Hakim

Sha'bi is the music of Cairo. The street pop form with its rough roots has always captured the bustle and clamor of the massive cosmopolitan city. It looks back to glorious voices like Oum Kalthoum in the way the melismatic singers can wail, while keeping itself on the pulse of a modern metropolis. Over the last decade Hakim has established himself as the modern sha'bi singer.

"I love it because I grew up with the sound," he explained. I come from Maghagha, a town in the countryside where sha'bi was the only music. From being a kid, that was the sound for me. It's the root of Egyptian music, and comes from the south, where I grew up. So when I started singing, that was what I automatically started singing."

Born in 1962, Hakim began singing when he was eight, and put together his first band at 14, covering classic sha'bi hits, strongly influenced by major figures of the genre like Ahmed Adaweya. Indeed, in the way Hakim improvises in the mawal, the slow introduction to his songs, the shadow of Adaweya has often loomed large.

"With God's will, I hope my music will go everywhere in the world."

However, his budding musical career was interrupted when he began studying at university in Cairo, emerging with a degree in communications. He went, he said, because "it was normal to go on and study, my family expected that. I studied communications so I could be close to music, working with radio and things like that. At that time I couldn't study music."

But he did manage to find a couple of teachers in the capital to nourish his thirst for music while he was there, and after graduation he returned home to make more sha'bi, eventually returning to Cairo, where he met producer Hamid El Shaeri.

In 1991 Hakim released his debut, Nazra, an innovative mix of sha'bi and Western dance beats that caused a sensation and brought him instant fame. Two more albums followed, seeing his star rise even higher.

But in 1998, Hakim took his biggest risk, allowing Britain's Transglobal Undergound to remix eight of his hits for Hakim Remix. Compared to his previous efforts, it sold relatively poorly at home.

"I felt I needed to do that album," he said. "When I began doing my music, it was a new sound for the people. After three albums, and knowing TGU, I felt it was a good step. I had to do it, so I could start experimenting with other things. I thought the sounds could bring in people from elsewhere. But it didn't sell in Egypt, because it was eight of my biggest hits, and people liked them as they were, and didn't understand the need to remix them. But I think I succeeded. It was a good step, trying to mix my music with the West. I'll always feel proud that I did it."

After following up with Hayel, which took him back to his roots, he returned in 2000 with Yaho, whose sales already passed the million mark in the Middle East, showing that Hakim is definitely back with a vengeance, and still more than willing to take chances with his music.

The US version of the record is more of a compilation, with four of the Transglobal mixes and two new songs mixed in with the album cuts. While utterly modern in design and composition, there's still respect for all that's gone before in sha'bi. To Hakim it's perfectly natural to "protect the roots very strongly. I do everything to keep them, and work around them with new sounds."

The result is 21st century sha'bi music, still street-savvy, and dealing with the same issues that have preoccupied the music for the last 40 years - everyday life and love - but with an edge and vision. And, he said, he's only just begun.

"With God's will, I hope my music will go everywhere in the world. It won't happen overnight. It'll take time and patience. I'll have to experiment. But I've always done that."

Hakim

"With God's will, I hope my music will go everywhere in the world."

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