-instrumentalist Maurice Louca, who was essential to the creation of Manbarani in his role as producer and arranger.

His exposure to Yemeni music was, in Awayez’s own words, “a positively violent shock.” “They play the oud as if they are outside the limits of physical nature, underpinned by complex rhythms brimming with hidden magic. Everything is simple, and almost impossible at the same time,” he says.

It turned his perception of music on its head and, after 18 months, Awayez moved to Abyan to found a band of musicians affiliated with the Yemeni youth association. Here, he refined his skill at composition while working with local musicians. He moved to Sweden in 1986, and once again sought out collaborators and threw himself into the musical culture. Awayez founded The Art Consulate in 2013, an independent organization focused on establishing intellectual dialogue between Europe and the Middle East, which led him to move to Cairo in 2015.
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