Mohamed Mounir Mourns Death of Best Friend Roman Bunka

"The King" Mohamed Mounir mourned Sunday the death of his best friend, German guitarist Roman Bunka.

"Today I have lost my brother and best friend: Roman Bunka. He was my backbone on a professional and personal level. We created wonderful music together; which impacted generations. To your pure soul: I will miss you. My condolences go out to our fans, " the iconic singer wrote on Facebook.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="680"] Mohamed Mounir and Roman Bunka[/caption]

Bunka was on born December 2, 1951, in Frankfurt, Germany. Throughout his career, he had established himself as a pioneering experimental rock-jazz and world music performer in his home country.

He began his journey in music by performing shows with bands such as progressive rock-jazz group Embryo established in the late 1960s in Munich, and Missus Beastly founded in 1968 in Herford, Germany.

Through their extensive travels in the 1970s and the 1980s, those two bands introduced Bunka to countries such as India, Afghanistan, and Morocco, triggering his curiosity about the music of those regions.

The guitarist became especially attracted by the oud and the music characterized by microtonal and modal components.

Bunka began exploring Arab music during the 1980s after he listened during his visit to Morocco to a radio playing Arabic songs by Um Kalthoum and composed by Riad El Sunbati.

It did not take him long to come to Egypt and bid a visit to the court in 1982 where he began studying oud, which eventually led to him meeting with Mounir, marking his first big collaboration with musicians from the Arab world.

In one of the most recent interviews, Bunka recalled this experience and noted Mounir opened the door to his Egyptian experience, through his work with him, he met many musicians, classic, folk-musicians, street musicians, and stars like Baligh Hamdy.

"Through my own research, I met the ‘cream’ of oud players and composers from the whole Arabic world, like Ziad Rahbani, Hamza el Din, Mohamed Zine el Abdine, Charbel Rouhane, Naseer Shamma, Sayed Chraibi, Fathy Salama, Abdo Daghir, Jill Jillala, Gnauwa Musicians," he added.

Bunka has also composed music for the German 1990 movie "Das Holz" (The Oud) directed by Fritz Baumann. The movie earned the Gold Hugo at the 1992 Chicago International Film Festival.

The late musician had also released his compositions in serval albums that marked his journey between Germany and the Arab world such as the 1980 album "Dein Kopf Ist Ein Schlafendes Auto" (Your Head is Like a Sleeping Car ) and the 1995 album "Color Me Cairo".