Badawi was born Raz Mesinai in 1973 in Jerusalem. By spending a lot of time with Bedouins in the Sinai desert as a youngster, he picked up on their unique musical style. When he reached the age of seven, he was taken under the wing of dervish sheik Murshid Hassan (of the Palestinian refugee camp of Balata), who taught the youngster all about exotic Middle Eastern drumming. Soon he had mastered such percussive instruments as the bendir, zarb, and darbukka. He also discovered spirituality along the way, following the Hasidic rabbi and folk musician Harav Shlomo Carlebach. After moving to New York City, he found himself immersed in the burgeoning NYC Academy of Underground DJs (which included DJ Spooky and a host of others) and changed his name to Badawai (which means "desert dweller" or simply "Bedouin"). By utilizing home recording technology, he recorded his debut for ROIR, Presents Bedouin Sound Clash, which was released in 1996. A year later, the more experimental (but just as good) Jerusalem Under Fire surfaced, which confirmed him as one of the best dub/reggae DJs of the late '90s. Further releases followed (during which time Badawai changed the spelling of his name slightly, to Badawi), including 1999's The Heretic of Ether and 2001's The Soldier of Midian.

~ Greg Prato, All Music Guide

Mesinai's electronic and electro-acoustic music exists at the crossroads of composition, sound design and modern studio production. His acclaimed recordings under the moniker Badawi, and as one half of the seminal duo Sub Dub (with John Ward), are difficult to classify, but have been called hybrid electronica/dub/percussion/avant-garde compositions. Since 1999, Mesinai has been releasing music under his own name as well, including three releases on John Zorn's "Tzadik" label.

Mesinai has collaborated with many of New York's top musicians, including Eyvind Kang, Mark Dresser, Marc Ribot, Mark Feldman, John Zorn, Shelley Hirsch, Elliott Sharp and Zeena Parkins, among many others. His work has been commissioned by the Lincoln Center Festival, the Jerome Foundation and the American Music Center. In 2001, "Soldier of Midian" (ROIR) received an award from the Ars Electronica festival. In 2002, Raz was a featured artist in the "Next, Next Wave" festival of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and opened for Nubian master musician Hamza El Din at Lincoln Center, a personal highlight. In 2004, following his developing interest in visual narrative and storytelling in music, Mesinai was a Fellow at the Sundance Composer's Lab where he had the opportunity to participate in workshops with such artists as John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov and Thomas Newman. He's currently scoring several films

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