“Everyone is a hip-hop artist now,” says Sami Zee, an Egyptian hip-hopper with a dozen tracks of his own and over 700 members on his Facebook fan page. Zee was referring to the hundreds of underground rappers now using the internet to upload their music to whoever will listen. Dozens of tracks are added each week on sites like soundclip and 4shared.com by Egyptian rappers from Mansoura, Alexandria, Cairo and virtually every other major city in Egypt. The variety is tantalizing, from the socio-politically charged lyrics of The Arab Rap Family and the “gangsta” oriented rapping of Kordy's Cairo City Gs, to the more touchy-feely R&B of Ahmed Spider and ArAr Sandod. The Arabic Hip-hop movement began in the late 1990s with Alexandrian rap crew MTM. Since then, the sound of rapid Arabic rhymes booming to the beat of drum and bass meshed with oriental tunes has become commonplace at venues like El Sawy Culture Wheel and -- for a handful of the more popular groups -- television shows. One such example is the group Asfalt, which appeared on OTV two years ago. Explaining that their crew name reflected the solid, rough texture of rapping, group members went on to rap about deception and treachery and the importance of true friends. “We don't rap about drugs or cars,” they say on their sound-clip profile. “We're trying to be positive and real.” Yet popular Cairene rap groups are only the tip of the iceberg, with a majority of hip-hop aficionados and budding artists coming from Egypt's other provinces. U-Nis (also known as “3araby”) is a member of Eza3et Masr from Mansoura city. Sharing the sentiments of his peers, he says: “Rap is something fundamental to my life. I listened to that type of music since I was 13 because I got bored of Egyptian singers only talking about love and separation. But there's a lot of other stuff out there we need to talk about.” This is no frustrated young men's movement, however, and young Egyptian women often take center stage at hip hop concerts. For Emmanuella Amira, known to many as EmpresS *1, hip hop is her life. Raised in the UK, she has produced two albums, and since moving back to Egypt, she's shared the stage with Wust al-Balad, Fathy Salama, Rania Shalaan and many more. Earlier this year, she launched her tour, "Rap Renaissance," in Egypt. Despite the nascent movement's attempt to define itself by tackling “real issues,” every musical genre will still have its lovesick or emotionally traumatized singers. Enter Ahmed Spider, whose official website is marked with a pink font and background in a heart shape. Spider's last 13,000 website visitors were greeted by an audio soliloquy in which he talks of love, heartbreak and more love. His R&B-leaning tracks can be listened to by fans as they scroll down the heart-framed photos of the crooner. Yet it is certainly not heartbreak that concerns most of these up-and-coming hip-hop artists. “People here generally only want to hear what makes them feel good,” says the Arab Rap Family's Monadel. “They don't like music that serves as a reality check.” The Arab Rap Family is known for taking on issues related to Western injustice and the negative stereotypes of Arabs, focusing also on poverty and social issues in Egypt. “I feel a sense of despair sometimes,” says Monadel. “A lot of people don't want to listen and think, even though we put a lot of thought into our lyrics.” Perhaps the chief obstacle for Egypt's aspiring hip-hop artists is finding a producer. Monadel is one example of a rapper who “got so sick of tracking down producers, I decided to become one myself.” Aside from his work with the Arab Rap Family, he now helps young rappers to compile their first tracks and albums. Production is a serious impediment to the independent music business in general, and rappers are no exception. Even MTM, a pioneer of the movement, has not been able to find a suitable producer since 2002. Another common frustration faced by Egypt's rappers has to do with the fact that the genre itself is generally associated with the use of explicit language. “It's really stupid that you can't swear when performing at El Sawy,” says Sami Zee, “even though everyone in this country swears regularly.” While some crews aren't interested in using explicit language to begin with, such as the Arab Rap Family, others have found a way around it. In the case of popular Egyptian rapper El Kordy, he simply does it anyway. Other rap groups, such as El Zero, replace the frequent expletives in their lyrics with a conspicuous “bleep” sound. Whatever methods rappers use to get their message across -- foul-mouthed or not -- the competition for attention is fierce. For established rappers like Monadel, it's an all-too-common occurrence to get emails by hip-hop hopefuls asking him to check out their latest mix, although he concedes: “Most of it is really bad stuff.”
