Forward Music


Forward Music is a Lebanon based independent record label specializing in World Music.

History

Forward Music was established in 2001 by Ghazi Abdel Baki as a music label that pools together the cooperative efforts of young artists from the Middle East. It aims to encourage new and creative trends in the musical arts, blending the various cultural currents that meet and interact in new fusions and fresh perspectives. It hopes to draw on the rich musical past of the Arab world and the array of contemporary influences to find new musical dialects. Forward Music is committed to making an authentic contribution to our ever-changing culture and to the growing global dialogue of World Music.
Today, Forward Music is a leading independent label that produces and distributes the work of several respected musicians and singers in the Middle East.
In 2007, one of Forward Music's projects, "Al Muwashahat", received The BBC Awards for world music.
In October 2010, Forward Music acquired 13 album licenses from the record label Incognito, further expanding its music catalogue.
Later, In 2011, Forward Music opened its state of the art Live concert venue in Beirut: The Democratic republic of Music. DRM hosted 300 concerts in the span of 3 years with artists such as: Stanley Jordan, Tony Allen, The Musicians of the Nile, Henri Texier, Souad Massi, The Herbaliser, Ilham al-Madfai, Joey DeFrancesco, and many others including the label's artists and a myriad of musicians from Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon.

List of current artists