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Music Extra: Khebez Dawle: The Road from Damascus

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Khebez Dawle

30/09/2017 GMT

Khebez Dawle: The Road from Damascus

BBC World Service - Music Extra, Khebez Dawle: The Road from Damascus

Khebez Dawle, a Syrian indie band, adapts to a new life in Berlin after fleeing Damascus

Khebez Dawle, a Syrian indie band, adapts to a new life in Berlin after fleeing Damascus following the Arab Spring.

Anas Maghrebi is the lead singer of Syrian indie band Khebez Dawle. With his band mates he fled Damascus for Beirut after the Arab Spring. As the war intensified, in August 2015 they sold their instruments to pay smugglers and set out in a dinghy across the Mediterranean. When they landed on the Greek island of Lesbos they handed out copies of their debut album to tourists on the beach and quickly attracted the attention of the global media.
 
The band now resides in Berlin, having been granted asylum. Since their arrival in Germany, Khebez Dawle have toured the country and received hundreds of thousands of plays online. But as its members adapt to a new life in Europe, coming to terms with what they have left behind is hard. Often billed as “refugee rockers,” Anas worries that the band’s dramatic story could eclipse their music and speaks about his struggles in accepting their rapid success.
 
In an emotional and revealing portrait recorded over a year, we join Khebez Dawle on their last show in Hanover, at work in their home studio and at the opening of a new performance space for Syrian art in Berlin. Will they make it from international news curiosities into an ambitious band existing on their own terms?

(Photo: The Syrian band Khebez Dawle pose for photo prior to their concert in Zagreb, Croatia, 2015. Credit: Jure Makovec/AFP)

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