Kawkab Hamza
Renowned Iraqi composer dead at 80
NEWSROOM – Kawkab Hamza, a prominent Iraqi musician, died Tuesday evening in a hospital in Denmark, where he had lived since 1989. He was 80.
Hamza was admitted to the hospital Monday after a sudden health complication, according to people close to him.
Born in 1944 in the Al-Qasim district of Babil to a Fayli Kurdish family, Hamza composed numerous musical masterpieces, including “Ya Najma” sung by Hussein Nime, “Al-Qantara Baeeda” by Dhiab Kazar, and “Ya Toyour Al-Tayra” by Saadun Jabr.
He is credited with producing many musical and theatrical works and played a pivotal role in the renewal of Iraqi music, particularly in Basra, where he led an artistic renaissance in the early 1970s.
Hamza was a contemporary of influential artists such as Riyad Ahmed, a Basra singer who died in 1997; Fouad Salem, a leading Iraqi singer in the 1970s who died in 2013; and Seta Hagopian, known as the “warm voice of Iraq.” He also collaborated with leading Iraqi composers of that era.
The Iraqi Parliamentary Committee for Culture, Tourism, Antiquities, and Media mourned the artist in a statement, extending its “condolences to the Iraqi people and the artistic community on the departure of the great artist and composer Kawkab Hamza.”
The committee’s chairman, Farouk Hanna Atto, said, “We received the news of Kawkab Hamza’s passing with great sorrow. Since the 1970s, he has been famous for his melodious compositions for Iraqi and Arab singers and left behind a legacy of musical and theatrical works that have remained etched in memory.”
An active member of the leftist political movement, Hamza joined the Communist Party at a young age, which led to imprisonment and persecution. He had been living in exile since 1979 until his death.