| Diwon | |
|---|---|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Erez Safar |
| Born | May 2, 1979 San Diego, CA |
| Genres | Dancehall, hip hop, pop, Middle Eastern |
| Occupations | DJ/producer |
| Instruments | Pro Tools, mixer, keyboards, drums, guitar |
| Years active | 2001–present |
| Labels | Shemspeed |
| Associated acts | Y-Love Dreams In Static DeScribe TJ Di Hitmaker Matisyahu Kosha Dillz |
| Website | DiwonMusic.com |
Diwon is a Brooklyn-based Orthodox Jewish producer and DJ who performs all over the world. Under his legal name, Erez Safar, he serves as CEO of Shemspeed, an American independent record label & promotional agency operating in conjunction with its sister label, Modular Moods.
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The son of an American Jewish father and Yemenite Jewish mother, Safar was born May 2, 1979, in San Diego, California. He was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home. He spent parts of his youth in Tokyo, Japan; Charleston, South Carolina; Naples, Italy; and Skokie, Illinois, before attending high school at Washington Ethical High School in Washington, DC. He graduated from the University of Maryland in 2003, and moved to Brooklyn that same year.
Safar is married with one child.
Safar’s career in music began in 2001. That year, he formed Modular Moods, an independent record label, and began performing under the moniker DJ Handler, spinning a blend of hip hop, Afro beat and Arabic music in venues across the United States. Also that year, as a sophomore at the University of Maryland, Safar founded Juez, a breakbeat klezmer jazz quartet in which he played drums, along with schoolmates Matthew Wetstein (trumpet), Gilad Suberri (saxophone) and Yoshie Fruchter (bass). In 2004, Juez released their lone album, Shemspeed Alt Schule, on Modular Moods.[1] The band officially disbanded in 2007.
In 2005, Safar launched the Sephardic Music Festival, an annual effort to bring Sephardic music to a greater audience.[2] The seven day festival takes place annually in December around Hanukkah at venues across New York.[3] The New York Times described the festival as having an "eclectic lineup of traditional and contemporary artists, including many dedicated to fusing disparate sounds or bridging new and old."[4] Shemspeed released the 2010 compilation album Sephardic Music Festival, Vol. 1, featuring Middle Eastern-tinged tracks from a variety of acclaimed Jewish artists, including Matisyahu, Pharaoh's Daughter, DeScribe and Moshav.
In 2007, Safar was named to The Forward 50, an annual list of the world’s most influential Jews, as chosen by the editors of The Forward. He was recognized for his work as DJ Handler, for heading Modular Moods, for founding and running the Sephardic Music Festival, and for that year’s formation of Shemspeed.[5] That same year, in a cover story on DJ Handler, Safar’s alter ego at the time, The Jerusalem Post called him “one of the top visionaries of young Jewish cool’s celebrated vanguard.”[6] The Village Voice has stated that “as producer and DJ [Safar] is among the most adventurous and banging on the new Jewish music scene.”[7]
2008 saw Safar shed the DJ Handler handle in favor of Diwon, a name that would usher in a more Middle Eastern sound to his beats, signifying a return to his Yemenite roots. Diwon has meaning as a book of songs in Persian and Urdu.[8] "DJ Handler I started before I became a DJ, and I never felt like it was me — it never really fit," Safar said of the switch. "Making Yemenite music under the name ‘Handler’ sounded kind of absurd… and not in a good way."[9]
Diwon has released a host of mix tapes, mashups and remixes, many of which have been made available as free downloads on his website. In 2009, Diwon teamed with Texas guitarist Dugans to form Dreams In Static. The duo released the instrumental LP Serene Poetic on February 2, 2010. The Forward wrote that the album "occupies an otherworldly, post-rock, electro-instrumental universe."[10]
Diwon is currently at work on his debut solo album, as well as producing Y-Love’s upcoming album, This is Unity, set to hit shelves in early 2012.
Diwon’s beats blend the musical traditions of his mother’s family, whose roots lie in Yemen, with modern electro hip-hop. His live sets include a diverse mix of singers and live musicians. He has performed with Lou Reed, Anthony Coleman, Matisyahu, DJ Spooky, and Idan Raichel, among others.[11]
Early on, Diwon was looking to "create something with a Jewish type of music which is either original drawing on traditional elements or new arrangements of older, traditional music."[12], but these days his music leans more toward dancehall, hip hop and pop.