DJ and producer, Omary lives off his passion for music. Inspired by African and Moroccan musical culture, he is always looking for rhythms based mainly on wind instruments to give life to his sounds combining electro and traditional music. A combination that ignites the tracks. Now after recently dropping his LP ‘Soul Of Winds’, we caught up with him to find out how it came about, and his thoughts and beliefs on fellow Moroccan artists and their scene…

WWD: Hey Omary, it’s lovely to chat to you!! How has 2023 started for you?

Hey, it’s a great pleasure to be invited for this Interview with you and thank you very much. 2023 has started very nice and gently, but also full of great news and new projects. I’m still on my trip to United Arab Emirates since the release of my album, meeting great and amazing people and artists, and I’ve started already working on many great ambitious projects.

WWD: You are Moroccan based and your music is of course heavily influenced by that. Which artists were some of your inspirations growing up?

Indeed, my music is influenced a lot by Moroccan culture but also Arab musical culture in general. The artists who inspired me the most growing up are music legends like: Ibrahim Alami, Abdehadi Belkhayate, Elmaati Benkacem, Abdelouahab Doukkali but also Oum Kalthoum, Warda, Fayrouz & many more.

WWD: Are there some Moroccan artists coming onto the scene that you would recommend to our readers?

Of course, the Moroccan niche continues to grow more and more. There is Breakstorm, Zak Drums, Roxteel, OSENS, The Wild Child, Groefer and many others, the list is long. Moreover I decided to create the Ostowana label on this subject to find more Moroccan producers and highlight them in the electronic music scene.

WWD: You recently release your “Soul Of Winds” LP on Ostowana. How did the production process for that go about?

I’ve been a DJ for several years now, and I always had this dream of creating and producing my own music and sharing it with the rest of the world. As my influences are a little broader, I had thought that the idea of creating an album would be easier for me to express my musical universe which is diverse. The LP took me almost four years to come together, because I took the time not only to produce music but I was doing cultural research for every instrument used in this album. I wanted to know the history of each of the instruments because it will not only be useful to me for the production and creation of this album, but also for my career as a DJ & Producer and label manager.

Some collaborations were well planned in the album with several artists but during the tour I had in Morocco which ran parallel with the period I produced my album, this allowed me to meet several artists and therefore several unexpected collaborations emerged in this project and it’s really beautiful.

WWD: How do you work, do you have an idea in your head you work towards or do you just experiment and jam and see what happens?

When I open a music project, I always have an idea that makes me decide to create a project, sometimes it can be planned according to the projects in progress, but sometimes it can be improvised following a click that comes to me instantly. But as I am already influenced artistically by predefined influences, producing a sound today for me always starts with an idea that I had and then I try to implement this idea through the musical project as I imagined it exactly. The reason why I like doing what I do is because I do exactly what goes through my head.

WWD: What is the most important lesson you have learnt in your career so far?

The most important lesson I’ve learned in my career is that you always have to seek and keep learning new things and sharing them with other people. The reason for this is because in return you always meet a person who will share with you his know-how and his knowledge, and the second thing is never to underestimate anyone in the artistic world because art has no limit.

WWD: What else have you got coming up/are you working on?

I’m working on several remixes that will be released during the year where I put even more emphasis on Moroccan, African and Middle East culture. Several collaborations with several national and international artists are in progress and I can’t wait to share all this with you afterwards and also with the listeners. It would also suffice to follow me on my IG: www.instagram.com/omaryofficiel & my website also: www.omaryofficiel.com for more news.

Omary’s “Soul Of Winds” LP is out now on his label Ostowana. Grab it here