ISRAEL (CelebrityAccess) – Static and Ben-El, the musical duo who revolutionized Mizrahi* music in Israel over the last seven years, have split. Liraz Russo, 32, known by his stage name Static (a nickname first given to him by a childhood friend), and Ben-El Tavori, 31, announced the split in a joint Instagram post on Thursday (August 25).
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Their artistic collaboration introduced new elements of pop, rap, and international influences to the country. The combination of Ben-El’s Mizrahi vocals and Static’s rap/ pop verses introduced fans of each genre to the other.
Their first single, “Barbie,” amassed 48 million views on YouTube. Follow-up songs include “Silsulim” (58 million views on YouTube), “Zahav” (59 million views), and “Tudo Bom” (73 million views). Their songs have over 800 million views on YouTube and over 96 million listens on Spotify. They have performed numerous concerts in Israel and abroad.
Several songs incorporated international styles of music rarely used in Israel, such as the song “Tudo Bom,” which is based on Brazilian funk, a hip-hop-influenced style from Rio de Janeiro.
Ben-El was brought up with Mizrahi music. Mizrahi vocalists usually decorate their singing with distinctive trills. His father, Shimi Tavori, is a famous Mizrahi singer.
Within five hours of announcing their split – on Instagram alone, over 160,000 people reacted to the sudden announcement, and every major daily publication in Israel covered it.
Static and Ben-El started their partnership in 2015. In June 2017, they released their biggest hit, “Tudo Bom,” which means “everything’s good” in Portuguese. It drew significant attention, so much that the pair were invited to visit the Brazilian Ambassador to Israel at his embassy.
In 2018, the duo signed a 10-year, $5M record deal with Capitol Records to produce seven international albums in English, brokered by Israeli-American music mogul Haim Saban. They began re-releasing their songs in English, but they didn’t prove to be as successful as the original Hebrew versions.
Static and Ben-El have released several original English songs with recognized international artists, including the song “Further Up” with Pitbull (2020), “Shake Ya Boom Boom” with the Black Eyed Peas (2020), and “Ziki Ziki” with Snoop Dogg (2022), all of which experienced moderate success.
The pair served together as a single judge on the panels of musical reality TV shows Hakochav Haba (Rising Star) and Masked Singer. They also created an official song for the Tel Aviv Pride Week in 2020, “Habib Alby. “ The song has Hebrew, English, and Arabic phrases, including the song’s name, which means “love of my heart” in Arabic.
The future of their deal with Capitol Records remains unclear after their split.
*Mizrahi – A musical style unique to Israel, which combines elements of Arabic, Turkish and Greek music and is performed chiefly by Israelis of Mizrahi-Jewish descent.
