Omar Offendum
Habibi Festival โข Oct 1, 2023
Omar Offendum is a Syrian-American rapper / spoken word artist. Known for his unique blend of Hip-Hop & Arabic poetry, heโs been featured on prominent world news outlets (Aljazeera, BBC, PBS, LA Times), lectured at a number of prestigious academic institutions (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Northwestern, UT-Austin, UCLA, SOAS, American University of Beirut), collaborated with major museums & cultural organizations (LACMA / Penn Museum / Ithra / Shangri-La / Arab-American National Museum / Qatar Foundation + FIFA World Cup 2022), and helped raise millions of dollars for various humanitarian relief groups (Islamic Relief, Karam Foundation, Syrian-American Medical Society). Offendum was recently named a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow, an Arab America Foundation "40 Under 40" award recipient, and a member of both the Pillars Fund cohort for Muslim Narrative Change & the RaceForward Butterfly Lab cohort for Immigrant Narrative Strategy. He currently resides in the great state of New York with his wife & two little children, while daydreaming about the jasmine tree-lined streets of Damascus.