Fresh off the heels of 3-sold out shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in May, world-renowned Syrian-American MC / Poet Omar Offendum brings this jewel of a show to the HERE Arts Center. In this creative retelling of a little-known part of NYC history, Offendum – accompanied by the masterful Ronnie Malley (Oud / Piano) and the talented BK-born beatmaker Thanks Joey – draws an audience attuned to stories of immigration, xenophobia, and the ever-evolving notion of an American dream. Set in the Lower West-Side neighborhood of Manhattan once known as Little Syria, just south of the current World Trade Center on Washington Street, this vibrant cultural hub for New York’s Middle Eastern immigrants was home to artists and intellectuals like Kahlil Gibran & Ameen Rihani. Against this backdrop, Offendum’s genre-bridging performance—spanning Hip-Hop, Arabic instrumentation, Spoken Word poetry and Hakawātī oral storytelling traditions of the Levant—imagines early 20th-century life in the heart of this nation’s very first Arab-American community.

Joined by Oud Virtuoso Ronnie Malley and Music Producer Thanks Joey with Video Direction from Ridwan

Produced by Carla Troconis

This show is co-sponsored by Race Forward’s Butterfly Lab, in support of building new narratives for a pro-immigrant future