The eclectic Al-Fareed aka Alfred Madain is a deejay, musician and ethnomusicologist in Los Angeles. A walking encyclopedia of traditional, folkloric and contemporary music of the Arab/Islamic world and Africa, he intimately “gets” and analyzes music ranging from ancient traditions to modern world techno, hip hop, western new wave, heavy metal and punk. Al-Fareed’s attuned feel for rock gives him the ability to reflect on the west from an eastern perspective and on the east from a western perspective. As a music historian he can explain the history and influence of ziryab (a musician of the Baghdadi and Andalusian courts) as well as the history and influence of Woody Guthrie, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Black Flag, Blind Lemon Jefferson, the Velvet Underground and more.

“I was always taken by music,” Al-Fareed says. “As a child in Jordan I sat in front of the TV with my tape recorder and taped European and American songs from the set, whether it was ‘The Muppet Show’ or German disco shows, and I had a huge variety of music that I would share with friends who were shocked at how much western music I had. When I came to the U.S. that appetite for music was satisfied by my intense obsession with a different genre each year, until I would exhaust all possibilities…While as a thirteen year old I was a punk rocker at home, I would also throw on a Fela Kuti or King Sunny Ade record for the sake of variety; and at nineteen I felt that I had exhausted genres of western music and turned my attention fully to the music of the rest of the world, and especially towards my Middle Eastern roots. Of course, I’ll still throw on a Nick Cave, Interpol, or Thelonious Monk cd for the sake of variety.”

As a musician Al-Fareed was one of the founding members of Southern California’s Kan Zaman Orchestra for the preservation of Arabic classical music. In addition, he has collaborated and performed with Associated Research Arabic Folklore and many prominent musicians and ethnomusicologists including Selim Sesler, Sabah Fakhri, Bouchaib Abdelhadi, Paul Livingstone, and UCLA’s Jihad Racy.

“It was fascinating for me to be on stage playing an Oum Kulthoum song that I only heard playing in the background as a child and yet while performing the song the lyrics and rhythm changes would automatically channel through me and I was able to keep up with musicians who had played and listened to that music their entire lives.”

As a deejay, Al-Fareed has hosted radio shows on San Francisco’s KPFA on the music of the Islamic world, and has been featured as a guest on KPFK. He has also spun at many clubs famous clubs including Fais Do-Do and The Temple Bar, and was the house deejay for the EGKplant as well as Casbah night at Zanzibar.

In 2000 and 2005, Al-Fareed helped produce shows for the World Festival of Sacred Music. He has also worked in the theater as a musical director and sound designer. Some of his work includes the award-winning Yussef El Guindi’s play Acts of Desire, and Judith Thompson’s Palace of the End at L.A.’s Fountain Theatre.