Nahed Nassr meets a young man of accomplishment
"Muslim, Christian -- I'm Egyptian. Fellah, Saeedi -- I'm Egyptian. Nubian, Arab -- I'm Egyptian..." And so the song continues, reflecting -- in the most straightforward and accessible way imaginable -- a grassroots patriotism long cherished but seldom felt by the young. Ana Masry (I'm Egyptian) is representative of the work of singer, songwriter and composer Ihab Abduh, whose presence on the culture scene was already felt while he was a management student at the American University in Cairo (AUC). There, Abduh participated in the broadest range of student activities, and in 1995 became president of the Egyptian branch of AIESEC, the largest student organisation in the world. Still, Abduh was best known for his beautiful voice as a singer, while following graduation he pursued nationalist interests more directly through being, among other things, a partnership and business- development officer at the Canadian International Development Research Center (IDRC), at the Middle East and North Africa regional office of the Near East Foundation (NEF) and Nestle Egypt. By 1999 he was ready to establish his own youth-led non-profit organisation, Fathet Kheir (a proverbial expression meaning "auspicious start"), cofounding the Nahdet El-Mahrousa NGO in 2002 and earning a masters in international development from the University of Pittsburgh two years later. In his thesis Abduh focussed on the role of the NGO sector including such topics as philanthropy fair trade and development. In the same year Abduh was elected "social enterpreneur" by the Ashoka Foundation. As well as chairing of Nahdet El Mahrousa and teaching a course on NGO management at AUC, Abduh hosts an English-language Radio Cairo FM show named Let's practise what we preach, broadcast every Monday at midnight. The president of the Egyptian Federation of Young People's NGOs, Abduh was the first Egyptian to receive the Global AIESEC Alumni Entrepreneurship and Leadership Award at the organisation's 2007 International Congress in Istanbul. But he has not stopped singing.
"My love of singing was always there. At university, it was my favourite hobby. I was a big fan of [the late "father of Egyptian music"] Sayed Darwish. His songs have patriotic import as well as human and spiritual meanings. I used to sing his songs at university events. In 2002 I did some vocal training to improve my voice." It hadn't even occurred to him to compose lyrics. "I used to read the great Egyptian vernacular poets: Salah Jahin, Ahmad Fouad Negm, Fouad Haddad. I loved them, of course, but I had a feeling that there were more recent issues requiring fresh language and fresh treatment. Like Sayed Darwish, [the great oppositional composer-singer] Sheikh Imam is great -- but neither can address young people now to the same perfect effect." Though it shares the theme of many Sayed Darwish songs -- national unity -- Abduh's masterpiece, Ana Masry, for example, is conceived in response to media approaches to issues of sect: "I believe Egyptian society does not suffer from profound problems deriving from religion, race, or ethnicity. Nevertheless, the way the question is addressed the our media does not really reflect this non-sectarian reality. Ana Masry delivers the pure message in a simple way." And there is a story to how the song came about, too: "I wrote the lyrics in India. When I reached that country, many sad questions came to my mind: why those people are able to keep and develop their 5000-year-old civilization while we could only skim the surface of ours... For one thing, I felt that our identity as Egyptians is far richer than we are willing to acknowledge." Most songs that make their way to the media, Abduh believes, reflect neither the dreams nor the frustrations of Egyptians, especially the young. Artists who fail to "go with the flow" on the other hand are denied access to audiences; they cannot even be sure of their art surviving across generations. "There is a generation of writers who are not going with the flow. They address our everyday issues in their works. But most of them have neither the will nor the ability to publish their work. Sheikh Imam and [his long time collaborator the vernacular poet Ahmed Foud] Negm are rather the exception; their experience cannot be repeated now." Besides, Abduh sees himself as part of a far more recent and less politicised scene that includes the Westelbalad band and Wagih Aziz as well as others, and he is particularly fond of Mohamed Mounir.
"My favourite singer," he says in reference to the latter, "used to be the only singer who tackled serious issues in an artistic way after the 1980s. Now there are other artists on the same track, which is promising though support is very limited. Those artists, songwriters, composers, or singers, do not have the financial resources to reach a wider audience. There are a few cultural entities backing some of them which is a commendable effort but it is not enough. Those entities do not have the appropriate strategic planning. The Cultural Mawred, for example, in collaboration with a Lebanese production company produced a CD of Fathy Salama with a price tag of LE50; now no CD by an Egyptian pop star will cost more than LE30." For his own part Abduh made his way to the audience through live concerts -- events that, few and far between as they remain, he has used to introduce other young and promising artists. At two concerts he gave in July at the Sawi Cultural Wheel and AUC, for example, he invited Laila Bahgat and the American-Egyptian Karim Nagi to perform alongside him: the first offered Sufi-inspired songs while the latter played drums. "A concert for me is an opportunity to publicise our work as young artists with a different perspective. My special guests have the same perspective on the diversity and richness of the Egyptian personality." In his upcoming concert on 27 November -- "a concert for national unity" -- Abduh will host hymns and folklore. Abduh's own repertoire includes some 15 songs he has written himself but he also performs work by other lyricists like Nasser El-Geel. His dream is to make more room for music in his life. "Singing and songwriting for me is another way of delivering the same massage. I feel that I need to give it more time." He is currently working on an album that brings together his favorite songs. "My songs don't deal with new issues; what makes them different is that they are more hopeful. I like to focus on the light, to give hope in the future as much as I am able to."
"My love of singing was always there. At university, it was my favourite hobby. I was a big fan of [the late "father of Egyptian music"] Sayed Darwish. His songs have patriotic import as well as human and spiritual meanings. I used to sing his songs at university events. In 2002 I did some vocal training to improve my voice." It hadn't even occurred to him to compose lyrics. "I used to read the great Egyptian vernacular poets: Salah Jahin, Ahmad Fouad Negm, Fouad Haddad. I loved them, of course, but I had a feeling that there were more recent issues requiring fresh language and fresh treatment. Like Sayed Darwish, [the great oppositional composer-singer] Sheikh Imam is great -- but neither can address young people now to the same perfect effect." Though it shares the theme of many Sayed Darwish songs -- national unity -- Abduh's masterpiece, Ana Masry, for example, is conceived in response to media approaches to issues of sect: "I believe Egyptian society does not suffer from profound problems deriving from religion, race, or ethnicity. Nevertheless, the way the question is addressed the our media does not really reflect this non-sectarian reality. Ana Masry delivers the pure message in a simple way." And there is a story to how the song came about, too: "I wrote the lyrics in India. When I reached that country, many sad questions came to my mind: why those people are able to keep and develop their 5000-year-old civilization while we could only skim the surface of ours... For one thing, I felt that our identity as Egyptians is far richer than we are willing to acknowledge." Most songs that make their way to the media, Abduh believes, reflect neither the dreams nor the frustrations of Egyptians, especially the young. Artists who fail to "go with the flow" on the other hand are denied access to audiences; they cannot even be sure of their art surviving across generations. "There is a generation of writers who are not going with the flow. They address our everyday issues in their works. But most of them have neither the will nor the ability to publish their work. Sheikh Imam and [his long time collaborator the vernacular poet Ahmed Foud] Negm are rather the exception; their experience cannot be repeated now." Besides, Abduh sees himself as part of a far more recent and less politicised scene that includes the Westelbalad band and Wagih Aziz as well as others, and he is particularly fond of Mohamed Mounir.
"My favourite singer," he says in reference to the latter, "used to be the only singer who tackled serious issues in an artistic way after the 1980s. Now there are other artists on the same track, which is promising though support is very limited. Those artists, songwriters, composers, or singers, do not have the financial resources to reach a wider audience. There are a few cultural entities backing some of them which is a commendable effort but it is not enough. Those entities do not have the appropriate strategic planning. The Cultural Mawred, for example, in collaboration with a Lebanese production company produced a CD of Fathy Salama with a price tag of LE50; now no CD by an Egyptian pop star will cost more than LE30." For his own part Abduh made his way to the audience through live concerts -- events that, few and far between as they remain, he has used to introduce other young and promising artists. At two concerts he gave in July at the Sawi Cultural Wheel and AUC, for example, he invited Laila Bahgat and the American-Egyptian Karim Nagi to perform alongside him: the first offered Sufi-inspired songs while the latter played drums. "A concert for me is an opportunity to publicise our work as young artists with a different perspective. My special guests have the same perspective on the diversity and richness of the Egyptian personality." In his upcoming concert on 27 November -- "a concert for national unity" -- Abduh will host hymns and folklore. Abduh's own repertoire includes some 15 songs he has written himself but he also performs work by other lyricists like Nasser El-Geel. His dream is to make more room for music in his life. "Singing and songwriting for me is another way of delivering the same massage. I feel that I need to give it more time." He is currently working on an album that brings together his favorite songs. "My songs don't deal with new issues; what makes them different is that they are more hopeful. I like to focus on the light, to give hope in the future as much as I am able to."
