Zaki Chaker Nassif was born in Machghara on 4 July 1916 during the famine that struck the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate in the First World War. He was the youngest of four sons and three daughters. In 1918 he contracted measles, and an error in medical treatment left him with an impairment in his left leg.
At the beginning of the French Mandate over Syria, his family moved with the four-year-old Zaki to the Tayyouneh district of Beirut, which became the capital of Greater Lebanon in 1920. Machghara nevertheless remained part of his childhood and memory, as he spent summers in the town and winters in Beirut.
A phonograph brought home by his father—described as probably one of the first in the area—became his earliest window onto major vocal traditions. He listened to Sheikh Salama Hijazi, Sheikh Youssef Al Manyalawi, and Turkish ney improvisations, and was especially influenced by Hijazi. At the age of six he memorized his first song, a poem associated with a stage production of “Romeo and Juliet.” Lebanese and Syrian folk songs and Islamic religious chant were also among his early influences.
He attended the neighborhood school of Saint Abda Church in Ain El Remmaneh–Tayyouneh and encountered the Syriac language while chanting in the Maronite liturgy. At thirteen, another fracture in his left leg prevented him from sitting his primary examinations. He then studied for five years at the Melkite Catholic Collège du Sauveur, where he composed the school anthem while still a student, before completing secondary education at the Lycée Laïque Français in Zokak El Blat.
Nassif began studying the oud after his neighbor George Mazhar gave him the instrument as a gift; before that, he had secretly played his brother’s mijwiz. Health problems led him to leave formal schooling, after which he joined a group of young musicians founded in Beirut by Najib Chalhoub. The group included Alexi Ladkani and Khalil Mekniyeh, with Nassif singing and playing oud. It gave its first concert in Bikfaya in the summer of 1933 and later performed at Nabaa Al Hassa in Hammana.
The group’s tours expanded to Ehden, Bsharri, Hasroun, and Hadath El Jebbeh, with Sami Al Sidawi, Mohieddin Salam, Elia Baida, and others joining at different stages. These performances introduced Nassif to collective artistic work and to audiences across Lebanon’s summer resorts.
At the same time, he worked part-time with his father and brothers in the family shop selling raw and tanned leather on Uruguay Street in central Beirut. Until 1953, he moved between family commerce and musical activity, including work and study at the American University of Beirut’s music institute. His musical personality grew from this combination of Machghara and Beirut, folk memory, education, and practical performance.