The money mawaal

How sha'bi singers escape the narrow confines of the microbus market is the key to their success or demise. Tarek Atia charts the course
They all start with the cheap, sha'bi tapes, but dream of the big time: of Hakim's Nazra, of commanding a fee of LE2 million per tape. Being played on the microbus circuit is never enough; performing at five-star weddings and using cartoons for video clips is far more slick.
But finding just the right level of flashiness is the key -- you don't want to go too far and lose touch with your sha'bi roots, like Hassan El-Asmar (or so they say). But when big business comes calling, it's hard to say no, and in this arena, Hakim's success is the standard by which all sha'bi pop -- as a business -- is measured. He is the crossover star extraordinaire, embodying "el-sha'bi el-moderne", as producer Hamid El-Sha'iri, one of the architects of the Hakim phenomenon, once put it. Hakim's effective blend of folk tradition and romantic sentiment wedded two formerly distinct sectors of the market, yielding big sales.
A singer may start out happy to break into a market where his tape sells for LE3, or LE5, and cost LE20,000-LE30,000 to produce. He's heard on microbuses and at street weddings across the country. But there is another level of the music business altogether -- to be heard in Fiats and BMWs (like the one Hakim now owns), and at five-star hotel weddings in Cairo and London. The difference is in the quality of production and marketing, essentially capital gains -- half a mil spent, one and a half gained. On a Hakim song, the lyricist alone might make LE8,000. To put things in perspective, until recently, current sha'bi sensation Shaaban Abdel-Rehim was making about LE2,000 per tape. Now he's being offered LE300,000 by producer Hamid El-Sha'iri to leave his current producer and do something more mainstream.
Perhaps Hamid is dreaming of the birth of Arabic rap. An ever-present power behind the scenes of the sha'bi music scene, Hamid has made a career of intervening every decade or so to adjust the formula. With the rise of Shaaban and his rambling chants, it may be a matter of throwing in some trendy Arabic tracks and laughing all the way to the bank. But will the fans buy it? After all, going mainstream has never been easy for the sha'bi crowd.
Khaled Aggag outgrew straight sha'bi by going romantic, shababi style. It worked for him, and now he's got billboards bigger than Amr Diab's. But for Hassan El-Asmar, things didn't turn out as well. The crossover to ballads and western tunes didn't fit his style, and many of his fans didn't make the journey to pop star with him. Even Hakim wobbled on the tightrope once, with a disco-style remix tape that flopped, but he quickly learned that one's voice can tie you down to a certain style. Hakim may manage to look modern, but his voice will always be sha'bi.
Samah Abdel-Rahman of record company Sonar places sha'bi pop in two tiers. The first tier, composed of the big mainstream money-makers, is led by Hakim and Khaled Aggag, with Bahaa Sultan and Hamada Hilal hanging behind. The second tier, mainly playing to the microbus crowd, currently has Shaaban at the top, with Khaled Zaki and Abdel-Bassit Hamouda waiting in the wings. One-hit wonders, says Abdel-Rahman, won't necessarily see bigger contracts or higher selling tapes, now that so-called mixes, or "cocktails", combining several different sha'bi singers have invaded the market.
The original sha'bi pop star, Adawiya, had it a lot easier. According to Abdel-Rahman, timing was everything. "[Adawiya] rose up with the nouveau riches. His words matched those of the mechanics who suddenly hit the big time," he said. "Plus, he was the only one, that's why he made a difference."
Because of the stellar level of his current success, what Shaaban does next may have a major impact on the future of Arabic pop, or at least its sha'bi wing. Setting aside the perfect timing and daring lyrics of Ana Bakrah Israel (I Hate Israel), Shaaban's "unique" style and raging lyrics could open the markets to more singers -- particularly if a producer like Hamid gets his hands on them. Outside the theatre where Shaaban is acting in a new play, a young drum player in a sha'bi band extolled the virtues of other sha'bi singers with better voices than Shaaban. He seemed confident they would soon get their chance now that Shaaban has shown there is a market.
For now, Shaaban is choosing to hold off the revolution and sticking with his old producer, albeit for a higher rate. That's a good thing, says Abdel-Rahman. "If the big companies sign up Shaaban, he'll change. He'll see money, and that will mean his doom." Ominous words from an industry insider, but the "corruption" of Western rap, now seeped in materialism, hasn't brought its downfall, as so many claimed it would. The same may be true of sha'bi pop.
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