Posts Tagged ‘egypt’

Having dedicated so much time and effort to our Music and Social Change special issue, we’ve been paying particular attention to interesting music projects that aim to do more than just create good music.

One such project recently brought to our attention is the Nile Project, created by Ethiopian-American singer and TED Senior Fellow Meklit Hadero and Egyptian ethnomusicologist Mina Girgis.

The project aims to connect the various people of the Nile, sharing music and culture. According to their Kickstarter campaign, ‘loosely based on the Silk Road Project, the Nile Project is a multicultural musical platform that will bring together hip-hop and traditional musicians living in the Nile countries (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Egypt) to play and record music, to tour down the river and its source lakes on a boat made of recycled water bottles, and to share an experience that will connect the peoples of the river.‘

At the moment the project is looking for supporters of their Kickstarter campaign, which ends next week. The money they raise will cover their scouting trip to connect with musicians and eventually create the Nile Project All Stars. If they raise more than the $10,000, they will create a residency for the Nile Project musicians, to record and distribute the CD and tour around the world.

Check out their Kickstarter campaign here and watch the video below to hear more from Meklit and Mina.

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Tags: egypt, ethiopia, kenya, kickstarter, meklit hadero, mina girgis, nile project, South Sudan, sudan, tanzania, uganda.

Today, the world watches as Egypt holds its first elections since the toppling of Hosni Mubarak this spring. News reports have once again flared with stories of protests and gatherings in the famous Tahrir Square.

So it only seems appropriate then that Egyptian protest singer Ramy Essam was awarded the Freemuse Award last week.

Several months back, the Songlines team watched with bated breath as the movement famously referred to as the ‘Arab Spring’ unfolded and musicians were caught up in uncertainty. We were sadden to learn about musicians who, like Essam, were arrested – or worse – during the revolution. But to see these same artists win recognition for their political activism offers hope that there is a change coming and that these courageous musicians will not be left forgotten.

Essam was presented with the award last Monday (November 21) at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. The award award is sponsored by the Björn Afzelius International Culture Foundation (BAIK) and honours musicians with a political voice. Essam had also just received the Freedom to Create Prize the day before in South Africa.

While onstage in Stockholm, Essam commented, “My dream is to spread the voice of Egypt all over the world. Thank you for helping me in that.” He then went on to say “My presence here [in Sweden] doesn’t mean that I have forgotten what is happening in Egypt. We have understood that the Egyptian revolution is not finished yet. The 18 days [at Tahrir Square in February 2011] were just the beginning. We will stay protesting in the streets until freedom, democracy and social equality has been approved. I am looking forward to getting back there, so I can be with them.”

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Tags: arab spring, bjorn afzelius, bjorn afzelius internation culture foundation, egypt, egyptian election, freemuse award, political activism, protest, protest song, ramy essam.

In Songlines #56 we first reported on the extraordinary case of a glamorous Lebanese pop star found brutally stabbed to death in her luxury apartment in Dubai. The death of singer Suzanne Tamim shocked the Arab pop world, but the revelation that her killing was ordered by Hisham Talaat Moustafa, heir to the massive Talaat Moustafa Group fortune and a prominent member of president Mubarak’s government in Egypt’s Shura Council, turned it into the biggest scandal of the decade in Egypt.

Tamim rose to fame after appearing in the TV musical talent show Studio el fan in Lebanon in 1996. Like so many Lebanese pop stars, she became one of the icons of the pan-Arab pop world whose epicentre is the Egyptian capital, Cairo. She was twice divorced by the time she came to Cairo, and she subsequently moved to London and then Dubai. At the time of her death, she had been married to Iraqi-born British kickboxing champion Riyadh Al-Azzawi for 18 months.

After Moustafa’s arrest the Egyptian media reported that he had been in a three-year relationship with Tamim prior to her marriage to Al-Azzawi, at which point he had paid retired Egyptian policeman Mohsen Al-Sukkary $2 million to kill the pop star. Both men have been sentenced to death pending the Egyptian grand mufti’s confirmation and have the right to appeal.

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Tags: egypt, lebanese, murder, talaat, tamim.