![\"Shaabi](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art51\/graphics51\/shaabicollage.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In February and September of 2009 Amina Goodyear<\/span> and Debbie Smith<\/a><\/span> gave workshops on Shaabi. We called it Keda? Keda Ho! (Like this? Like this!)<\/em><\/p>\n What is Shaabi?<\/em><\/p>\n We presented an in-depth look at Shaabi music and its place in Egyptian culture- from a historical, social and artistic perspective. Through looking at the great Shaabi singers of the past and present, we explored dimensions of class, neighborhood, and urban life unique to Cairo, and the movements you can use to bring the spirit of Egyptian Shaabi music to your dance. In the 1970’s after the introduction and popularization of cassette tape recorders and their accompanying boom boxes, musicians and singers all over the world were able to sidestep the corporate world and self-produce and self-promote. <\/p>\n There were several movements throughout the world that seemed to simultaneously create music in the genre called "cassette culture". Most notably this type of music was evident in England and the U.S. with punk music, in Jamaica with Reggae, in Algeria with Rai and in Egypt with Shaabi music. <\/p>\n The literal origin of the word Shaabi (Sha\u2019bi) in Egyptian Arabic is "of the common people". Here we will refer to it as music created by working class people, mainly of the younger generation.<\/p>\n \n
\nI would like to share some of this information with you…<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Nasser\"](\"http:\/\/www.gildedserpent.com\/art51\/graphics51\/Nasser.jpg\")
Gamal Abdel Nasser<\/span>, Egypt’s president who gave Egypt back to the Egyptians died in 1970 and some of his nationalism died too.The policies of the government that followed opened the doors to the West. The working class people (Shaabi) with their rural roots were finally able to enjoy a little economic relief. Thanks to the newly oil rich Gulf Arabs hiring Egyptians and thanks to their tourism in Egypt, money flowed enough to make owning cassette players and boom boxes a staple in their homes. But in the 1970’s Egypt also lost three of it’s beloved singers – Farid al Atrache<\/span>, Om Kalthoum<\/a><\/span> and Abdel Halim Hafez<\/span>. All this marked the end of Egypt’s Golden Age<\/em> and the era of pure love, unattainable love and repressed sexuality. It was time to move from fantasy and dreams to reality. The people needed to move on and were ready to declare war against the monied society and its conservative codes, the government, politics, corruption and just the general state of affairs in their miserable lives. True, there was a little more money flowing, but only enough to let them know that there really wasn’t enough. With the readily available cassettes – commercially made, homemade and bootlegged – the Shaabi people were able to sustain a voice and it was no longer ruled by that Egyptian monopoly, RCA, the so-called " voice of the people".<\/p>\n\n
\n \n