Cairo’s Musical Call To The West

The city of Cairo is the center of the Arabic music industry that to this day, dominates musical offerings from Marrakech to Beirut. The magnetism of such a heaving metropolis, has long attracted Arab musicians whose creations, influenced by world music cultural currents, are energized with a narrative paying tribute to a much broader global landscape. Similar to a growing number of musical trends around the world where traditions have existed and thrived since antiquity, Egyptian musicians today are finding common ground between locally produced elements and those wedded to Western popular music.