Badawi

Born as Raz Mesinai in Jerusalem during 1973, his childhood included extended periods among Bedouin groups across the Sinai desert, where their singular musical approach left a lasting impression. At seven, dervish sheik Murshid Hassan from the Palestinian refugee camp of Balata began mentoring the boy in the intricacies of exotic Middle Eastern drumming, leading to mastery of the bendir, zarb, and darbukka. Spirituality entered his path through the influence of Hasidic rabbi and folk musician Harav Shlomo Carlebach. After settling in New York City, immersion in the rising NYC Academy of Underground DJs, which counted DJ Spooky among its members, prompted the adoption of the name Badawai, denoting “desert dweller” or simply “Bedouin.” Home recording techniques produced his first ROIR album, Presents Bedouin Sound Clash, which appeared in 1996. The following year brought the more experimental Jerusalem Under Fire, which placed him among the foremost dub and reggae DJs of the late 1990s. Subsequent projects continued under a slightly altered spelling, Badawi, among them 1999’s The Heretic of Ether and 2001’s The Soldier of Midian.