Born in 1969, Ghazi Abdel Baki started playing the drums at the age of ten in war-torn Beirut. By the age of twelve, he started rigging the balconies of his childhood home with microphones and recording live sounds of gun battles and shelling on a rudimentary 4-track cassette recorder. He spent his time mixing them with his early guitar compositions and created a personal soundtrack of his early years in Lebanon. At 15, he started performing with his band "Amnesia" in Beirut's thriving underground music scene, performing numerous concerts and getting further acquainted with veterans of the local scene.
In 1988, Ghazi moved to New York and pursued his studies in Industrial Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy. He continued in parallel to play music and still experimented with recording at the university studios. Ghazi played with psychedelic rock band "Nobody's Fault" and performed in venues in Albany and Troy, New York.
In 1992, Ghazi moved to New York City to pursue a Masters Degree in Media Studies at The New School For Social Research. In parallel, he established his first recording studio on Orchard Street and started recording his first album "Crucial" with fellow musician Ramzi Moufarrej , John Benitez : Bass, Bobby Franscescini: Saxes, and Bassam Saba: Nay.
In 1995, Ghazi returned to Lebanon and started teaching Media Studies at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, and continued performing live. He Played the drums with Ziad Rahbani during Ziad's comeback in 1996, with the Munir Khauli Group and with fusion band "Virus".
In 2001, Ghazi Abdel Baki created Forward Productions an audio recording studio that eventually became the world music label ‚Forward Music. He went on to produce the works of artists, including: Charbel Rouhana, Ghada Shbeir, Ziyad Sahhab, Soumaya Baalbaki, Issa Ghandour, and Mustafa Said, as well as producing his own music. Ghazi also wrote music for films and recorded his first solo album in 2004, "Communique #1".
In 2007, Ghazi released his second solo album ‚"Communique #2"‚ and started performing live as a solo artist. During this time he produced Ghada Shbeir's debut album, ‚"Al Muwashahat", that went on to win the BBC World Music Awards following the landmark performance at the Barbican Hall in London in 2007. By the end of 2009, Ghazi released his third solo album ‚"The Final Communique" and continued performing live with fellow musicians: Fouad Afra, Khaled Yassine, Tarek Yamani, Raed Khazen, Jean Madani, Tom Hornig, and Amadis Dunkel.
By 2010, Ghazi Abdel Baki had already produced and published more than 30 albums and began managing the careers of many of Forward Music's recording artists. The label started then producing Music Festivals in Beirut, and participated in live concerts in Damascus, Cairo, Dubai, Paris, Montreal, Marseille and London, among others. In 2011, Forward Music was recognized by the industry and by the press as the leading independent Music Label of World Music in the Middle East and started distributing the music of non-label artists, including Toufic Farroukh, Oumeima El Khalil, Tania Saleh, Ziad Ahmadieh, Soap Kills, Hazem Chaheen, Kinan Adhmi, Rayess Bek, and Lena Chamamyan .
June of 2011, Ghazi Abdel Baki created the Beirut concert Venue ‚The Democratic Republic of Music DRM‚ owned and managed by Forward Music. During its three years of operations,the venue hosted around 350 Live concerts with performing artists, such as: Stanley Jordan, Joey De Francesco, Toni Allen, Henry Texier, Souad Massi, The Musicians of the Nile, Ilham Madfai, Toufic Farroukh, Nemr Abou Nassar, and more. In 2015, Ghazi Abdel Baki released his 4th album "Ghazi Abdel Baki LIVE"‚ and in 2019 the album "Watad".
NEW SINGLES / VIDEOS
