Famous Darbuka Players
Hossam Ramzy, Said El Artist, Mısırlı Ahmet, Bünyamin Olguncan and the other players worth listening to and learning from.
21 questions answered
HIS-078 Who are the most famous darbuka players? #
The names that come up again and again are Egypt’s Hossam Ramzy and Said El Artist, Turkey’s Mısırlı Ahmet, Bünyamin Olguncan, Suat Borazan and Güngör Hoşses, Lebanon’s Rony Barrak, and Raquy Danziger, who is based in Istanbul. You’ll also hear Souhail Kaspar and Tony Anka, and in earlier concert history the composer-drummer Halim El-Dabh. Any list like this is subjective, and every country has its own local legends.
HIS-079 Who was Hossam Ramzy? #
Hossam Ramzy (born in Cairo in 1953, died in September 2019) was an Egyptian percussionist and composer, sometimes called Egypt’s “rhythm ambassador”. He started on the tabla as a child, spent his teenage years in Saudi Arabia, where he also played drum kit and studied Bedouin styles, and moved to England in the mid-1970s to play with jazz musicians. That work earned him the nickname “The Sultan of Swing”. He became famous in the West through Peter Gabriel’s Passion, the soundtrack for The Last Temptation of Christ, and through Jimmy Page and Robert Plant’s No Quarter (1994) and the tour that followed. He also worked with Shakira, Rachid Taha, Khaled, A. R. Rahman and many others, and recorded a stack of Egyptian dance music albums that belly dancers around the world still use.
HIS-080 Why is Hossam Ramzy so important to belly dancers? #
Because alongside the pop and rock work he recorded a long run of albums, many with his Egyptian ensemble, made specifically for dancers. There are drum-solo and rhythm-instruction albums such as Introduction to Egyptian Dance Rhythms, and full belly-dance collections like Gamaal Rawhany. For a whole generation of Western dancers and drummers in the 1990s–2000s, his recordings were the main source of authentic Egyptian rhythms.
HIS-081 Who is Said El Artist? #
Said El Artist is an Egyptian tabla (darbuka) virtuoso, often called the “King of the Tabla”, a title he’s reported to have been given by Egypt’s Ministry of Culture. He started playing seriously around age 10 and grew up accompanying dancers and singers at weddings and parties. Later he founded a large all-percussion ensemble and school that grew to dozens of players. His albums include Belly Dancers Drummer (2005) and Spectacular Rhythms. He’s credited with shaping the modern Egyptian tabla sound and taking the drum into opera houses, and he has his own signature drum line, El Artist Drums.
HIS-082 Who is Mısırlı Ahmet? #
Mısırlı Ahmet (born Ahmet Yıldırım in Ankara in 1963) is a Turkish darbuka virtuoso, and he’s widely credited as the father of the “split-finger” (split-hand) technique. He taught himself from age 17, then studied in France and Egypt. In Egypt locals reportedly called him “Ahmed el Turki” (Ahmet the Turk), and his stage name, “Ahmet of Egypt”, flipped that around. He has performed with the Sharkiat ensemble, the flamenco guitarist Tomatito, Sting and others. In 2007 he founded the Galata Rhythm School in Istanbul, and he runs rhythm camps in Turkey’s Ida (Kaz) Mountains.
HIS-083 What is the split-finger (split-hand) technique, and why is it a big deal? #
Instead of striking with the whole hand or with groups of fingers, split-finger players strike with individual fingers, typically index and ring, sometimes the pinky. The fingers alternate like tiny drumsticks, and that’s what lets you play extremely fast, intricate patterns closer to Indian tabla. It’s usually credited to Mısırlı Ahmet. It spread through the 1990s–2000s, with sources differing on the exact timing, and it sparked what people call a “darbuka revolution”, with players travelling to Istanbul from all over to learn it. It works best on Turkish-style drums with an exposed rim. (How to actually do it is in Turkish Split-Hand Technique.)
HIS-084 Who is Bünyamin Olguncan? #
Bünyamin Olguncan is an Istanbul-based darbuka virtuoso and one of the leading names of the Turkish split-hand school. He’s known for albums like Darbuka Soloları and Darbuka Magic (2017), and for mixing Turkish rhythms with jazz and Indian influences. Raquy Danziger is one of his best-known students.
HIS-085 Who is Suat Borazan? #
Suat Borazan is a Turkish darbuka player, named alongside Mısırlı Ahmet and Bünyamin Olguncan as part of the generation that pushed Turkish split-hand playing to new levels of speed, each of them with a personal style.
HIS-086 Who is Raquy Danziger? #
Raquy Danziger is an internationally known darbuka virtuoso, composer and teacher, based in Istanbul. She studied Turkish split-hand technique, notably with Bünyamin Olguncan, and has performed with Said El Artist. She runs the Darbuka Ofis school in Istanbul plus an online school, and she created a darbuka notation system that plenty of students now use. After moving to New York in 1998 she co-founded Raquy and the Cavemen with the percussionist Liron Peled, a band mixing Middle Eastern drumming with hard rock. She has released around 15 albums, and she’s also a trained Ottoman illumination (manuscript gilding) artist.
HIS-087 Who is Rony Barrak? #
Rony Barrak is a Lebanese darbouka player and composer. He started playing at four, was on television at seven, and won a major youth music competition on Lebanon’s LBCI at seventeen. He moved to London in 1990 to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, later taught Middle Eastern percussion at Trinity College of Music, and has released several East–West fusion albums. He has also written symphonic works featuring the darbouka, including a darbouka cadenza performed with orchestras in the US, Germany and Armenia.
HIS-088 Who is Güngör Hoşses? #
Güngör Hoşses is a veteran Turkish darbuka player out of the radio and stage tradition. He’s admired as a master accompanist: his strength is supporting singers and ensembles tastefully inside the Turkish rhythmic cycles, not flashy soloing.
HIS-089 Who was Halim El-Dabh, and what did he have to do with the darbuka? #
Halim El-Dabh (1921–2017) was an Egyptian-American composer and a pioneer of electronic and tape music; his 1944 The Expression of Zaar predates much of the European tape music. He was also a skilled darabukka player. He wrote and premiered Fantasia-Tahmeel (1958) for darbuka and strings with Leopold Stokowski conducting, one of the first times the drum stood as a soloist in front of an orchestra.
HIS-090 Is Tamer Pinarbasi a darbuka player? #
No. It’s a common mix-up. Tamer Pınarbaşı (born 1970 in Karaman, Turkey) is a renowned kanun (qanun, a plucked zither) player, known for playing with his fingernails instead of the usual picks, and for groups like the Secret Trio. He often performs alongside darbuka players, which is probably why his name keeps turning up in darbuka discussions.
HIS-091 Who are Souhail Kaspar and Tony Anka? #
Two respected Arabic percussionists. Souhail Kaspar is a Grammy-nominated master percussionist known for his technique and his teaching. Tony Anka is a Lebanese darbuka player with a PhD in musicology, sometimes described as “the magic percussionist of Arabic music”. Another name worth knowing in Levantine teaching circles is Elie Fakih, who teaches darbuka at the Lebanese National Higher Conservatory.
HIS-092 Are there famous women darbuka players? #
Yes. Raquy Danziger is probably the most internationally visible, and there are many professional women drummers performing and teaching worldwide, especially in the belly-dance and world-music scenes. Historically, women drummers were central to Egyptian all-female wedding and entertainment ensembles, even if they were rarely credited.
HIS-140 Who is Issam Houshan? #
Issam Houshan is a Syrian-born darbuka player from Damascus who trained at the Damascus Academy of Music and moved to the US in 1990, often billed as “Mr. Magic Fingers”. He became one of the busiest Arab drummers in America and played with Sting at the Grammy Awards for “Desert Rose”. From 2003 he was the solo percussionist of the touring Bellydance Superstars, which played hundreds of shows worldwide. In the belly-dance world he’s known for his workshops and for teaching dancers to drum.
HIS-141 Who was Setrak Sarkissian? #
Setrak Sarkissian (1936–2017) was a Lebanese tabla player of Armenian descent from Beirut’s Bourj Hammoud district, often called the “King of the Tabla”. He toured with the dancer Nadia Gamal from 1958 to 1962 and then with Samira Tawfiq, and accompanied Fairuz, Abdel Halim Hafez, Sabah and Farid al-Atrash, among others. He recorded more than 20 albums of drum solos and dance music that are still staples for belly dancers worldwide.
HIS-142 Who is Burhan Öçal? #
Burhan Öçal (born 1959 in Kırklareli, Thrace) is a Turkish percussionist and multi-instrumentalist based partly in Zürich, with a darbuka technique of his own. He’s best known for the Istanbul Oriental Ensemble, which plays Turkish Roma and Ottoman-flavoured music, and for his crossovers into jazz, classical and electronic music. He also plays kudüm, bendir, saz and oud, and has won several European record awards.
HIS-143 Who are some well-known doumbek players on the American scene? #
Besides Issam Houshan, the US-based names that come up are Amir Naoum Chehade, a Lebanese-trained drummer based in New York who has played Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and Jonathan Kessler, a long-time Middle Eastern percussionist, teacher and instructional-video author. Earlier generations included the Armenian-American kef drummers (see Part 4). Lists like this come mostly from retailer blogs and dance-community sites, so don’t treat them as exhaustive.
HIS-144 Who played darbuka on Sting’s “Desert Rose”? #
Credits circulating online for the 1999 studio recording, the one with the Algerian raï singer Cheb Mami, list Ettamri Mustapha on darbuka alongside other percussion. I couldn’t confirm that against the album’s liner notes. On live and TV performances of the song other drummers played, Issam Houshan at the Grammys among them.
HIS-145 Who is “Darbuka Siva”? #
Darbuka Siva (born 1982 in Chennai) is an Indian musician, composer, actor and film director, and he took the drum’s name because he started out as a percussionist. He became widely known for the Tamil song “Maruvaarthai” (from Enai Noki Paayum Thota), and he wrote, directed and scored the 2022 Tamil film Mudhal Nee Mudivum Nee. Search for “darbuka” in India and he’ll often come up before the drum does.