May 29th, 2025

The Kuwaiti creative shares his unconventional journey from percussion to production, his role in a Latin Grammy-winning story, and why love and integrity guide every project he takes on.

In a world where metrics often overshadow meaning, Mishaal Al-Omar stands apart. A multidisciplinary artist, producer and creative soul, Al-Omar has deliberately carved a path guided not by industry norms, but by intuition, love, and artistic truth. From a childhood immersed in the rhythms of Kuwaiti folk and jazz to helping bring an unheard 88-year-old Cuban songwriter’s dream to life, Al-Omar’s story is one of authenticity over ambition. We sat down with him to reflect on his journey into music and film, the lessons he’s learnt from working outside the industry machine, and what it truly means to live and create with purpose.

“If your aim is to please others, you’ll never enjoy the process — and what you produce will be inauthentic.’’

Can you tell us a bit about your journey into music and film? Where did it all begin?

My love for music began at a very early age. I was almost magically drawn to sound. My parents never played instruments, but we always had music playing at home or in the car—Kuwaiti folk music, European classical music, jazz and blues—and they always took us to concerts and performances of all kinds. You could say my mind was opened to music by my parents.

From there, I developed an interest in rhythm and percussion by going to football matches as a youth. That’s when I began studying percussion, which I still do today. When I felt the need to expand my skill set to give me greater independence, I enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. There, I continued studying percussion and began my journey into the world of music engineering and production.

 From that point on, I’ve followed my heart wherever it takes me. I made a conscious decision not to turn my love for film and music—or creativity in general—into an industry, preferring an artistic approach. This freedom from needing to monetise my art has allowed for a greater range of possibilities in creative endeavours.

How would you describe the kind of work you do in the creative industries today?

I only do two things: come from a place of love, in the broadest sense possible, and uphold high standards for excellence, communication and behaviour. So it doesn’t matter whether I’m working on a film project, a music project, or coaching a football team (yes, I do that too)—there must be a deeper organising principle behind what we’re doing: not money, not “success”, not fame, not ego.
If your aim is to please others, you’ll never enjoy the process, and what you produce will be inauthentic. It might still sell and bring you fame, but it will never be fulfilling. So, love and excellence are my guides.

You’ve been involved with the Grammy Recording Academy—what was the nature of that involvement?

I was very fortunate to be part of an extraordinary person’s incredible journey. Angela Alvarez was 88 years old when I first came across her music. A personal friend—film composer and fellow percussionist from Berklee, Carlos José Alvarez—showed me a video on his phone of an elegant older woman singing a beautiful song about Cuba. I got chills. I asked him who she was. He said, “That’s my grandmother—and she wrote that song.” I nearly did a backflip (if only I could have!).

My producer’s instinct kicked in and I asked if she had more songs. He said, “Tons!” I found out that Angela had always dreamt of being a singer and songwriter, but her father had brusquely ended that dream—or so he thought. That was the moment the project to record her album and make a documentary film about her life was born.

Here’s the interesting part: from day one, we aimed to produce the highest quality work, meeting the standards of organisations like the Grammy Recording Academy—but that was never the end goal. Our only objective was to make Angela’s dreams come true, to represent her in the most authentic way, and to make it all about her. She was all about love, and so are her songs, her life, her family. That authenticity—with no strategic motive—enabled us to do our best work at the highest level, while fulfilling her dreams, not ours.

The rest is history: Angela Alvarez won Best New Artist at the age of 95 at the 2022 Latin Grammys. Ironically, winning a Latin Grammy was never part of her dream. Her dream was fulfilled when she recorded her first, self-titled album with some of the world’s finest musicians, performed a concert with the same musicians—MC’d by Cuban-American actor Andy Garcia—for 600 people in Los Angeles, and starred in the documentary about her life, Miss Angela. Then, almost miraculously, Angela appeared in the Cuban-American take on Father of the Bride (2021), alongside Andy Garcia and Gloria Estefan.

In other words, even if she had never won the Grammy, her life would already have been fulfilled. In fact, even if she’d never recorded her album, her life would still have been fulfilled. Creating art and being creative is the reward in itself. The Grammy was just the icing on the cake. It allowed us to share her music and her story with the world in a powerful way—only to highlight how much more important other things are.

What did being part of the Grammy process teach you about the music industry at large?

Well, I’m definitely not an industry type. I can’t think of a worse word to follow art, music, or film. Industrial thinking—the mechanistic worldview that took hold with Descartes—has dominated the modern world and is actually the enemy of creativity.

People think “talent”—a word I use carefully, as it’s overused and imprecise—can be produced, but it can’t. Only inanimate things can be mass-produced industrially. Human beings must develop ecologically. We must create the right conditions for people to grow, be creative, and share.

I draw great inspiration from music producer Rick Rubin and his way of tapping into and nurturing creativity. I’m also deeply inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s quote about the arts: “Practice any art—music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage—no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.”

People would laugh if they knew how little we spent on making an album that went on to win a Latin Grammy. We worked on a shoestring budget. How? Because some things move people beyond money. Here was an incredible person, a deeply creative artist—no ego, no entourage—with a beautiful catalogue of songs, like timeless classics unearthed from another era that no one had heard before. We had the chance to help make her dream come true, and be part of something profoundly human and beautiful.

What I learnt is to follow your heart—at any cost. As industry outsiders, we did exactly that. We couldn’t have cared less if anyone other than Angela was happy, and somehow that took her to the very top of the industry! Amazingly, while we were in Las Vegas for the Latin Grammys, we got a call from the Jimmy Kimmel Live! team. Jimmy himself wanted Angela to appear as the musical guest! Angela performed Un Canto a Mi Cuba—the very song I first heard eight years earlier, which began this extraordinary journey.

What do you look for in a project before deciding to get involved—musically or cinematically?

What is this all about? Where is the heart? What’s the message? Whose story is being told? Who’s involved in the project? What’s their intention? Is this going to make a positive impact on humanity? Is it worth doing?

Again, I look for heart and quality. I look for opportunities to be fully expressive. Beware the ego—nothing great is ever done alone.

What is style to you?

The alignment of who you are, what you like, and how you live. If these three are aligned, you have a style.

Less is more or more is more?

It’s funny that this question comes up, as I’ve recently been reflecting on how many things we say as people without really thinking. I understand what’s meant by “less is more”, but after a while, I started asking myself—what does that actually mean?

More is more, and less is less. That’s it. But perhaps the way I see it is this: less is more in the sense that it creates space for other things—including silence and nothingness. Like in music, where silence and space can be just as, if not more, important than sound. So yes, I’d say less is more, because it allows other things to emerge and flourish.

What is authenticity to you?

It’s the only way to live a fulfilled life. It’s thought-provoking how much we talk about authenticity these days—and that can only be because there’s so little of it. If everyone were authentic, we wouldn’t need the word.

I looked up the antonyms of authenticity: spuriousness, illegitimacy, falsehood, error, deception. So, the next time you’re not being authentic, look up those words and pick the one that most accurately describes how you’re behaving.

Nothing of true quality can exist without authenticity. It’s what all humans crave—but fear—because of the social structures that have existed for far too long.