Local guitar maker Basil Azizoghly creates sensational instruments out of cigar boxes, scraps of wood and anything else he can lay his hands on in the UAE.

Basil grew up here after his Syrian family settled down in the Emirates. He heard about making guitars out of cigar boxes from his musician friends when he was living in Canada.

“My story is similar to a lot of my friends”, he says. “The people from our generation that moved to the UAE, a lot of us studied abroad and then we came back. And coming back here, there are things that are not available in this country. So I decided this is what I was going to do.”

“You can make a guitar out of pretty much anything”, he tells us at the Howlin’ Rooster Guitars and Such workshop in Sharjah. “I’m always thinking about the next one, and the next one.”