Taxi 404, en route to paradise
Formed in 2017 by Amin and Andy, Taxi 404 returns after a long silence with "Paradis" — a sincere and liberating single tinged with indie rock. The track marks a new chapter for the duo, drawing inspiration from The Strokes, Serge Gainsbourg, and Abdel Halim Hafez, a bold fusion of alternative rock and diverse musical legacies. What began as pop-inspired compositions has since matured into a more authentic, personal sound, reflecting their shift toward creating music first and foremost for themselves.
Lebanon, in all its complexity, remains a source of inspiration. "Our music is an extension of what we live," they explain. The duo nurtures a fluid complementarity: whether composing, arranging, or performing, they build their sonic universe with four hands, in an instinctive harmony. After a collaboration with Vernis Rouge, they are planning a concert in Beirut in July and dreaming of projects in other languages, with one watchword: pleasure and authenticity.
Blu Fiefer, burning the norms to reinvent oneself
Blu Fiefer, a Lebanese-Mexican producer and director, founder of the label Mafi Budget, establishes herself on the Lebanese independent scene as an engaged icon. Her latest album, Villain Bala Cause (a title in Arabic-English), is imbued with a harsh reality. As intimate as it is striking, it recounts her journey from the October 2019 revolution to the traumas of the port explosion and war, between hope, disillusion, and the necessity to reinvent oneself to continue. "We end up transforming, metamorphosing into antiheroes if we want to survive."
Her hybrid universe draws from hip-hop, classical music, and electro, with a strong narrative and a quasi-cinematic visual signature. Lebanon, as a backdrop, infiltrates in every beat and word. Rejecting Western influence, Blu chooses Lebanese Arabic as a language of creation to assert her identity and confirm her belonging. In a music landscape dominated by commercial pop and hindered by censorship, she defends a liberated and radical alternative scene. An extraordinary project, just like her.
Kamal el-Hage, Lebanese pop on the international stage
Lebanese singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles, Kamal el-Hage shapes pop-R&B with introspective and universal tones. While music is a family affair — he is the son of singer Fadia Tomb el-Hage — Kamal started writing at the age of ten and composing with a rich classical background. Influenced by icons such as Beyonce and Justin Timberlake, he blends 2000s mainstream sounds with personal sensitivity. His latest single, No Stars in LA, co-written with Venezuelan artist Cristina Hron, poetically depicts the disillusionment of the American dream.
Combining lyricism and authenticity, the artist explores not only the torments of love, desire, and sorrow but also deeper themes related to identity, self-image, and social contradictions, especially in the Middle East. Although he does not sing in Arabic, Kamal draws from his roots to infuse his creations with instrumental Oriental influences. Through his tracks, he embodies a generation by narrating the world as he perceives it: with honesty, vulnerability, and a modern gaze. A unique voice to watch closely.
DJ Cynthia Lahoud, Lebanese groove and funk fusion
For ten years, Cynthia has been making crowds dance, headphones on, smile on her face. As a child, she spent hours in front of MTV music videos, rocked by the hits of Katy Perry and Black Eyed Peas, but her musical universe has since significantly expanded. Trained as a chemist, she swapped test tubes and laboratories for turntables and electro rhythms. Her approach? Intuitive, visceral: rhythm above all, melodies before words. "My job is to make people happy," she says.
Between funk, disco, afro house, and Oriental touches that she slips like a signature, Cynthia makes Lebanese nights vibrate — a scene she considers unique in the world and to which she remains fiercely loyal. Her latest project, a disco remix of the hit "I like the way you move," took two months of work. Inspired by Purple Disco Machine, a German DJ and producer, she aligns with the "new disco" movement, revisiting unexpected classics. Upcoming: danceable versions of "Holding out for a hero" and "I wanna dance with somebody."
Etyen and Salwa, between electro and memory
When Lebanese composer and producer Etyen encounters the voice of Palestinian singer Salwa Jaradat, it results in "Qoumi", an EP that marries heritage and modernity. Born from their meeting in 2020 during the OneBeat Lebanon program, their tracks resonate as a rediscovery of identity through an enchanting experimental genre. Salwa draws from Palestinian resistance songs passed down by her grandmother: coded songs, born under the British mandate, used to thwart censorship. By adding letters to words, messages circulated in secret. With Etyen, these traditional melodies find new life in a hypnotic electronic texture, breaking the silence on a past often obscured. "Qoumi" is a call to insurrection, an injunction to reclaim oneself and one’s roots, a way of asserting one’s history through a contemporary aesthetic, "it's also a vibrant return to the sources," says Etyen, "giving them the extent they deserve."
Tamara Qaddoumi, the whisper in chiaroscuro
Tamara Qaddoumi, an artist with multiple origins — Lebanese, Palestinian, and Scottish—reveals "The Murmur", her first album, blending trip-hop, dream pop, and electronic textures. Author and singer, she presents a personal and immersive work. The result of a collaboration with musician and composer Antonio Hajj, the album explores the dark zones of the human soul while tracking a glimmer of hope. Each track is an introspective scene, inhabited by her magnetic voice. Recorded in a challenging context (October 2024), this project oscillates between shadow and light, chaos and clarity, searching for an anchor point in a tumultuous world.
Like a whisper, the work invites "grasping moments of grace at hand: those fleeting small joys, like the morning song of birds in times of chaos." It also explores the internal limits imposed to endure adversity. "The Murmur" was released on April 25, 2025, on platforms and is available on vinyl at Fizz in Beirut. Tamara performed in concert in Paris on June 3 at Supersonic Records.
Pól, the song of a return to the homeland
Paola Ibrahim, alias Pól, opens the doors to her musical universe in her retro-style apartment in Achrafieh, the filming location for her latest track "Ken Helme" ; she also teaches singing, composes, and finds inspiration there...
Having been immersed in music since childhood, Pól’s influences are multiple, ranging from Bach to Mashrou’ Leila and Lana Del Rey. Her first Arabic pop song speaks of her experience and that of many Lebanese, torn between here and elsewhere. "I tried to leave, to see the world, but I found everything here. It’s also a choice: I decided I would find everything here." While she has long drawn inspiration from her personal experiences, today it is her relationship with her country that gives life to her art. Serenity and softness inhabit her voice and convey the message, however dark, to emerge on a positive note: she has found her path here. Beyond the autobiographical dimension, she seems to invite the country’s youth to return…
Bonne Chose (شي طيب), music to savor!
Composed of twin brothers Abdo Sawma on drums and Charbel Sawma on bass, and pianist Rami Abou Khalil, the trio met early on the school benches and never parted. In a time when leaving has become a given, they have chosen Lebanon out of conviction. "None of us found our element abroad," admits Rami.
Self-taught, they string together jazz performances in Beirut and fuse genres, offering the audience improvisations through a diverse experimental creation. Their style breaks out of classic circuits as they often share the stage with many artists between Oriental music, pop, or Brazilian sounds. Their tracks convey an immersive harmony of the moment where they combine jazz, psychedelic rock, synthwave, or even sampling. In a country rocked by winds, their artistic production reflects this, carrying the emotions of the moment. The trio has been cooking up an album since 2022, which they will produce themselves, a quintessence of their journey and a continuation of their live music.