A dialogue with my friend who’s a Mohamed Mounir atheist
 
 

Mohamed Salah Ramadan is an young Egyptian man working in a foreign bank in Cairo. Until very recently, he was a deep lover and strong defender of Mohamed Mounir’s music.

Andeel: Do you know Mohamed Mounir’s full name?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: No. I read it many times and never cared to remember it.

Andeel: Have you read the previous interview, about Amr Diab?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Sure.

Andeel: While reading it, did you expect a similar one about Mohamed Mounir?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Yeah, because they are the two artists with the biggest numbers of crazy dervishes in Egypt.

Andeel: Recently, Mounir made a song a lot of people found too feloul, and lots of these “dervishes” got mad. But you stopped believing in him a lot earlier, didn’t you?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan:I started to lose faith since Ya Masr ya Habibty ya Oum al-Awtan (Oh My Beloved Egypt, Mother of Homelands, 2011) which he made for [former President] Hosni Mubarak, but I kept resisting and trying to convince myself that maybe he didn’t mean it, or maybe the songs lyrics could be interpreted in lots of ways. Then I felt I should have converted way back when he worked with Nasr Mahrous.

Andeel: Tell me about your feelings the first time you heard a song by Mohamed Mounir.

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: The first was Ya Lalaly, I heard it in the music room of my elementary school.

Andeel: How old were you, and what was your musical taste before then?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: I think I was almost 15, and I can’t particularly say I had a specific musical taste before then. It was still being formed.

Andeel: What attracted you to the song, or felt different from what you were used to listening to?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: I liked how it was different from the mainstream at the time, with Port Said folk melodies, lyrics that aren’t about love and break-ups, very well-played music with oriental instruments. Then I learnt that it was arranged by Roman Bunka, and I liked that a lot.

Andeel: Why did you like that more?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: No idea!

Andeel: When did you start taking Mounir more seriously?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: In high school, I started searching for more of his old songs. I liked his nationalist songs because they were different from October 6 celebrations and that type of thing.

Andeel: Like what?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Shams al-Magheeb.

Andeel: Any lyrics you specifically liked?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Yes, I liked the bit where it says: “I’m a little letter in your name … a little color in your painting.”

Andeel: Mounir was laughing material for young people then, a lot of people made fun of the way he looked or his performance style. His stardom also hadn’t grown to the extent it has now. His fans were a suppressed minority. How did you feel as a “Mohamed Mounir fan” in the middle of all that?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Awful alienation! I used to feel like I was Mounir’s lawyer, justifying everything and decoding his songs. Added to that, I also started listening to rai music.

Andeel: What was the connection between Mounir and rai for you?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: The music’s distinctiveness. Mounir came from an area in Egypt with a special type of music that he managed to make people listen to carefully. Rai also wasn’t heard of much in Algiers, the capital — it invaded it from Wahran.

Andeel: And what’s the difference in your opinion?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: The rai artists left Algeria and immigrated to Europe, and I wish Mounir had done that.

Andeel: You don’t find his staying in Egypt more original, or a bigger challenge? I’m sure that if Khalid and Mounir are each expecting a musician at 6:30 pm, one in Paris and the other in Cairo … Well, you know!

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Some people think so, and it’s a point of view, but I think his presence in Egypt forced him to work with some zero-talent people, only because there isn’t much choice. Also, quality standards may vary a lot between an Egyptian producer and a European one.

Andeel: You used to have a huge archive of Mounir’s work, rare tracks and jamming sessions. How did all that make you see Mounir differently from his commercial image? What did you know about him that casual followers don’t know?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: The archive still exists! I sensed that Mounir had a massive artistic energy that is always suppressed for the sake of commercial profit. I think he made one of his most important albums, Al-Ard al-Salam, when he was given freedom.

Andeel: I was just about to ask what your favorite album is of his? Al-Ard al-Salam?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: My favorite is Shababeek, and Yehya Khalil’s series (Mounir’s second, third,  fourth and fifth albums), then Al-Ard al-Salam.

Andeel: And the worst?

Mohamed Salah RamadanAhl al-Arab wal-Tarab.

Andeel: Tehehehe …

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: “The Nubian song” is the only good song in it. It’s an obvious declaration of bankruptcy. He also handed his brains to the magnificent poet Nabil Khalaf.

Andeel: Back to politics, you said the first shock was the song that seemed to be made for Mubarak. Why did you put Mounir in the “opposition artist” position at the first place?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: He put himself there, with songs like Sah ya Badah and the music for the play The King is the King, as well as his TV appearances. “My role is to provoke,” and all that bollocks.

Andeel: Do you think it was indeed bollocks? Or might he have changed his mind?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: I really don’t know if he was fooling us or what. I guess he was part of a community of opposition poets that used him as a throat for their words to reach out through, and those were the people he hung out with. When they died, he started scraping in the bottom of the saucepan.

Andeel: In the beginning, Mounir had an interesting relationship with musicians he worked with. It was new for Egyptian audiences to listen to a solo by an unknown bassist or drummer for several minutes. It’s also said that in his concerts with Yehya Khalil, the latter had a more prominent position on stage. Mounir only joined the performance with his voice. It was more democratic compared to the usual polar Arab singer situation where the singer is center of the universe. When did you start witnessing that change?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Since he left Yehya Khalil, especially in the Chocolata album, he got his own band and collaborated with composer Hany Shenouda after a long break. This was when Roman Bunka started to appear and people liked the idea of the German oud player playing behind Mounir, the Nubian Egyptian singer.

Andeel: When you see old pictures or videos of the young Mounir, and more recent ones, what’s the biggest difference you notice?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Money. Nasr Mahrous helped him make more money.

Andeel: Do you remember a song in which he talks about money?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Mmm … Can’t think of anything.

Andeel: Do you think he likes money? As far as I know he came from a rich family, didn’t need money? Right?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: He’s from the Egyptian middle class. A normal struggling young man. With a slight tendency toward the left politically.

Andeel: At first it didn’t seem he was after fame? He didn’t seem like a diva?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Not at all! He was very innocent and had so much enthusiasm and sharp criticisms of singers of his generation. He insisted on being different even with his look or the way he appeared on stage. Recently I saw a picture of him singing in a tie!

Andeel: All that changed as he grew older, even his opinions of rivals became a lot more diplomatic.

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Yeah, haha. Very sad!

Andeel: A lot of artists start by doing things they don’t believe in that much until they get bigger and have enough power to do what they really want to do.

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: I think the opposite happened with Mounir. I believe it would have been easier for him to play it safe in the beginning and make the bucks and when he’s older invest his money somewhere and that’s it. But what happened was such a weird step back. He stopped believing in everything he believed in when he was young. A couple of days ago I remembered what he did to the Sudanese poet Mahboub al-Sharif’s poem Masakin Shaabiya, how he deformed the lyrics to remove everything revolutionary. He claimed that what’s happening in Egypt is different from the conditions when and where the poem was written.

Andeel: I didn’t know about that! Did he change the lyrics or only remove bits?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Removed a lot in a way that totally changed the meaning.

Andeel: What do you think could make one flip like this?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Fear! Fear of being prevented to sing, fear of prison maybe.

Andeel: Really? I think fear would be more justifiable in the beginning, when you’re smaller and weaker, but now he’s stronger, and more difficult to threaten. No?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Supposedly yes, but what we see usually is different. Al-Abnudi is an obvious example, he was jailed a lot and harassed when he was younger and didn’t care, and now he’s completely different

Andeel: Maybe he’s convinced that the story is different? The country is endangered, we have to protect the country … 

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Maybe!

Andeel: The question remains, why is it always easier to convince those who own millions?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Because they’re afraid to lose it.

Andeel: If I was a singer who makes a bunch of thousands of pounds for a concert that an organizer makes a couple of millions out of, I’m sure I’d see politics, struggle, stability and security in a different way! Let me ask you about the last concert you went to of Mounir’s. Speak.

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Ohhhhh! Mr. Moh. A black tragedy Si Moh. The last one was the Ain Sokhna concert, organized by Vodafone. It was in a resort 35 km away from Suez. I drove there. It was literally a nightmare, very badly organized, the sound was bad — not bad sound engineering, Mounir’s voice itself was terrible and I could barely hear it. All I saw was a dark dude singing far ahead. 

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Stray dogs were strolling among the audience.

Andeel: Hahahhaha.

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: I swear to god, I’m serious. I’m serious, *Sisi’s style*.

Andeel: What do you think that means?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: He doesn’t care about the people anymore. A concert only means profit and money, it doesn’t matter what he sings, it doesn’t matter if he sings off-tune, or forgets the lyrics. What matters is how much he’s making.

Andeel: What hope did you have on your way to the concert?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: I was hoping it would be like his old operatic concerts, but I didn’t expect shit to be that low, the same logic that made Khalid sing in Egypt for people eating mixed grill.

Andeel: Do you think he’s gone for good now?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: For me, Mounir is dead. I don’t care anymore about what he’s doing.

Andeel: If tomorrow morning he launches a campaign asking everybody who once loved him to send him a message with three pieces of advice that would bring him back into the position he once had in their hearts, what would be your advice?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Do I have to say the whole three points?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: First: Change the whole band that is playing with him now. Second: Focus more on Nubian music.

Andeel: Third?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Travel more and get in touch with more diverse types of music, or leave the country, even though it’s too late. It’s just advice.

Andeel: Do you think he knows that a lot of people don’t like him anymore?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: I don’t think so. I think he now believes that there is a “nation” that listens to him.

Andeel: “Mounirians.”

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: I feel very sorry for them.

Andeel: Why?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: They are still deluded. And they say some really funny stuff.

Andeel: Like?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: That Mounir was the first Egyptian artist to use the distorted electric guitar. The first to appear in an international sports competition outside Egypt. Very naive things, and far from triumphs.

Andeel: Last question. When you see something like this ad, how do you feel?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: I feel like Mounir is a phone with a camera.

Andeel: Are you happier now?

Mohamed Salah Ramadan: Trying to make myself happier.

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