Diwon

Erez Safar is an American DJ, producer and songwriter who records under the names Diwon and h2the. He is CEO of Bancs Media, an American production company specializing in music and video production; Studio Bancs, a creative art space; and Shemspeed, a record label and promotional agency. He is the founder and director of the Sephardic Music Festival, and Gallery 38 in Los Angeles.

Early life and education

Safar, an Orthodox Jew, is the son of an American Jewish father and Yemenite Jewish mother. He grew up listening to Mizrahi and Yemenite music.Tad Hendrickson
"Bringing Out Sephardic Music's New Voices,"
''The Wall Street Journal'', December 7, 2012. In 2003, he graduated from the University of Maryland, and moved to Brooklyn later that year.

Career

Early career

Safar's career in music began at the University of Maryland when he founded Juez, a breakbeat klezmer jazz quartet in which he played drums.Arie Hasit
"By any other name,"
''Jerusalem Post'', June 12, 2008. That year, he also began performing under the moniker DJ Handler, spinning a blend of hip hop, afrobeat, and Arabic music. In 2004, Juez released their lone album, ''Shemspeed Alt Schule'', on Modular Moods, an independent record label founded by Safar.Mordechai Shinefield
"Music Site Celebrates Launch,"
''The Forward'', October 9, 2007. Accessed May 5, 2012.

In 2007, Safar was named to The Forward 50, an annual list of the world's most influential Jews, as chosen by the editors of ''The Forward''. He was recognized for his work as DJ Handler, for heading Modular Moods, for founding and running the Sephardic Music Festival, and for that year's formation of Shemspeed. That same year, in a cover story on DJ Handler, ''The Jerusalem Post'' called him "one of the top visionaries of young Jewish cool's celebrated vanguard."

Sephardic Music Festival

In an effort to introduce Sephardic music to a greater audience, Safar launched the Sephardic Music Festival in 2005. The seven-day festival takes place annually in December around Hanukkah at venues across New York City. ''The New York Times'' described the festival as having an "eclectic lineup of traditional and contemporary artists, including many dedicated to fusing disparate sounds or bridging new and old." Shemspeed has released two compilation albums, ''Sephardic Music Festival, Vol. 1'' (2010) and ''Sephardic Music Festival, Vol. 2'' (2012), featuring Middle Eastern-tinged tracks from a variety of acclaimed Jewish artists, including Matisyahu, Pharaoh's Daughter, DeScribe, Moshav and Sarah Aroeste.

Dreams In Static, Bonhom, h2the and solo work

In 2008, Safar changed his stage-name from DJ Handler to Diwon, a name inspired by the Yemenite book. (The diwan has meaning as a book of songs in Persian and Urdu

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