Born in Beirut, Rami Gabriel’s work in sound and scholarship is an expression of his diasporic existence. A syncretic scholar, he publishes books and articles on memory, emotion, self, consciousness, affective neuroscience, and the philosophy of psychology. A bold multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer, he enlivens the oud, electric buzuq, and guitar through sonic hybridity and experimentation. Rami explores improvisation and performance as a living dialogue between folk idioms, trance ritual, and social expression.

He has received several grants from the Illinois Arts Council to record original compositions with Chicago favorites The Arab Blues (with preeminent percussionist Karim Nagi) and the rhythm and blues quartet Rami & the Reliables (with Scott Ligon and Casey McDonough of NRBQ and Alex Hall of The Flat Five and Modern Sounds). In addition to a dozen albums by these groups recorded at Reliable Recorders, he has produced solo albums released by the cooperatively-run independent label Sooper Records: That’s what I been sayin’ (2024), That's what I mean (remixes from top Chicago producers) (2025), electric buzuq EP DADAD (2025), and his new LP album Tunderizer (2026). 

Dr. Rami Gabriel studied with Dr. Scott Marcus, Bassam Saba, Dr. Alfred Gemil (Cairo), Mehmet Bitmez (Istanbul), and gitane jazz master Alfonso Ponticelli. Rami has performed with a wide range of artists, including in Glenn Branca's 100 guitar Symphony 13, with blues legend Buddy Guy, deep listening guru Pauline Oliveros, sitarist Shubhendra Rao and cellist Saskia Rao, and opening for Zakir Hussein + Bela Fleck, and the great British songwriter Nick Lowe. He has performed at dozens of underground venues including on WFMU, and has shared bills with Marvin Tate, Prostitute, Imarhan, as well as performing highlife in Accra, Ghana, and with Hindustani classical musicians in New Dehli, India. 

Dr. Rami Gabriel is the author of three books: A Suspicious Science: The Uses of Psychology (Oxford University Press, 2023), The Emotional Mind: The Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition (Harvard University Press, 2019, co-authored with Dr. Stephen T. Asma), and Why I Buy: Self, Taste, and Consumer Society in America (Intellect Press, 2013). He is Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychology and a visiting Fellow at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies.