Rasas Arabic Indie Rock Band

Founded by composer and guitarist Rawad A. Massih, who is originally known for his pioneering Heavy Metal band in Syria and the Middle East, The Hourglass. In 2008, together with vocalist Yumni Abu Al-Zahab wrote and released a song titled “Qarar” (Decision). This was before the band was officially named Rasas. The idea was to establish an Arabic indie rock band, which later became known as Arabic rock or alternative music. This project was one of the pioneers in this style of music in the Middle East’s music scene, especially in the Levant region. However, the project did not continue due to the immigration of Yumni and Rawad's preoccupation with The Hourglass, which was performing rock and heavy metal music in English. After the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in 2012, The Hourglass had to break up due to the immigration of its members. At the time, the Arabic rock style was gaining popularity, which led to the emergence of several bands, such as Gene in Syria and Jadal in Jordan. So, Rawad began to revive his project that had started with the song “Qarar”, and decided to name the band Rasas. Rawad asked the singer Rasha Rizk to sing the first song that will be released under the name Rasas, which was a special rearrangement of the song “Saqata Al Qinaa” (The Mask Has Fallen) by Magda El Roumi, written by Mahmoud Darwish and composed by Elie El Choueiri. Rawad had intended for the rearrangement to be as loud and powerful as Metal music to match the expressive lyrics and the general situation in Syria at the time, as the idea was that only Metal music had the power to honestly express the state of war that the country was going through. Rasha Rizk was no stranger to this heavy style of music as she had presented many songs in this style in her solo work and in the time she had spent at Spacetoon, where she participated in making cartoon original soundtracks. Rawad chose the name Rasas because of the Arabic word's variety of meanings. With the beginning of the war in Syria, the sound of bullets was one of the most common things that people heard and felt daily in cities and rural areas. But at the same time, there is the pencil, which is also a weapon, the weapon of the word. In addition to that, there is the gray color that distances oneself from extremism, for extremist ideology always sees everything in life as either black or white, without any gray area. Finally, we have the word lead, which is one of the heavy metals, referring to the type of music presented by the band. Once again, the project faltered. After the war intensified in Homs (Rawad’s hometown) and Damascus (the city where he lived), he was forced to move with his family to Lebanon, but project Rasas was always on his mind. In 2014, he rearranged the song “Allah Muhayi Shawarek” (God Bless Your Streets), with Syrian musician Omar Harb and young singer Adel Saflo, in addition to Syrian rock singer Alaa Khachi and well-known Lebanese percussionist Fouad Afra, all of whom recorded it in Beirut. This song, which was composed by the artist Housam Tahseen Baik, became part of Syrian folklore after the actors Duraid Lahham (Ghawar) and Naji Jabr (Abu Antar) sang it in the classic Sah El Noum series. It was presented by Rasas in the style of rock music, and like the song “Saqata Alqinaa", it was very well received even by music lovers who are far from rock style. Due to the difficulty of that stage for all Syrians, no other songs were released by the band. In 2017, Rawad opened his music production studio, turning to his solo music project, in which he presented several songs composed and arranged by him. In 2023, Rawad A. Massih brought back Rasas band, in partnership with his wife, singer Julia Helwani, who shares his love of rock n roll music, and together they performed many songs in Arabic and English as part of their musical project, Rudi and Julie. The band was joined by a professor of percussion at the Higher Institute of Music, Simon Mreach, who was a founding member of the band Kulna Sawa, which was one of the pioneers of alternative music in Syria. As for now, a large number of rock songs will be released by the band, starting in the summer of 2023, all originals not covers. Rasas's goal is to return to a leading position in the style of alternative and independent music in the Arab world. These new songs aim to present this style acceptably to a wide range of Arabic speakers, in a modern and different way, while preserving meaningful and beautiful lyrics that contains a message.