POPARABIA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Legal & Business Affairs Manager
Cynthia is the Legal & Business Affairs Manager at PopArabia, specializing in simplifying copyright and music business matters for rights owners in MENA.
Drawing upon her extensive knowledge of copyright law, she has negotiated and secured licenses for prominent labels, artists, music festivals, and brands over her career.
Cynthia's diverse background includes previous roles at law firms, music labels, and handling music licensing responsibilities at South Asia's largest digital music streaming service, JioSaavn.
Her areas of expertise includes Intellectual Property, Licensing & Royalties, Employment Practices, Policy Formation, General Business Advisory, Commercial Contracts, and Music-Media services for multinational corporations.
Cynthia holds a B.A., LL.B (Hons.) from Jindal Global Law School and a U.S. Business Law certification from Columbia Law School. She is currently pursuing her LL.M. in International Law and Foreign Affairs at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) College of Law in Qatar.
Nadia took her first steps into the music industry as a teenager with the advent of the internet in her native Morocco.
Passionate about urban music but limited by the choices available on radio, access to the web opened up a world of new music from around the globe.
At 16 she co-founded MMD RAP one of the first musical sites in the Arab world and became an artist booker for a variety of music festivals and media platforms regionally, working with artists including France's IAM and the Middle East's Maghreb, booking tours and appearances.
In 2011 Nadia created the rap project ‘Peace is my religion; Music is my weapon', a project which brought together rap artists from 10 Arab countries. A year later out of Europe she was an artist booker for the Belgian label PROHIBÉ, followed by work in France working with hip hop label Alchimie Radical where she diversified into the world of television, cinema and web promotion.
Job Titles:
- Digital Operations Manager
Rani has been certified by Berklee College of Music in Music Business Foundations, and by YouTube in all their partner certificates with specific experience in YouTube Music CMS Management gaining more than seven years of combined experience in digital operations. Rani began his career with one of the largest catalogues of Egyptian music, RE Media where he introduced physical CD's to a new market, quickly evolving to a digital format. Throughout this period he worked on partnerships with digital distributors globally and grew new label imprints under the RE Media umbrella.
He then joined ArpuPlus where he spent three years responsible for North African operations and the account management of numerous high profile artists and labels. In this role Rani also acquired and grew content, supervising digital operations reaching over one billion streams in 2022.
As Digital Operations Manager, Rani oversees all aspects of digital at PopArabia with focus on catalogue acquisition ingestion, and preparing and promoting new releases from our signed roster around the world.
Job Titles:
- Business Development Lead
- Production Music & Operations
Ray is a passionate music creator and business executive from Assam, India with a Masters in Global Entertainment and Music Business from Berklee College of Music. Starting his career as a guitar player, composer and sound designer, Ray has worked across numerous disciplines including contributing music to films, documentaries and live theatre. He later co-founded and took on the role of Chief Sound Designer at RedCardinal Motion Pictures based out of Dibrugarh, Assam where he continued to work in film, music and advertising campaigns. In 2021, Ray received Best Sound Design award for "Kenopsia," a widely acclaimed multi-accolade short film released under the banner of RedCardinal at Hello TV Film Festival, India.
Relocating to the United Arab Emirates in 2020, Ray's experience cuts across global markets. This includes developing and launching the Musaico Festival and handling licenses for Disrupción Records in Valencia, Spain, acting as a festival consultant for India's Rocka Rolla Events and consulting for companies, artists, and music projects based out of India, Europe, Brazil, Canada and the United States over the years.
Tameem hails from Kashmir where he studied for his Bachelor's in Business Administration, before relocating to the United Kingdom to pursue his Master's in International Business in 2016. He also completed the Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) Program in 2019, established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, London (CIMA).
Since moving to the UAE, he has been actively involved in mentoring and lecturing students of the CGMA Qualification. He has worked in the telecom, real estate, and construction industries, handling management reporting and implementing business process optimization initiatives before his passions for music and big data lead him to PopArabia.
Job Titles:
- Vice President, a & R & Acquisitions
Wissam began his career as an accomplished artist, pioneering Hip Hop in Syria and Lebanon, as the regional scene began to take shape beginning in the early nineties. In 2003, he relocated to London, quickly finding himself a niche space by introducing Arabic rap music to the UK.
He founded Arab rap group ARAP with collaborators, Cilvaringz and Salah Edin, and went on to tour with the likes Wu Tang, Gorillaz, The Good The Bad & The Queen, Africa Express and Fun-Da-Mental. Wissam released a solo effort ‘The Mammoth Tusk' in 2009 with features from Damon Albarn, De La Soul, RZA, GZA, and Focus.
By the early 2000's Wissam began his executive career, initially as Director of Special Projects at RPEG Ltd. - The company responsible for the single copy album ‘Once Upon A Time In Shaolin' by Wu Tang Clan; a Guinness record holder as the most valuable album and music NFT. Later he became Executive Director at Quincy Jones' G3, and by 2019 he was brought on as the Head of Artist & Label Partnerships across the MENA region for Spotify.
Wissam is an American University of Beirut graduate and has lectured on the Gulf entertainment industry at Cambridge University's Judge Business School. He has also consulted for the region's key players.