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Looking beyond
By Tarek Atia
Is that the way to go?
Many of today's singers in the Egyptian music scene are trying to balance out their global ambitions with fulfilling local market -- their bread and butter -- needs at the same time. It's a tough equation and sometimes means a lot of mix and match, and a bit of compromise.
As the industry continues to make leaps and bounds on the golden road to mass marketed global pop heaven, cairolive takes a look at the latest efforts by Mohamed Mounir, Amr Diab and Angham -- giving Mounir the best odds.
Mohamed Mounir is on the attack. For the second summer in a row he's released a powerhouse of a tape. His key rests in coming out of nowhere, and giving you something way off the beaten track. But Mounir's always been like that. Now, it's marketable as well. Last summer he made Nubian music cool for the teeny-bopper set with Fi Ishq Al--Banat (For the Love of Girls) and its rousing instant-classic chorus, "Naanaa el-geneina" (Mint from the garden) -- familiar to any 2-year-old in town.
This year Mounir's heart is a housing project. That's right -- his new album is called Ana Qalbi Masaken Shaabiya. There was a debate on cairolive a few weeks ago -- when we first told you the name of the album -- over whether it should be translated as "My Heart is a Tenement," "My heart is a Ghetto" or "My Heart is a Housing Project". None provide the same feeling, or symbolic ambiance, of "masakin shaabiya".
"The alleyways run through my veins," might be the closest thing to Mounir's intentions. It's a liberal translation, as is the following English interpretation I've come up with of the song itself:
I love the people, they run through my veins,
They make me who I am,
My full name is human,
The kind who's nice and survives,
I work as an explorer, always learning,
I'm a student at a simple public school,
The school opens up onto the street,
And the street is an open window into my heart,
The alleyways run through my veins...
As you can see, the song is a jewel. It is yet another Mounir standard in a growing encyclopedia of "Egyptian" standards. Another song of his, Haddouta Masriya (An Egyptian story) also comes to mind, with its simple yet precious insight into the culture of a society that has thrived for thousands of years.
This newest song -- Masakin Shaabiya -- is the same. It is about Egyptian-ness, and it cuts to the core. It romanticizes the common man without being overly syrupy, and trumpets its sophisticated global bent with tiny bells, and a lovely flute and trumpet arrangement.
Whether or not it qualifies to be a "modern pop ditty, consumable anywhere in the world," is a pressing question in my mind. As it is, surely, on the minds of Mounir, and his colleagues.
Amr Diab, for one, has always been obsessed by this.
Diab has always grooved to the principle that if you imitate them, they will like you. He follows in the footsteps of every multi-culti trend in Western pop. Spanish gypsy style became cool for a while, so Amr's one-hit wonders always had plenty of Spanish guitar. We went through years of that. But would club-goers in Athens, Paris, London, New York and LA want to listen to the real Gypsy Kings, or Diab's imitation of them? Still, because of how well he understands the importance of the one-line clincher to a hit, he may have gotten some play, mostly in internationally themed clubs. Then there was the Ricky Martin phase. Amr consciously attempted to clone Martin's moves, style and look, if not his sounds. At the same time, the sounds on his tapes always became more in tune with whatever was topping the charts in the West.
This year, Diab takes it one step further. On one of his songs, he brings in a rapper beat boy to add a little hip hop (and English) to the mix. The song is catchy -- and surely he's hoping for a chart topper over there with this move. He's got a cool video to accompany it -- very conceptual, colorful and steely, but at the same time, because it's like so much other techno, it's as easily forgettable as it is catchy.
Do any Egyptian pop stars have the potential to reach, a wider global audience?
In any case, the language barrier might be too big a hurdle, but we have seen this circumvented before.
Those who might have a chance are the ones -- like Mounir and others -- who play up their own cultural strengths. There's no problem with packaging it in a Western gloss, but the most important ingredient for its potential success is its originality. What's the point of giving them something they already have? Even if you're doing it just as well, there are a lot of others there with you.
Many of today's singers are trying to balance out their global ambitions with fulfilling the local market -- their bread and butter -- needs at the same time. It's a tough equation and sometimes means a lot of mix and match, and a bit of compromise.
Mounir's tape is a continuous loop, with little fast-forwarding required. There are elegant covers of old Warda and Shadia tunes, and Mounie is right on the money with those. He also ironically enough, allows a little bit of Amr Diab influence in there, both in terms of sentiment and chords, on a few of the love songs. Other parts of the tape bring to mind Sting, Paul Simon, and others.
In general, Mounir also doesn't mind using a lot of spacy robotic sounds on this tape. You know -- those stylishly angry Cher-inspired metallic voices that inevitably help a cruel song sound even crueler.
In Arabic, he sings,
You push me away from you with your boredom,
You've made me say that's it, there's no hope,
If you go on like this, you'll lose me,
Forget it, you'll never crush me,
You make me feel like you're a rock, or a flower,
That's wilted on its branch,
My patience is at its limits, a strange super-human patience,
That can't be survived...
Again, this is my attempt at translating the sentiment into English, without necessarily doing a direct translation. Perhaps that is an option for singers anxious to export their sounds to a wider global audience.
Marketing is another essential ingredient to doing that, and in that respect, Mounir is lagging behind singers like Amr Diab and even Angham. In an ideal world, the originality of his music and lyrics would be enough, but Amr and Angham's producers know that mastery of tape covers and brands may have an even greater impact.
Angham's progress can be measured on the size of her billboards around town, and the changing style of her hair and makeup. Tape by tape she is being manufactured into the perfect pop glamour girl, an aloof, independent Arab woman. That the audience is willing buy into the image, and thus the music, seems to be an assumption that has yet to be fully proven.
Amr, of course, knows his brand, at least in the Arab world, is secure, as long as he changes his style once a year. This time, it's brownish-purple dyed hair combed straight up, and a new emblem, a flag with a "ain" on it like the first letter of his name.
It's not that Mounir's marketing is bad -- on the contrary, he's got a happy, smiling billboard on 6 October Bridge. But his CD looks whitewashed and cheap. Intentional perhaps, considering the subject matter? He's also older than most of them, of course. His style is laid back, and maybe that's for the better. As long as his music keeps getting slicker and gaining a bigger audience, but not losing the very thing that makes it real.
Did you like this article? Send your comments to comments@cairolive.com
Our readers respond:
I must say not only is the article very well written, but it is also so right
on with everything written in it. Do you know Diab's song, "Hikayat el ana
a'ishtaha- koulaha tishbih le baa'daha" (All my adventures, they're all alike") -- What about the songs he wrote- they all seem to "ishbih li baa'deehom" too. However as far as keeping up to date with
the society's modern trends, well that is what sells him. I feel that teens and even adults at times, are trying to become
more and more westernized -- but if they can take a break from translating
Brittney Spears and Backstreet Boys, but still be trendy with Amr in their
own language -- well, they are going to choose that. The day "ana aktar wahid"
came out -- I don't think there was a taxi, microbus, minibus, cta, car,
bedroom, ahwa, or disco stereo that wasn't playing it. Amr is their hero, and
he advertises for Pepsi. and Egyptians love Pepsi.
Mohammed Mounir on the other hand is spectacular. El ragil abqari (The man's a genius)! His words are so soothing to the soul. One of the most
beautiful songs I heard him sing was Nagat's "Ana baa'sha' El-bahr", so
beautifully done. His new tape is fabulous, he pulls in the Spanish light,
without being Ricky Martin or a Gypsy King -- he adapts beautiful saxophone
solos without being Kenny G -- his culture and heritage exist within every one
of his songs. I didn't really hear much of the Sting -- but then again i am
not a big Sting fan (well I dig the police, but Sting in his 50's I don't
know.)
Oh- and I whole heartedly agree with Mounir's poor advertising. He needs to
find a new manager. Then again his difference even in the style of his
advertising is distinguished and unique.
That's the end of my e-mail -- I am so happy I found this site, please respond
with any feedback you may have! I look forward to your articles!
Rwaida Gharib
What poor media we have in the Arab world!! A copycat like Amr Diab
releases stolen video after video, and the Arabic media and television hosts
start yelling: "It's new, new, new, new"!!
These bankrupt singers are only getting away with their stealing and
nonsense, because no one is saying anything to them!!
Ahmed Hegazy
Did you like this article? Send your comments to comments@cairolive.com
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