By Sahrish Ali
Frop and Muso redefine urban and street art with their funky graffiti. Let’s take a look into their world.
Urban art is what got Firas Bawazir and Sami Al Amoudi started with Frop and Muso. After meeting through social circles, four years ago, they compared notes and decided that they both needed a getaway from their full time jobs. Something to take away from the daily grind of monotony.
Firas Bawazir (Frop) works in the engineering field while Sami Al Amoudi (Muso) has a design background. Both studied in the UK, which added to the similarities between them.
“Living in Jeddah, we have a lot of spare time and it allows us to explore and experiment with art. We decided one day to start spraying and since then we haven›t stopped, when time allows and when a wall is available.”
What do you think about local street art?
The common misconception about street art is that people tend to confuse graffiti and street art. Graffiti in Jeddah has been booming; we have amazing talents here that are internationally known. Whereas street art in Jeddah is still young and has a long way to go.
How would you describe your creative process?
We don’t really think about that much, we draw to satisfy our own creative needs and as long as that’s happening we try to keep drawing bigger and better.
What is your future plan for Frop and Muso?
We are currently involved in social projects that get the community engaged. We run a program called “Paint, Paint” which is held when we are invited to venues and events. The program encourages art and community awareness amongst the young ones. Children are provided with an opportunity to paint on pre-drawn temporary walls.
We hope to participate in more social projects similar to that, and of course to try and create more murals. KAUST often invites us over for live graffiti evenings.
How’d you choose the name?
Firas: Frop was simply the first word that come to my mind when Muso asked me.
Sami: It started as a username when I was in university, then it just got shortened to Muso and it stuck.
What’s your favorite piece of art that you worked on?
Stoogie is one of our artworks in Muso’s studio. The color and randomness of the piece always keeps you looking at it and a lot of friends were involved during the making of Stoogie.
How do you think the local community reacts towards your street art?
Everyone has a different reaction to our work, but it always starts with a confused look, which we always find entertaining. It’s always down to the viewers’ perception. Some people love our art while others don’t get it.
We like that we get both positive and negative feedback as it allows us to reflect further on our work and keeps us wanting to push ourselves further. Art is subjective, so we always embrace all kinds of feedback.
