Music of Bahrain

The music of Bahrain is part of the Persian Gulf folk traditions. Alongside Kuwait, it is known for sawt music, a bluesy genre influenced by African, Indian and Persian music. Sultan Hamid, Ali Bahar and Khalid al Shaikh (a singer and oud player) are among the most popular musicians from Bahrain.

Bahrain was the site of the first Persian Gulf-based recording studio, established after World War II. Modern music institutions in Bahrain include the Bahrain Music Institute, the Bahrain Orchestra and the Classical Institute of Music. The Bahraini male-only pearl diving tradition is known for the songs called fidjeri.

Liwa and Fann at-Tanbura are types of music and dance performed mainly in communities of descendants of Bantu peoples from the African Great Lakes region.

Khaleeji is a style of Persian Gulf-area folk music, played in Bahrain with polyrhythms. The style is strongly influenced by the music of Africa. Khaleeji singer Ali Bahar is one of the few Bahraini pop stars to sing in a local dialect, along with his band Al Ekhwa.

In Bahrain, the early pioneers of sawt were Mohammed Faris and Dhabi bin Walid in the pre-World War II era. Both recorded their sawt music in HMV's studio in Baghdad in 1932. Their recordings became widely popular in Bahrain and Kuwait.

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