“To the West” is my musical diary of the road from Syria to Germany in 2015. The idea was born in the back of a taxi, disguised to slip past police checkpoints at the Serbian-Croatian border during a frantic race to escape.

This album is an exploration of survival through irony. I transformed the stress of being caught between two worlds into something positive, blending crossover jazz with the traditional Syrian character of my roots. These melodies grew from a thousand looping thoughts, finally finding their freedom through my trumpet. It is the story of the moment I realized that while my body was still struggling to cross borders, my music had already arrived.