The Sounds of Egypt

Cairo is a loud city.  A cacophonous city.  Between the requisite perpetual use of car horns and Egyptians' tendency to speak with this kind of full-bellied, forceful volume, it is almost impossible to find quiet in the city. And suffusing it all are the sounds of a million shab's (young guys) phones playing there music out loud.  So here's some music from Egypt to give you a little feeling of the sound of life in Egyptian.  This post was inspired by being reminded of this first video, but then it turned into (as my posts so often do) something much more.

To start with, here's an awesome parody of Kanye West's future classic, "Flashing Lights" (in English).  The lyrics are ridiculously apt for my and many people I know's experience of Cairo.  I find the whole thing pretty hilarious, but it's a lot of inside jokes for Cairenes.  Nonetheless, if you can't find it funny, at least watch for some really great shots of many different parts of Cairo.

Next is a rather beautiful and thoughtful music video that touches on a lot of the nuances of modern marriage dynamics from the wildly popular Lebanese singer, Nancy Ajram.  I include her because she sings in the Egyptian dialect (which reflects how many Arabs--and, more importantly, Arab consumers--speak Egyptian [it helps that Egypt is by far the most populous Arab country]).  

Then we have Amr Diab, the most popular male Arab singer of all time.  You can see his coastal upbringing evident in this music video for my favorite song by him.  His style is shamelessly poppy (like much modern Arab pop music), but it's notable for being among the first (and certainly the most important) of its kind in the Middle East.  Some people call his style "Meditteranean," but this song's backtrack is basically something you could hear anywhere in the world without knowing where it was from until the words came in.  

Now it's not all kitschy crap that the kids are listening to, of course.  There is a thriving alternative/underground music scene here in Cairo, and the undisputed kings of this scene are the men of "Wust El-Balad" which means literally "middle of the country," but in Egyptian dialect is used to mean "downtown."  This band is so popular now, travelling and releasing albums around the region, it's probably not fair to call them underground anymore, but they are a prominent Egyptian band nonetheless.  I really don't care for their music at all, but I had to include them in a list of Egyptian music.

And finally, I can't respectably post about Egyptian music and not mention the all-time most renowned Egyptian singer of all time, Umm Kalthum.  It's practically impossible to overstate her popularity in the Arab world.  When she died, the numbers of people and the immensity of their despair rivaled that of Gamal Abd el-Nasser.  She even influenced some of the West's most iconic musicians.  Bob Dylan claimed in a Playboy interview that "She is great. She really is.  Really great."  She could supposedly sing in 7 different octaves at her peak.  Standing in front of a live a orchestra, she would still hold her mic a foot away from her face.  She still sells about a million albums a year, 36 years after her death.  She is a big deal.

By the way, to say "music" in Arabic, just say "moo-see-qa."  There, see?  You practically already know the whole language.