Naima Shalhoub and Tarik “Excentrik” Kazaleh are Oakland-based Arab-American artists and have been performing, creating and composing music together since 2012. Kazaleh is an MC, composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist who has toured throughout the Middle East, Europe and the United States. Shalhoub is a vocalist, composer and musician who has toured Lebanon and throughout the United States. Collectively they have performed in jails, community centers, jazz clubs and concert halls all over the Bay Area with Shalhoub's band, most notably for the release of "Live in San Francisco County Jail" recorded in 2015. They draw upon their Arab music traditions and American soul repertoire while creating with innovative sound and lyric and an inclination for live improvisation. Their most recent recorded collaboration involves Shalhoub's full-length studio album “Siphr” which was released in 2020, following several music videos from the project directed and filmed by Kazaleh. 

They will be joined at Arcana by the phenomenal drummer and percussionist Aaron Kierbel.