Singer Abdallah Rahhal stepped on stage as the oud player picked out an intriguing tune. The musicians had met only moments before. Abdallah lifted his voice to meet the oud’s haunting semitones and ...

The world's attention has been on Syria for weeks; a country mired in chaos, a geopolitical conundrum, a complicated moral dilemma. But what about Syria's musical landscape? This week's Rhythm Planet ...

Staccato lyrics may be no match for Bashar al-Assads military firepower, but two brothers, who fled to Paris from Syria and perform as "Refugees of Rap", find sniping with words a liberating ...

The music was provided by an oud: The base was a cooking pot, the neck created out of wood from a box of fruit, the strings made from sock threads and the pegs from fruit stems. The musicians were ...

Hani Al Sawah, the rap artist known as Al Darwish, recently walked the streets of Damascus, Syria’s capital, with a profound sense of excitement. It had been 13 years since he last set foot in his ...

The Syrian soccer player Abdel Basset Al-Sarout became the poster child for the Syrian revolution with his iconic protest anthems. In death, he has become its saint. But he didn't do it alone. NPR's ...

DAMASCUS, Syria — Hani Al Sawah recently walked the streets of Damascus, Syria's capital, with wide-eyed excitement. It had been 13 years since the rap artist last was in Syria. Later that night, he ...