Arabic Pop, a “universal” dialect

One of the almost defining characteristics of pop in the Arab world is the use of the Egyptian dialect as a universal vehicle to reach a very large potential audience (more than 300 million native speakers) but whose popular language, not the official one, is fragmenting. in mutually unintelligible dialects.

Or put another way, the singers of the Arab world who want to succeed beyond their borders do so by adopting “Marsi”, the colloquial Arabic spoken in Egypt and which is a kind of lingua franca for all Arab speakers regarding to popular culture.

This is the result of both the demographic weight of Egypt in the Arab world (by far, it is the most populous country) and the fact that Cairo has been the center of the cultural life of the region for centuries and its musicians, Television and cinema have largely dominated audiovisual production in this language.

Only Algeria and Morocco, with a strong influence from the diaspora in France, have their own pop “circuit” that is very active in their local dialects, but has little or no influence in the rest of the Arab world. Only when they sing in “Marsi” are their songs likely to become true “hits” from Aden to Casablanca.

That does not mean that there is no music in classical Arabic or “fusha”, the official and formal language of all the countries of North Africa and the Middle East, but productions in that language – which not all inhabitants of the region are fluent in – They are limited to very traditional genres, more similar to a poetry recital than to contemporary popular music.

Networks

The distribution of pop music has also suffered from the crisis caused by the arrival of digital platforms, the abundance of free options and the changes in the use and enjoyment of music brought about by the advent of the Internet.

YouTube is the favorite way to access music and it is normal to see young people in stores or cafes playing music through a computer, an important option in countries like Egypt, where poverty abounds and access is not so easy. to other forms of entertainment.

Other young Arabs and the not so young also enjoy music through applications such as Spotify, Amazon Music or Anghami, a paid music service of Saudi origin that is by far the most used in the region.

Today, a look through this application reveals the popularity of Egyptian musicians in the Arab world, with artists like Ahmed Saad or Wegz dominating the charts.

Saad, whose brother Amr is a popular film actor and whose love affairs fill the society pages of newspapers and are discussed on social networks, is the most listened to artist in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and Egypt, while also He is in the “Top 3” of Jordan and Saudi Arabia with his songs “El youm el helw dah” (“How beautiful today”) and “Wasa3 Wasa3” (“Let me pass, let me pass”).

The top star, however, remains Amr Diab, who at more than sixty years of age is in the “Top 10” of all countries in the region with “Mn 6 Le 9” (“From 6 to 9” ).

international stars

Diab, who received the Guinness record in 2016 for being the Middle Eastern artist who has won the most awards for record sales worldwide, is also an attraction and a cultural asset accustomed to shining at major events in the region.

He opened the African Olympic Games with a performance in 1991, surprising the world by singing in three languages ​​- English, French and Arabic – and recently performed at the first match at the Lusail stadium in Doha, which has a capacity for more than 80,000 seats and will host the inauguration. and the grand final of this year’s World Cup in Qatar.

“I’ve been to Diab’s other concerts, even if you don’t know Arabic, he has a very good vibe. Music is for everyone, even if you don’t understand the language,” highlights Sarah, a 23-year-old Egyptian who came dressed in her flag to the performance at the opening of the Qatari coliseum.

Sarah is not the only one. The show of lights and pyrotechnics is contagious. Spectators singing in chorus, applauding and dancing in their seats to the songs of the star who did not stop moving on a futuristic stage located in one of the stadium’s backs, designed by Norman Foster’s studio.

As expected in a region as conservative as the Middle East, sexual or drug or alcohol themes are absent in popular music, and the most people sing about is holding hands or walking together arm in arm.

What is abundant is the use of the ambiguous term “habibi”, a reference that depending on the context or personal interpretation of each person can be “friend”, “lover”, “wife” or “girlfriend”.

Thus, Arabic singers go out for walks, ask for dates, travel, dance, bathe in the sea or practically do almost anything with their “habibis”, without it ever being clear to whom and to what that term applies.

But little by little, traditional Arabic music is opening up new ways of communicating, especially with a younger audience.

“I think music from abroad is better, I like it more,” says Zian, just 16 years old, a few minutes before Diab’s performance in Doha.

For the young man, “Arabic music is very good” and he applauds that the lyrics and content of the songs “are changing in recent years” to become more current. However, he hopes that they will adapt to other rhythms: «Maybe Salsa like in Latin America, reggaeton, rap or pop. It would be great to see Arab singers make this type of music. Now they are very few. “It’s not really done,” he adds.

Tradition, conservatism and rhythms that do not resist the dictatorships of fashion and that predict a musical future in the region that will speak an Arabic converted to the universal dialect.

EFE

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