June 13 • 2019 39
jn
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Drawn to Music
Wilderness experience sparks Azzam’
s career.
A
solo teen wilderness experience
motivated Nadim Azzam’
s musi-
cal career. While outdoors, he
found himself humming before grad-
ually singing, and that became the first
phase of an interest in contemporary
composing.
Now, at 23, he has a
repertoire that can place
him on stages as a soloist or
with a live band and elec-
tronic instruments.
During the Ann Arbor
Summer Festival, June
14-July 7, Azzam will per-
form his own songs — hip-
hop, alt rock, jazz fusion
— with vocals and acoustic
guitar as joined by Jacob
LaChance on saxophone, David Ward
on drums and Alex Fuchs on bass.
Azzam will be part of the Top of the
Park lineup, which spotlights local enter-
tainers in free programming. This year’
s
mainstage ticketed acts include Melissa
Etheridge, The Capitol Steps and Dawes.
“Most of my songs are written to
myself,
” says Azzam, who describes his
teen years as rebellious. “
A lot of them
are about expressing struggle and pain
while still trying to be hopeful. They can
be about feeling lost while trying to find
a way, wanting to become a
better person and living up
to potential.
”
Apparently, his online
songs resonated with
Matisyahu because, with
a little prompting from a
mutual friend, the famed
Jewish singer invited
Azzam on a college tour in
2016.
“I opened for Matisyahu
with an acoustic solo set,
”
Azzam recalls. “I also performed with
him in freestyle accompanied by the
band. It was invigorating because he
writes music that is so spiritual, honest
and real on a mainstream platform.
“Matisyahu was on a unity tour, and I
felt I could be in the middle of that. My
mom’
s background is Jewish
with Ukrainian roots, and
my dad has Egyptian and
Palestinian roots.
”
Azzam started playing
guitar before imagining it as a career. A
neighbor got him started. He later took
lessons at the Ann Arbor Music Center.
“When I was out in the wilderness for
three days, I stared at a blade of grass for
a couple hours, started singing to myself
and came up with a melody,
” he explains.
“Something just clicked, and I knew I
wanted to be a vocalist.
”
Azzam’
s early writing concentrated on
raps, and he used them as the basis for
songs, some worked into EPs “Here’
s to
Changes” in 2015 and “Sunny Flats” in
2019.
He attributes part of
his musical progress to
an internship at X.O
Productions, a Detroit hip-
hop studio.
“When I got back from the Matisyahu
tour, I had a little money and spent it
on production equipment,
” says Azzam,
who teaches songwriting at Ann Arbor’
s
Neutral Zone Youth Center and works as
a marketing specialist for The Blind Pig
in Ann Arbor.
“I experiment with ideas I have no
other way to express, and I’
m moving
toward a more modern, soulful, R&B
sound. I’
ll be producing more electronic
stuff on the computer.
” ■
music
details
Nadim Azzam will
perform free at 7 p.m.
Tuesday, June 18, on
the Rackham Stage
during the Ann Arbor
Summer Festival,
June 14-July 7. For
festival details, go to
a2sf.org.
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Above: Nadim Azzam, left, will
perform with his group, including
Jacob LaChance on sax.
NATALIE ROBBINS