I had the pleasure of attending the Little Syria show in LA, featuring Omar Offendum, Ronnie Malley and Thanks Joey. Additionally, Mint + Laurel did a collaboration with Offendum featuring our Aleppo Laurel Soaps, Handwoven Cotton loofas from Hama, and the Little Syria mugs. We had set up a pop-up style “souk” and attendees were able to purchase these items in the lobby. The scent of soap wafting throughout the night, where attendees were treating to scents of Syria and nostalgia.

Our previous collaborations with Offendum have included the Dear Baba Box inspired by his late father and the Basha Box. We are thrilled to introduce, the Little Syria Box. All of these items will be featured exclusively at Mint + Laurel under Beit Offendum.

Offendum is a Syrian-American rapper / spoken word artist. He is a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow, an Arab America Foundation "40 Under 40" award recipient, a member of the Pillars Fund cohort for Muslim Narrative Change and the RaceForward Butterfly Lab cohort for Immigrant Narrative Strategy. He dreams of the jasmine scented streets of Damascus.

The Little Syria show is set in the Lower Manhattan neighborhood once known as Little Syria (1880~1940), this genre-bridging performance — spanning Hip-Hop, Arabic instrumentation, and ḥakawātī oral storytelling traditions — reimagines early 20th-century life in the heart of Arab-America. Just south of the current World Trade Center, this once vibrant cultural hub for New York’s Middle Eastern immigrants was home to artists and intellectuals, With live instrumentation by Ronnie Malley on the oud and piano and beats by Thanks Joey, this creative retelling of a tragically underrepresented history draws an audience attuned to stories of immigration, xenophobia, and the elusive “American dream.”