Description
ARTIST BIO
A native of Brooklyn, NY a self-taught keyboardist/pianist with no musical training, Ahmed Sirour learned how to play in his early 20s by listening to CDs on and following along on his keyboard, practicing till he could both duplicate the song then improvise. His first gig as a professional musician occurred October 4, 2002. He later started his own weekly, jam sessions, performing musical improv sessions of various genres with his band. He later studied sound engineering, for his Masters degree in Audio Production from the University of Westminster, London. His skills range from live performance, production, composition, arrangement, writing, recording/mixing/mastering engineering.
He has produced remixes of songs by Quadron, Robert Glasper feat KING, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, The Beatles, Sly & the Family Stone, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, John Legend and The Roots, J Dilla, Jill Scott, Lalah Hathaway, Eric Roberson, & two mashups including The Fatback Band/Faith Evans, and Heavy D/The Supremes. His co-produced remix credits saw him teamed up with two legendary, world-renowned DJs/producers: DJ Kemit for Eric Roberson’s “Still” Remix (the official remix for the singer’s 2011 Grammy-nominated song), and DJ Spinna, with whom he produced three tracks with, including their most notable co-production—a limited edition vinyl press of their remix of Bill Summers’ 1977 classic, “Brazilian Skies”, distributed by BBE Records, London. His solo official remixes include those for The Rebirth, The Foreign Exchange, and two of his original productions.
He has also collaborated with up-and-coming vocalist/songwriter/producer, Cleveland Jones, with whom he has released covers & originals including Eden Ahbez’s “Nature Boy”, Little Dragon’s “Twice” (which was licensed by Ministry of Sound/Universal Music Australia for their 2011 compilation entitled, “Uncovered Vol.3”), and Mongo Santamaria’s “Afro Blue” (2014). Sirour and Jones then created an original song entitled “Sensitive”, which was so well-received that BBC Radio One’s Gilles Peterson ‘Worldwide’ called it the ‘tune of the night’ when he debuted it on his show (and featured it the following week), eventually licensing it for his ‘Brownswood Bubblers 7’ compilation. Additional international compilations he is featured on include SoulandJazz[dot]com, as well as the “On Deck” compilation released by BamaLoveSoul[dot]com. May, 2011 debuted Ahmed’s first original solo project, ‘The After 2am Sessions’, which was a 6-track EP made up of slow, jazz-based instrumentals based on a 3-pronged theme of ‘Love’ (romantic, erotic, and spiritual). He followed it up a year later (2012) with the LP release of the same title as a full, 12-track album, and also features one bonus vocal track, again featuring Cleveland P. Jones, entitled “Love One Another (The Vocal Re-Edit). In 2013, he followed up with his second original project by tapping into his spoken word past and released his EP entitled, “This Would Be A Love Song…If Only I Could Sing”, which is a collection of original poetry back by original music, and features one song with a guest vocalist (award-winning, British singer/songwriter Michelle Escoffery on “Not Ready”).
In 2014, Ahmed celebrated the 3rd anniversary of “Sensitive” by remixing it into a House music track and released it as an EP suite on Bandcamp, which includes the original, the instrumentals of both versions, and two bonus tracks. He then was commissioned by Tru Thoughts Records for their artist, Quantic, by remixing his song "You Will Return" (feat Alice Russell), which was met with positive buzz for it's eclectic fusion of Afrobeat elements, and was featured on the artist's 'La Plata' EP. In the wake of the murder of unarmed Ferguson, MO resident, Michael Brown, Ahmed began what became a protest EP album entitled, 'The Mourning After', which was a marked change of pace for the artist as he delved into the tradition of voicing dissent against racism and police brutality through music, and also enlisted the help of Metropolitan Opera House singer, Janinah Burnett, as well as trumpeter for Jill Scott and Bootsy Collins, Farnell Newton.
As of this writing, Ahmed released his first full-length project for 2015, the LP version of “This Would Be A Love Song…If Only I Could Sing” (which was originally an EP released two years prior). It is a spoken word & music album of all original material on the subjects of love, sex, and relationships from his written work.
