At a club in downtown Cairo, Ahmed Saleh pumps electronic beats from his laptop as Abdullah Miniawy chants to a cheering crowd, the duo part of a wave of new talent on Egypt’s underground music scene.
Emerging artists are creating an eclectic selection of hip-hop, dubstep, electronic and rock music, with some influenced by traditional Egyptian sounds.
The movement began in the mid-2000s as musicians bypassed record labels to reach their listeners directly via the web.
It was boosted by Egypt’s 2011 uprising which toppled Hosni Mubarak.
“This movement began finding an audience because it has become accessible on the Internet, instead of the market being dominated by those who release CDs,” says Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, a Cairo-born Palestinian musician who co-founded Ma3azef, an online Arab music magazine.
From the second half of the 2000s, musicians have used websites such as SoundCloud, YouTube, and Facebook to publish and promote their music.
That has challenged record labels’ traditional gatekeeper role between artists and audiences.
“This is the first time in Egypt, at least since the 1920s, where music really represents the people in a direct way, without any intermediary,” says Mahmoud Refat, founder of record label 100Copies Music.
The birth of Mahraganat music around the same period also reflected this shift in the industry.
Emerging from working-class neighborhoods, it became Egypt’s most listened-to genre — with little involvement from record companies.
Using cheap or free software, young men began mixing traditional Egyptian music with electronic sounds, creating loud, eclectic beats.
While the scene centers around Cairo, other musicians in the region have flourished online.
“We kind of found it staggering the amount of talent around, and a lot of people doing what we consider to be very high-quality music,” says Abdel-Rahman Hussein, co-founder of Dandin, a Middle East music platform.
Hip-hop artists from Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan have collaborated, while cross-genre projects have mushroomed in Beirut, says Ziad Nawfal, co-founder of the independent Lebanese label Ruptured.
The wave of new music “expresses real things for the people,” says Abu Ghazaleh. “This is what this music is doing, so it has no place to go but grow further.”

Source: Arab News