Islamic Worlds Festival

Omar Offendum is a Syrian-American hip-hop artist, designer, poet, and peace activist. He was born in Saudi Arabia; raised in Washington, D.C.; and now lives in Los Angeles, California. He tours the world performing at international music festivals, lecturing at major academic institutions, and fundraising for humanitarian relief organizations. In 2013 he was a featured speaker at The Nobel Peace Prize Forum in Minneapolis. Offendum has created critically acclaimed songs about the popular democratic uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa among other new projects, while touring to promote his solo release SyrianamericanA. Opening the evening’s program is VT Expressions, a student social organization dedicated to free expression in art, music, and poetry, which was created to build a network of artists who exchange ideas, support other progressive programs, and represent the images, voices, sounds, movement, and thoughts of the student body.