New young talent is springing all across the Middle East due to the increase in exposure to an international world. Popular arabic music among teens, tweens, and yuppies these days tend to blend latin and western elements. Artists continue to innovate in this field as they attempt to cater to strong traditional influences while introducing fans to an array of musical genres.

Aziz Maraka is one of those innovators, with his 2006 launch of a new genre called ‘RAZZ’.  The Arkansas Traveler (Aziz, a Jordanian, is an Alumni of the University of Arkansas) notes:

“Maraka’s invention took time and hard work. During the six years of development, Maraka practiced jazz, played with rock bands, and performed with purely Arabian instruments. His band consists of a string quartet, bass and electric guitar, percussions, trumpet and Oud, the Arabic equivalent of the lute. Maraka performs vocals and plays piano. “It took me seven months to put all these musicians together,” Maraka said, including a non-UA student who “is an amazing musician, and could understand my ideas and the Arabic beats.”

You can listen to some of Maraka’s tracks on his MySpace page.