What's So Funny About Ahmed Adaweya?

  Their applause and exhortations are so aggressive you wonder if it's not meant for Ahmed but for his haters. This feels more like a sporting event than an hour of music. Before the first track officially kicks in, there's a rousing all-woman chorus sing-cheerleading the album's title: "Bis! Shouf! Adaweya Amil 'Iyh! Bis! Shouf! Adaweya Amil 'Iyh!" The word "album" in regard to recordings dates back to the 78 RPM shellac era, when it meant literally a number of single 78s collected together in a physical album, similar to a photo album. For people of my generation in America, it meant long-playing, 12" 33-1/3 RPM vinyl records, generally, though it could also mean an implied cohesiveness or unifying concept, the live album, for instance, or the experience, for want of a better word, of Pink Floyd's  Wish You Were Here . In 1970s Egypt, most 12" LPs were simply collections of songs, many earlier released on singles; however, increas...

  "This is history. I am a whole history. I am king of saltana" In 1975, the last year Ahmed remains a bachelor, he releases three albums: An Evening with the Best Songs of Ahmed Adaweya  (LP) and But Check Out What Adaweya Is Doing  (cassette) on Sout El Hob and An Evening with Ahmed Adaweya  (LP) on Moriphon. I don't have a copy of the Moriphon. On its Ahmed Adaweya page , belly dance website Gilded Serpent spends some time unpacking the term "saltana." It's a word Ahmed uses to describe himself and his facility with the mawwal.  "What exactly is Saltana?" Gilded Serpent contributor Amina Goodyear queries. "Nothing is exact in Egypt. The word evokes derogatory connotations of a drugged state. This is how people perceived Adaweya, whether he was awake or asleep. To get Saltana takes time—in performance, sometimes hours. If Tarab is ecstatic joy, then Saltana is the ecstasy of creation. Time passes, and you don’t feel it." Goodyear note...

  Adaweya's phenomenal success, despite rejection by much of the music establishment, owed almost everything to the cheapness and ubiquity of the cassette. Ahmed didn't need to be on the radio. The first cassette published in Egypt, if Discogs is our evidence, is Sono Cairo's 1971 edition of Oum Kalthoum's Ho Sahih El Hawa Ghalab, with music by Zakaria Ahmed and lyrics by Tunisian Egyptian poet Bayram al-Tunsi, both of whom had passed away in 1961. According to Virginia Danielson , Zakaria Ahmed had played a critical role in helping Kalthoum establish herself in early 1920s Cairo. Discogs lists two cassettes published the next year, 1972: A collection of songs on the Randophone label by newcomer Ahmed al-Soumbati (Riad al-Soumbati's son) and the debut collection by Afaf Rady on Soutelphan, who had launched her recording career in 1970 with the release of three singles. Discogs catalogs seven cassettes in 1973, including Warda's magnificent Khalik Hena and the Be...