Rania Khallaf strains to hear music for children "Hello. Where is daddy? Daddy is here. And who are you? Who should I say is calling ?" "Where is daddy?" The inane lyrics have become a national rage. Ever since the recent release of "Where is daddy?" produced by the Free Baby Company and sung by a group of kids, everyone seems to be humming the tune. According to Essam Mohamed, a salesman at one of Cairo's largest toy stores, the album was their top music seller in 2002. However, "Where is daddy?" has come under heavy fire by music critics on the grounds that the children's dances on the video clip are vulgar; the clip features a group of naughty boys and girls answering the phone and making fun of the caller. After being screened several times a day on national television, officials suddenly decided two months ago that it should no longer be aired "to preserve family values". And yet, Farah, a ten-year-old girl, identifies with the song. She told Al-Ahram Weekly that the video clip "shows what the kids of today are like". She also listens to Shakira as well as other local pop artists. When asked why she did not listen to any children's songs. she answered with a flat: "like what?" How to entertain kids, especially pre-school kids, remains a puzzle for many parents. Facilities geared towards children are either very expensive or non-existent. And many would argue that the kind of art produced for kids today is shallow. It is difficult to find children's albums in Arabic at toy stores. Mohamed pointed out that the shop in which he worked only sells English language song albums for kids. These include titles such as "Beetles for Babies" and "Here Comes the Rain". The main target audience is, of course, children who attend private language schools. According to renowned poet Sayed Hegab, the 1960s and 1970s witnessed "a golden age of children's songs". Recollecting better times, Hegab told Al-Ahram Weekly that, "when I started working with [composer Mohamed] El-Sherie'i on our first album for children, we approached singer Afaf Radi. At first she refused the idea of singing to children." She finally agreed to participate in the venture, however, and according to Hegab, "we went through a mine-field. Producers were reluctant to spend their money on entertaining children." But the album "Sousa" was eventually produced, and was a success. "In the 1970s other producers were encouraged to make albums for children because of the ground-breaking success of our two albums," he recalled, adding, "but most of these albums were a complete failure because of the low quality lyrics or melodies." Afaf Radi ponders the irony that her albums with Hegab and El-Sherie'i were possible to make at a time when children were not top of the official agenda. "And now, with all this government interest in children's culture with events like the annual reading festivals, we haven't witnessed a single good album catering for children," she told the Weekly. She is concerned that, despite the success of their two albums, no one has considered reproducing any of that music in the form of a video clip. "The result is that children resort to video clips designed for adults. These are inappropriate," said Radi. Maestro Selim Sahab, who established the Opera Choir for Children in the early 1990s, noted that Egypt has very few musicians interested in working for children. In an attempt to fill the void Sahab explains that he teaches "classical Arabic music to develop children's taste for music". And despite the fact that he has put on countless concerts, the Opera House has yet to release any of this music on tape or CD. "Generally speaking," said Sahab to the Weekly, "children's songs in the Arab world are a rare product. This is because of the lack of interest and perceived commercial constraints." Mona Abul-Nasr, director of the popular cartoon series "Bakar", has produced over 13 songs for children for Egyptian Television since 1996. Her first video clip was for a song entitled "Oh, our library". Abul-Nasr told the Weekly, "it marked a development in the world of Arabic children's songs as it combined cartoon with music." Her latest video clip was shot in 2002 and is entitled "The most beautiful thing in the world". But despite the fact that several of her music pieces won medals at the annual Television and Radio Festival, Abul-Nasr has decided to stop producing music. "Television officials tend to allocate very limited budgets for such productions. For me, this has become an unbearable attitude," she added. She went on to complain that her songs are "rarely aired on TV. And when they are on the air they are more often than not interrupted, or excerpts are broadcast in other programmes." Hegab believes the current crisis in music for children is primarily a production problem. "Both national and private producers are unaware of the importance of children's songs as a powerful instrument in building the future of the new generation," he said. He also highlighted the fact that little or no research is done on children's needs and requirements at different ages. Abul-Nasr suggests that an annual competition for children's video clips would help develop the art and create incentive for production. Amal Farah, a young poet who has written several popular children's songs such as the Bakar theme is discouraged. "There are very few chances for me to write for children outside the framework of the 'seasonal festival'," she said. And yet Farah is lucky. Her work with Abul-Nasr has opened new horizons for work within the Karma Company, which produces two of the most successful children's programmes today, namely "'Alam Simsim" and "Yalla Beena". Farah resorted to writing for children after years of working as a journalist. She wanted to escape "the mad world of grown-ups". It is not all that simple, however. She maintains that, to do well at writing for children, you must first love them, then understand them, which requires a lot of reading up on child psychology and their ever-changing needs in a modern world. Amr Qura, producer of "Alam Simsim" (a subsidiary of Sesame Street), boasts that they churn out an average of 60 songs for every series -- with a series consisting of 90 episodes -- which are screened throughout the year. "Most of the songs have educational objectives: teaching the alphabet, respecting elders or healthy practices like teeth brushing before going to bed. On a recent visit to Upper Egypt we discovered that these songs enjoy huge popularity and many of the rural children know them by heart," Qura told the Weekly. Because the programme aims to deliver an educational message to children aged between two and six, the melodies are usually very simple and the lyrics are intentionally repetitive, making it easy for pre-school kids to memorise them. "This formula, I think, is the secret of our success," Qura said. "We try to create interesting characters who speak, act and sing in a funny way so that children can learn and have fun at the same time. And the combination of puppet shows, songs, and documentaries attract children's attention," he added. The company will soon release an album to be distributed in rural areas for free. "About 10,000 families in rural Egypt will benefit from this service," Qura announced.
