Rupture and possibility: How the coronavirus crisis struck Cairo’s indie music scene

Coronavirus regulations have impacted sectors far and wide, but those who work independently have been in most trouble. The independent music scene in Egypt is made up of artists, managers, freelancers, blue collar workers and other categories of people dependent on a steady schedule of social proximity. On March 17, the Egyptian government took measures to suspend all cultural and social events after the escalation of the pandemic. A creative body that had already been facing difficulties supporting itself was now ominously prone to many losses. 

The conversation on culture is keeping up a tough fight amid the economic restructuring taking place in the world. As uncertainties loom, many questions arise among members of the local music scene. How do we even begin to comprehend the sudden ruptures? How do we fill in for missing paychecks? What are the alternatives that can momentarily come up from this? Where does music lie in the deafening quiet of a deadly pandemic?

To start tapping into the intricacies of this conversation, we spoke to members of the local independent music scene on their reflections, hopes, and fears.

The disruption

DJ and visual artist Fajr Soliman, known as El Kontessa, had switched her professional career from a full-time design job to becoming a full-time DJ months before the onset of the coronavirus regulations. “I picked the perfect time to do it,” she jokes.

A rising figure on Egypt’s electronic music scene, Fajr has gained popularity for her mixes of mahraganat and shaabi sounds with electronic beats. Come March, she had to face the immediate cancellation of all her gigs both locally and abroad. “It all happened very suddenly. That’s the thing. No one had gotten the chance to sit and have a conversation on what happens if this gets serious.” 

On this note of timing, she remarks that March and April were vital for those working in the music sector. “It’s definitely peak season, with shows and festivals clustered before Ramadan.”

The cancellations now include concerts, tours and various musical events scheduled for the summer as well. Sarah El Miniawy, founder and director of Simsara — a music PR and management agency working with artists like Maurice Louca, Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, Maryam Saleh, and Nada ElShazly — spoke to us about the effect of the current crisis on the industry.

“Right now, we’re just trying to take a few steps back and understand what this all means,” she says.

Artists working with Simsara rely heavily on tours in the region and abroad for returns. Locally, for instance, the Elephantine ensemble headed by Mourice Louca were excited to perform their recent album in concerts in Cairo and Alexandria. In early March, however, the ensemble’s four musicians thought it unethical to travel from Italy and potentially spread the virus. Egypt’s cancellations shortly followed. 

“The biggest blow was a tour for singer Nada El Shazly in the U.S. during the spring,” Sarah states. The singer’s tour —  which was to be her second after she had issued the expensive and barely attainable US artist visa — was comprised of 13 shows across the country. The first tour was primarily an investment that the management made and broke even with; this second tour was supposed to be a profitable one after over a year of hard work. 

Miniawy highlights how the major economic effects of the lockdown will likely be reflected on the scene: “The more long-term effects would be that any festival with secure funding will probably get some sort of budget cut. We might, for instance, have to tour on a smaller scale,” she says. “Some decent governments are already spending on freelancers and the self-employed, because this will really be felt in the culture sector.”

Accordionist and singer/songwriter Youssra El Hawary had her own share of gig cancellations. Starting March, she and her music group faced the shutdown of European summer festivals they were due to play, as well as concerts in Egypt. Reflecting on the Egyptian context, however, Hawary says it is important to put the losses under coronavirus into perspective. As an independent musician in Egypt, she points out that she never primarily depended on local concerts for profit in the first place. 

“If you’re a musician in Egypt who wants to make money from concerts alone, you need a steady schedule of shows headlining mainstream, well-paid artists,” she says. “Otherwise the recipe to monetize would usually be in digital streaming (a very small profit since it requires big numbers), funds, artist grants, competitions, or international touring.”

While recognizing the dire damage to the culture industry, she emphasizes that the effect of major concert cancellations on Egypt’s musicians pales in comparison to the effect on local venues, where the wheels of the independent music scene were already up and running.

Music producer Mahmoud Refaat, founder of the label 100Copies for mahraganat music, further expands on Hawary’s point. While he is worried about the economic effect of cancellations on musicians — he had numerous music releases and local and international shows lined up for the upcoming period with stars like Islam Chipsy, Sawareekh, Hammo Bika, Filo, Figo El Dakhlawy and hip-hop artist Shahyn — he thinks the gravest danger lies elsewhere.

“The music scene has been based on independent, social activities for the past 10 years,” he says. “Small clubs, platforms, and events ... Those are the very platforms that will be harmed by this.”

Refaat reflects that it is mainly a question of who survives this period and who doesn’t. Major production companies can bail themselves out of disaster, whereas smaller platforms will face dire consequences. “The big companies can snap back from this, pay their artists, and sign new ones. But as a platform with limited investment and profit, how do you survive?”

Mahraganat music is particularly fueled by social traffic, and with events like weddings and parties off the table, its activity can come to a real halt. “Sure, we can do things like going live,” Mahmoud says. “The guys already go live when they’re bored, or playing at the studio, or smoking a joint. But the problem runs deeper than that.”

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“Kollo Festek,” the latest mahragan released by 100Copies, shortly after lockdown was in effect

Those in charge of the platforms Refaat speaks of are most in touch with the repercussions of the lockdown. Hadeel Hammouda is artist manager at The Tap and the annual Chill O’posite music festival that happens in Dahab each spring, as well as a DJ. “We received a lot of DJ cancellations for big events that we've been working on for months; the artists couldn't travel to Cairo or Dahab anymore — that's when I realized that things are going to take a rough turn,” she says.

Plans for the season at The Tap fell through in no time, Hammouda says. DJ SAMA, dubbed techno queen of Palestine, was to play a big show in March, and Moroccan pop artist Faouzia was to follow. “Canceling those two gigs at The Tap West was one of the most difficult decisions my team had to make. We were looking forward to hosting two of the most promising names from the Middle East; we'd been working on those events for a very long time.” 

The cancelation of an entire festival has not been an easy ride either. As with many other international festivals, the decision was more of a postponement, rather than an indefinite halt. New dates for festivals worldwide have been announced, almost as though to anchor a future milestone of potential. The Chill O'posite music festival is no exception: “We would rather have people join us in better circumstances, this is why we'll be announcing new dates soon,” Hammouda declares.

Meanwhile, Ahmed Zidan, founder of ROOM Art Space — a popular live music venue — is currently trying to juggle paying ROOM’s 56 employees and keeping up with rent, in addition to other demands.

Along with its first branch in Garden City, ROOM has expanded its presence with the opening of a branch at The Spot Mall in New Cairo last year, becoming one of the only cultural spaces of the sort in this part of the capital. “The first year with the new branch we were barely breaking even, but since we were just starting, we thought this second year would be the profitable one,” Zidan says.  

Zidan thinks the entertainment sector was already drained, with an overwhelming amount of tax for concert tickets (40%) and more for the business in general. While ROOM has always been adept at livestreaming concerts and coming up with creative ways to maintain running costs — such as crowdfunding, for instance — this time, Zidan recognizes, is very different. “We’ll never stop looking for solutions, but for now we’re still trying to understand what is happening, and provide for the difficult circumstances of our employees. For weeks now we’ve barely had any income at all.” 

Ambitious about proceeding with the venue’s shows as scheduled, in the beginning of the lockdown ROOM announced that it would be streaming live concerts on a nightly basis, with optional online tickets for people to buy in support. Eventually, however, the initiative became difficult to sustain and the shows discontinued.

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Rock band Retrograde live streaming a performance from ROOM on March 22

The “alternatives”

Hawary, too, expresses some misgivings about the current rise of live-streaming and how it’s being highlighted as an alternative for musicians right now. Having been abroad for a while, she had returned to Egypt shortly before the crisis to work on her new album with a number of contributing musicians. “Right now we’re obviously unable to meet, and it feels like I still need to forget all of the sudden disruptions and make music — every morning I wake up to a ritual of someone on social media giving me a good scolding: ‘Aren’t you going to give us a live concert?’” She laughs.

Since the beginning of the lockdown, Hawary and her band have been receiving a surge of requests from platforms and venues asking them to perform via livestream. Since the band could not physically get together, they had to decline for logistical reasons, but also personal ones. During a difficult moment for everyone, Hawary believes there is much to be said about expectations on artists to perform. “Some of the requests for going live have turned into a form of advice, like ‘we believe you should be there for people and help them get through this moment.’ But why is there a conception that artists are not going through the same thing? I get that this is people’s means for moving on, but I am as stuck, anxious, and scared as anyone else.” 

"Why is there a conception that artists are not going through the same thing? I am as stuck, anxious, and scared as anyone else.”

While Hawary enjoys going live on a personal basis and streaming her rehearsals, it is the expectation that an artist is a live resource that she objects to. “There is already the pressure of dealing with sudden cancellations and what to do with our time, let alone the pressure that one has let people down under a pandemic.”

And livestreaming doesn’t pay, Soliman adds. “Very few people are currently doing it for money, and this is what partly frustrates me about it,” she says. However, she believes that this is simply an initial and possibly unsustainable experimentation phase with the medium. “As this lockdown lasts longer, musicians will have to monetize these live shows. They can no longer do free labor.” 

Yet Soliman still thinks live streaming under the circumstances has its perks. “I actually live streamed for the first time ever and let me tell you, it was a completely different crowd. Way more diverse than my usual club-going people,” she said of her appearance on the Hunalqahira independent radio show in April. 

The experience prompted Soliman to consider using the time she has on her hands right now to work on the album she has always wanted to create, something she’d initially been hesitant about since she recognizes how detrimental the absence of social gathering could be to engagement with her music. Yet she is somewhat optimistic about the online reach of an album release under quarantine: “If I were to release an album now, I guess a bigger audience might be tuning in, mostly due to the agonizing boredom everyone is feeling.” 

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Miniawy has been struggling with a similar question as well. For several months now the agency has been working on the release of Tamer Abu Ghazaleh’s new album, originally planned for early June. Now, however, the release date is uncertain. While studio engineers can continue  to work on the album, other functions in the music workforce that are traditionally essential to an album release -- like the physical manufacturing of the CD and, most obviously, live performances -- have been halted. This has left Miniawy and others wondering what an album release right now could possibly look like. “We’re thinking, do we release the album online? Are people really focused at home and listening to music? You’re also competing with a lot of content, but which content? Assumptions about people’s attention are not so clear right now. We don’t really understand them yet,” she says.

Simsara is also currently working on a project for capacity building between Algeria and Egypt funded by a grant from AFAC. The project is focused on developing the music workforce in Cairo and Algiers, and includes intensive workshops for training on all aspects of music management. The project is still scheduled to move forward, but right now they are rethinking how much of the work would be done online. 

In general, Miniawy thinks it might be wise to take a moment before joining the “stream” of things. “We need to reflect on what alternative can actually address an artistic need: just because a lot of work is moving to the online medium, doesn’t mean we should automatically switch everything else,” she says. “What does live performance mean at this point? There is a dire need to reflect. Personally, when the lockdown started, I wasn’t managing to do much at home. I didn’t feel like this is an opportunity to learn and work on stuff I wasn't working on. It was more like, now what do I do?”

"When the lockdown started, I wasn’t managing to do much at home. I didn’t feel like this is an opportunity to work on stuff that I wasn't working on... It was more like, now what do I do?”

Coping mechanisms/ The future

Answering the question of what to do now becomes all the more difficult when faced with the uncertainty of how long things will remain on hold. Soliman does not expect a return to regularity any time soon, despite talk that state-imposed regulations might be eased after Eid al-Fitr. “It feels like a collective trauma we are all going through; even if this resides, it will take a while for people to snap back into an ordinary lifestyle of social gathering and concert going.” 

“It feels like a collective trauma we are all going through... it will take a while for people to snap back into an ordinary lifestyle of social gathering and concert going.”

Fajr’s musings are akin to everyone at the moment thinking about those first steps we’ll tread back into normality, and which normality? She imagines there will still be a remnant paranoia regarding social events, and imagines her next gig to be ridden with anxiety. As a DJ, however, she says she still has a lot of new material to work with, since some producers have been working at full speed, which has made the situation relatively manageable for her. 

“Mahraganat did not stop. Artists are actually releasing more music,” she says, emphasizing that the mahraganat genre is especially adept in giving audiences relatable and timely music content. “Amr 7a7a has already produced two songs on coronavirus. Have you heard the new one?”

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One mahraganat singer working  with producer Amr 7a7a is Shobra Elgeneral, who mostly relies on performing at weddings and other street celebrations, along with the occasional concert. In addition to such events coming to stop locally, Elgeneral also had a show due in France this July that got canceled. “We have also had the crisis with the syndicate a while back, so suddenly we found ourselves having to adapt to all these new situations.”

While there is hearsay of weddings happening discreetly under lockdown, Elgeneral says otherwise. “Those would be in less exposed places, but on the main streets it’s impossible,” he asserts. Yet true to Soliman’s statement about Mahraganat performers, Elgeneral continues to make and release music. While he acknowledges that it would be impossible for emerging artists who have not yet amassed a large enough fan base to depend on music alone for income during the current moment and that many might have to resort to side jobs, he claims that artists with more online reach can still survive off YouTube views. “It’s like working for a company,” he says of releasing songs on the platform.

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“Zatoun Alone,” a track Elgeneral produced with Like Jelly’s Donia Shohdy during quarantine 

Hawary, too, has been trying to stay busy, contemplating projects that she’s had on hold. While she isn’t able to proceed with work on the new album as planned, she is part of an interesting project in the pipeline: On the occasion of Beethoven’s 250th birthday, the Egyptian Contemporary Music Society (ECMS), in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Cairo, has invited four artists to each create a contemporary take on the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.  The project was supposed to culminate in a final performance in October, and even though right now it is not clear whether it will still take place on the scheduled date, Hawary continues to work on her contribution, finding it a welcome exercise during the current moment. 

“If things remain the way they are, I have no doubt in the human spirit’s knack for solutions and adaptation either way. Things will evolve organically based on what is available to people,” she reflects. “The problem is when all this is coupled with many other existing issues like censorship and dysfunctional internet, and that we are already struggling to find room in the little space that remains.”

One silver lining to the struggles the region’s independent music sector has always had to reckon with, however, is that it has made those working in it adept at dealing with movement restrictions and mobility issues, Miniawy says. “Many of us who work in music are already scattered all over the world, while some of us are refugees with travel restrictions,” she points out. “We already knew how to work remotely, and our best aim was to always find time throughout the year to try and meet in person. People in Europe, for instance, never had those mobility problems.” 

Miniawy believes there is something in the current moment that needs to be listened to. “It’s almost as though nature is telling us to calm down. But I look online, and no one is calm. People are overcompensating and there is a rush to put things out there, rather than letting the process happen and change you,” she says. “Who knows, maybe after this thing I end up taking other interests and decide not to become a music manager,” she laughs.

Refaat agrees that it’s difficult to act definitively while the full impact of the crisis is still unfolding. “It’s hard to know what to do about what’s still being done to us,” he says. Yet he remains occupied with questions ranging from how a return can be possible, to what taxes will look like and how the pricing of performances will be determined. What will happen to the economy that took so long to build, and  how can we prevent the loss of major battles that have been won? 

And while, like everyone else, he does not have immediate answers, Refaat thinks it’s crucial for platforms in similar positions right now to build friendships and alliances in an attempt to forge a community strong enough to bounce back by the time this is over. It is such communal activities, he says, that have given independent production its position in the first place. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we should get to work right now. It is also fine to do nothing,” he goes on to add. “But eventually, we need to assert a narrative before one is imposed on us.”

"I'm not saying we should get to work right now... but we need to assert a narrative before one is imposed on us.”