WATANI International
1 August 2010
The noise emanating from today’s Egyptian music scene is almost deafening. There seems to be a singer on every corner. Unlike the old days, however, when the radio was the main venue through which songs reached mass audiences, and the Radio Union played a basic, vital role in determining who was qualified to sing and who was not, thus filtering out a major portion of poor quality or vulgar songs, there is now no authority to fill the same role.
In search for fame
There are now more than 500 satellite TV channels, most of which air songs extensively in video clips. Anyone who has the money to produce a video and market it with the TV channels is free do so. We are inundated with a flood of songs, the lyrics of which are redundant and melodiously undistinguishable. Worse, the fierce competition has led producers to resort to any technique that might help market the song. Female singers depend on physical attractions or sexy video scenes. One singer sings in bed; another in the bathtub; and many others wear scanty clothes. Many male singers, for whom minimal clothing will not do the trick, surround themselves with attractive, scantily-dressed models in the video clip.
Other singers press for fame by singing lyrics with words that are intended to shock, mainly for their vulgarity. This ploy works very well with the public, even though the singers may possess downright repulsive voices and the tunes may be almost one and the same.
Among those are Shaaban Abdel-Rahim and Saad al-Saghier. Both hail from underprivileged neighbourhoods in Cairo and had worked as manual labourers before taking up singing at local weddings. Abdel-Rehim wears gaudy clothes in dazzling, mismatched colours. He began singing in the 1980s and gained fame in the late 1990s when, during the Palestinian Intifadeh, he sang a song entitled I hate Israel. Since then he has sung songs commenting on political events and even on avian flu. He is not a good singer at all; he uses one melody for all his lyrics and his voice is far from tuneful.
Soiled undercurrent
The trouble is that the competition in this singing genre is spiralling only one way: downwards. Saad al-Saghier has a better voice than Shaaban, but he sings vulgar lyrics such as Bahibbak Ya humar (I love You, Donkey)— in colloquial Egyptian, ‘donkey’ is used to denote someone stupid and despicable. Another song depicts Saghier going to the shoemaker to buy a pair of cheap slippers, “to replace his lost lover”—meaning his lover was worth no more than a pair of slippers. The words are strongly derogatory to women.
The most recent of these artless singers on the scene is Abul-Leef, who has surpassed the vulgar and embarked on the utterly indecent. Among his songs is I am not —- (a lewd word meaning an impotent husband), I am King Kong.
This type of singing reflects the soiled undercurrent of the cultural and musical scene here, while the really talented voices of the likes of Mohamed al-Helw and Nagat, and the Iraqi singer Kathem al-Saher, retire or simply fade out.