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Artist
Kazem El Saher
12+ albums
about
Kazem Al-Saher كاظم الساهر (born in Mosul, Iraq) has established himself as the biggest singer in the Arab World, having sold more than 30 million albums since the start of his career. Ranging from big romantic ballads to more political work, from pop to Arab classical, he's covered the spectrum of music with the kind of success not seen since the heyday of Umm Kalthum. Al-Saher was born in 1961 in Nainawa, Northern Iraq, one of ten children of a palace worker. His interest in music came not from lessons, but the radio, where he learned the works of composers like Mohamed Abdel Wahab by hearing them. When he was ten, he sold his bicycle to buy a guitar and two years later, began writing songs. He switched to oud, a much more common instrument, and was accepted into the Baghdad Music Academy at the age of 21. Keen to break through in the music business with his songs and voice, he found himself rebuffed by all the producers he approached, who'd only let him sing their material. Instead, he used the back door to gain entry to the industry. With a television director friend, he made a video of one of his songs, Ladghat El Hayya (The Snake Bite), which was slipped into a broadcast on Iraqi television in 1987, just after the Iran-Iraq war. An allegory to his situation, it caused a major controversy and the powers that ran television offered him a choice -- change the lyrics or have it banned. He refused to change anything, but the banning only made it more popular. He began giv
