One of the thrills we have on this issue, is an interview with a bright, young, and creative music producer called Omar Basaad. Starting from the young age of 15 as a DJ with stars twinkling his path to stardom, Omar managed to create a name for himself with his efforts and hard work, seeing a bright future for his taste style of music. He has a vision, and he knows how to make it happen.

What’s Up: How did you start as a music producer?

Omar Basaad: I used to live in Saudi Arabia, and since my father is Saudi, and my mother is Turkish, so I had this multi-culture thing going on, getting a mixture of two different types of music, add Tv to that, and you get me.

When I was 14 years old I bought this guitar with a beat box, I jammed on it for a while, till I realized that it wasn’t for me, When I became 15, I found myself in DJing when I did some events in Turkey, and Greece, that’s when I started to get really interested in how producers create their music and that is what got me into it in the first place.

So I decided to study sound engineering, and that payed off really well, I got contacted and worked with a lot of Turkish musicians, like Tarkan.

WU: Do you work with a production company, or as a freelancer?

OB: I work as a freelancer.

WU: Was it hard to build up a name in the market? I know for a fact that it isn’t that easy to get the bread on the table as they say.

OB: It was very hard, because in Turkey we have musicians all over the place, and a guy have to work hard to get his work out there to be heard. Another obstacle I faced was the fact that over there Turks considered me as a foreigner in their country, so that added another level of difficulty to the whole process. I remember on many occasions not getting any sleep, since I have to go to college in the morning then work late at night, just to be able to afford buying stuff, and living a decent life.

Another thing that gave me a boost was when Tarkan picked me to do a track for him, I was placed next to well established producers and DJs, but the best part is that my name showed as the second track right under Tiësto.

WU: Wasn’t being a Saudi producer in Turkey enough to give you a niche?

OB: Yes that helped me a lot having this mixture added a lot to the type of music I produced. So I got to mix between the modern beats and the Arabic Maqams, to give it that special flavor.

WU: Some people think that a life of a DJ is an easy, fun, chilled-out life, would you give us a glimpse on how a day would look like?

OB: If it is not a weekend, you wake up, go to school finish your day there, get back home do your homework, then after that you have about three hours to get your music prepared, you do some research for the latest hits, listen and filter through them. After that you get your track list ready. Of course you might need to pay rent, or buy food, you know the normal errands and chores.

After getting all that done, I would have to go to the club ahead of time, to check on all the equipment against a list I prepared, and that everything is in working condition.

Then it is all about warming-up the crowd for an hour before cranking the tempo, yet in most cases, I like to add live instruments on stage, that way you have a show.

WU: Would you explain how the process of creating a song works?

OB: You see the singer gets to pick the lyrics he would like to perform, then contacts the producer. The artist and producer get to meet at the studio, and start to sing the lyrics they already have, after listening to that, a producer would start to imagine the sound that would go well with it, which is created from Synth, or electric, if the producer has a sound in his head he would have to write the notes for that. The other way around this is to take a look at the lyrics, then start to imagine the sounds that should work with it. You see it all starts from the lyrics, then the producer starts to see what melody he or she can put in. Basically a producer creates everything from scratch.

WU: When it comes to creative work, you need a certain mindset, or mood, where you can create, how would a music producer get in the zone?

OB: Well you start to listen to MTV (Laughs), but I tend to listen to music to get inspired, it starts to move something in me.

WU: Haven’t you considered working here or somewhere in the Mid-East?

OB: Frankly, I would like to make some changes in the sounds of the Mid-East, at this stage what we have here from my point of view is a total confusion, what we have is between Khaleji and pop music, I am not saying it is bad, but what I am saying it could be better.

WU: What’s your future plans?

OB: I am moving to either London or LA to finish my higher education in music technology, I will keep on working on building my name on a global scale, so when I return to the Middle-East, I would be much more mature as a music producer, plus I would have the established name.