Egypt bans ’music of the slums’
▻https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/02/egypt-bans-street-music-singers-following-controversy-over.html
Le syndicat des musiciens (!!!) en #Egypte interdit les chansons de type « mahragan », une musique ultra populaire, dont on a beaucoup parlé par ailleurs au moment des soulèvements de 2011.
Shaker’s decision came after the controversy over the lyrics of “Bent el-Geran,” whose lyrics include the words, “If you leave me, I will drink wine and take hashish” — both of which are forbidden in Islam.
The song became a hit on YouTube with so far more than 113 million viewers and 59.9 million listeners on SoundCloud.
#musique #mahragan
Singer Hassan Shakoosh performed the song with those lyrics in a ceremony on Valentine’s Day at Cairo International Stadium, but removed the sentence from the lyrics following the reaction.
This did not deter the syndicate. “The decision is a final and irreversible one and it will include all street music singers,” Shaker said in the statement.
But it would be difficult to stop those songs that have been playing in buses, cars, cafes, restaurants and at wedding parties in both poor and upscale areas. “They are attacking a genre that cheers us up and makes us forget all our grievances,” Saeed Abdel Hameed, a 40-year-old construction worker, told Al-Monitor. “It is an attempt to put restrictions on people’s choices and tastes. I believe that these songs will win in the end because they talk about people’s problems."
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