Sayed Darwish
Sunbati was the first born boy after eight girls in a family in the city of Faraskur, Damietta Governorate, Egypt on 30 November 1906. His father was a singer, singing in the mawlids, weddings and religious holidays in the nearby villages and towns. Riad used to listen to his father playing the oud and singing. When he was nine, his father caught him outside the school, hiding at the carpenter's sawmill playing the oud and singing Sayed Darwish, and decided to take him to sing in the weddings with him. The father didn't stay put in Faraskur but travelled with his family to Mansoura, Dakahlia, so the young Riad was placed in a kuttab school. However, his studies didn't interest him as much as music did.