Young Female Egyptian Musicians Break Barriers
While Umm Kulthum will always be a national treasure, a crop of Egyptian female artists are challenging the old sound and style.
For Bosaina II, a singer and electronic music producer who performs sensual dances in wild outfits, winning the love of Cairo has been a rocky mission. But for all the resistance she encounters, grateful audiences in the community abroad continue to reinforce her faith in her sound and style’s place in Egyptian society.
Egypt is known for some of the Arab World’s most famous female classical singers, among them the legendary matriarch Umm Kulthum (1898-1975), Mounira El Mahdeya or "The Sultana” (1885-1965), Asmahan Amal al-Atrash (1917-1944) and Leila Mourad (1918-1995).
Throughout the last three decades, Egyptian women in music have been mostly limited to the mainstream Arabic pop scene. But that seems to be changing. Bosaina II, Rasha Shaheen, Dina El Wedidi, Maii Waleed, and Omnia are just some of the new young, independent female musicians to influence Egyptian music and society. But pioneering new music and being a woman takes guts, patience and endurance.
In an interview with Al-Monitor in Cairo in January, Bosaina, 25, swore that she would never perform in Egypt again after a year of “disaster” shows where she performed with the electronic DJ duo Hussein El Sherbini and Ismail Hosny in the band Wetrobots.
