What's So Funny About Ahmed Adaweya?

Poster for the 1974 film  Laenat Aimraa “It’s just so crass,” my friend said. “You like Ahmed Adaweya because he’s crass. You like him for the same reason you like this coffee shop, because it’s crappy.” --Anand Balakrishnan This post presents a minor dilemma: I recently got my hands on a 1974 single by our man that hasn't yet been cataloged on Discogs. This would not be an issue were it not for the fact this blog is chronological, and finding this previously forgotten 45 happened months after I'd posted all of his known vinyl (except for one LP I haven't yet found a copy of) and started in on the cassettes. We'll call it Chapter 8a for the time being with the promise to bump it up to 9 and then renumber the rest of blog in a couple of days. UPDATE: Renumbering done. While this iteration of the two songs on this 7" might be something of a revelation, neither of these tracks are unknown to serious Ahmed fans. The A Side, "Taealamtuha Buqaa," with lyrics by...

  Fifi Abdo interviews Ahmed Adaweya about Salam Murabae and more I want to believe that the album is, on some level, a response to, or at the very least conscious of, Egypt's newfound peace with its neighbors As a small-town American born in the early 1960s, my introduction to Egypt was almost certainly via news of the Camp David Accords, hashed out between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, with Jimmy Carter as mediator, in September 1978. My copy of Salam Murabae ( Peace Square ) has a torn piece of Post-It Note stuck to it with "78" written in my handwriting, assuring Present Me that Past Me must have determined this to have been the original release year of the cassette. Unfortunately, Present Me can find no evidence of this searching anywhere online today. I want to believe that the album is, on some level, a response to, or at the very least conscious of, Egypt's newfound peace with its neighbors (yes, plural; Egypt had also been at war with Libya). Ahmed covered...

  That boy is a monster (Mo-mo-mo-monster) That boy is a monster (Mo-mo-mo-monster) That boy is a monster (Mo-mo-mo-monster) That boy is a monster-er-er-er-er 1978 is another hyper-productive year for Ahmed, who releases two full-length cassettes. Based on this year and last, our man seems to have settled into an annual pattern: Release one ass-whupping cassette album doing what it is you do best, an album that blows away any possible competition simply by you being your own bad self, followed by a gobsmacking, goalpost-moving follow-up that catapults the genre into uncharted (if highly charting) territory.  Had anyone else released Jouz Walla Fard , we'd remember them for having hit an all-time shaabi high point; but this is Ahmed, and it's almost too easy to take his exceptional if less innovative work for granted. Ahmed and crew , we should say. Accordionist and composer Hassan Abou El Seoud once again provides the music and arrangements for this joint, and we're treated...

  "There's never been a n--- this good for this long/ This hood, or this pop, this hot, or this strong" No shade on the Carter Administration, but it's clear Shawn hadn't heard Ahmed Adaweya when he penned the couplet above. Ahmed is nothing if not THE most hood, THE most pop, THE hottest, and THE strongest Egyptian to ever record, and it doesn't get any more simultaneously hood, pop, hot, and strong than Cairo, Egypt.  "Bint El Sultan," oh holy sweet baby Jesus in the manger, there are no words that can describe the totalizing slow-burn of an ab-so-fucking-lutely torqued motherfucker this massive all-time banger is. The first time I heard this track , it changed my life. Are you sitting down? Good, because we've got a lot of ground to cover here. First order of business: Discogs lists three cassette versions of Bint El Sultan : Egyptian and Moroccan reissues in 1987 and an Egyptian reissue in 1997. I have the 1997 "Good News" reissue. ...

  "Yazayid Fi Al Halawih," is absolutely gob-smackingly complex, with twisty strings and male and female choruses, and represents a clear (if momentary) departure from Ahmed's shaabi-forward output to date In January 1977, Egypt explodes into a series of riots that wash through the entire country, from Alexandria, where they initiate, though Tanta, Cairo and Suez, down to Luxor and Aswan. At the time, the vast majority of the country's citizens rely on guaranteed-price rations of a number of staples, including baladi bread -- the roti, if you will, of Egypt. When these rations are cut, many Egyptians take to the streets, targeting police stations and other symbols of governmental authority. The uprising, which lasts for two days until crushed by the army on January 20th, comes to be known as "the bread riots."  Some 80 people are killed during the turmoil, hundreds injured, and over 1,000 arrested. The clashes are significant enough to gain the attention of ...

  The newlyweds in March 1976 While writing and posting the first several entries of this project, I learned that Ahmed's wife, Nousa, passed away suddenly on May 16, 2024. Nousa helped guide, shape, and protect Ahmed and his legacy for most of his adult life and her sudden absence casts a shadow long enough to darken even this humble project on the other side of the world. Upon his return from London in early 1976, Ahmed Adaweya marries Wanisa Ahmed Atef, better known as Nousa. Their relationship is strained almost from the beginning, as Ahmed is often on the road, performing internationally, while Nousa, according to Ahmed Naji's " The Woman Who Devoured Adaweya ," suffered his absence so severely, her hair began to fall out. The couple would apparently soon separate, with the initial plan of divorcing, before reuniting for good in 1978. This gives Ahmed's second cassette of 1976, An Evening at Home , additional resonance, a hint of bittersweetness, if not irony...