Habibi Funk
 
Berlin-based label Habibi Funk has been around for 10 years and that – you feel it coming – must be celebrated! For a decade now, Habibi Funk has been dealing in ‘an eclectic selection of music from the Arab world’, and that is also the baseline of the two exquisite Habibi Funk collectors released to date.

Their key releases include, amongst others, Al Zman Saib (Arabic funk with punk attitude by Moroccan singer Fadoul), Egyptian pop on Modern Music by Al Massrieen, Musique Originale De Films by Algerian television and film composer Ahmed Malek, and the über-classic Fine Anyway by Rogér Fakhr from the ‘70s. The current generation is also represented with the arrival of producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Charif Mergarbane.

Those wanting to delve deeper into the label, read on here.

Rogér Fakhr (LB)

When Fine Anyway by Rogér Fakhr was released on cassette in 1977 in an issue of only 200 copies, nobody could have guessed that it would be clocking up 25 million streams in 2025. The 2021 reissue immediately became Habibi Funk’s bestseller. So Fakhr has gained a cult following in recent years. After not having performed for decades, the label gave him a new lease of life.

Uncut gave the reissue a raving ****-review: “Reference points, contemporary and subsequent, include John Prine, Gordon Lightfoot, Lee Hazlewood, Elliott Smith and Gene Clark. Crucially, Fakhr would not be out of place in their company.”

Charif Megarbane (LB)

Producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Charif Megarbane – also active under his moniker Cosmic Analog Ensemble - is a busy man. In only 10 years, he has released no less than 80(!) albums. His Habibi Funk debut Marzipan (2023) is a musical trip that he himself describes as “Lebrary: a vision of Lebanon and the Mediterranean expressed via the prismatic sonics of library music”. We are expecting new work by Megarbane from Habibi Funk in the spring of 2025.