A week ago, I walked with four friends through Downtown Cairo’s light evening traffic. By the time we made our way into Zigzag, a music club, Canadian-Lebanese duo The Cripple had finished their sound check and a couple of dozen fans (and eager new listeners, like us) waited for the show to start.
As we settled in, I remembered what Cairo-based singer, composer and friend Nadah El Shazly told me only two weeks before: “Youssef Shazli [music curator] didn’t bring Zigzag’s live nights down to two because there weren’t musicians to programme; the problem is with the venue.”
Last summer, Zigzag launched its weekly live nights, a breed of music constantly at risk in Egypt. For the first four months, Shazli invited one act a week but come February, he was only allotted two spots every month, with owners blaming the high cost of equipment rental.
While the high cost of rental is one factor hitting the live music scene in Egypt, there are other factors at play aside from ill-equipped venues. Most independent musicians work without the support of managers, venues or the dream of financial sustainability.
Between limited outlets, red tape and a society reluctant to take its musicians seriously (most Egyptian parents do not believe music makes for a meritable career), perhaps the main feature that has characterised the independent music scene over the past 15 years is its enduring fragility. What was at the turn of the millennium deemed a fiery, promising playground never really came into full bloom.
It all looked a lot different in the early 2000s. This period saw the birth of Cairo Jazz Club, El Sawy Culture Wheel and the novel (now inactive) music festival SOS. The programmers at the helm tried to introduce underground music to the masses, and these spaces are considered launch pads for bands such as Massar Egbari, Wust El Balad and Cairokee – acts whose sound is standard in today’s scene. But then things began to stagnate.
One reason for this is the difficulty of opening or expanding a venue. For years, the independent music scene tried to move away from state support, which in the case of Egyptian artists is a bid to resist restrictions on creativity. By law, musicians who are not members of the government-aligned syndicate can face jail if they fail to secure permits.
This is a continuous battle, particularly for smaller venues that end up paying money to the syndicate (and the censorship authority and taxation authority), to ensure the show goes on – a deeply-layered web of corrupt and archaic regulations that are an impediment to venue expansion.
A second reason is that musicians have to compete for attention. Cairo Jazz Club and After Eight, for example, operate within a standard bar set-up, where audiences who come for the music mingle with those enjoying a night out. As such, musicians often find themselves swimming in a finite pool and singing to a disengaged audience. As El Shazly explained to me: sometimes you want to play music without worrying that you might become the background act.
Cairo Jazz Club, considered by many a boon to the scene, recently acquired a bigger space in an affluent suburb south of Cairo that is set to boast a mobile stage and accommodate between 700 and 800 people – a much-needed upgrade from its current, infamously inconvenient layout. But perhaps the long-term solution to Egypt’s beleaguered music community is not in another bar, given that the majority of the 20-some million inhabitants of its capital do not drink.
A third issue is the role that corporate money is playing in Egypt. There is a growing interest in independent musicians by powerhouses in the telecommunications and beverage industries. This has allowed a select few to dedicate their time to producing and performing music, and in one recent instance guaranteed 10,000 fans at one concert. What these bands have mastered are a steady stream of relatable lyrics and a solid fan base to start with.
But despite these corporate opportunities, the question of sustainability looms large, as it remains unclear whether the benefits of corporate money can trickle down to a wider musical playground.
The fate of the SOS festival is a case in point. When Vodafone’s global marketing strategy migrated to the web, SOS folded its operations in 2009, after three years and 18 wonderful editions. A number of other festivals have entered the scene in the past few years, and the one that managed to prevail is Sandbox, which is backed by Heineken.
A fourth point lies with the musicians and the wider political landscape. Cairo Jazz Club hosts four live gigs a week. Its roster apparently boasts 60 to 80 bands but the club’s entertainment and events manager told me recently that it’s often a challenge to fill up the monthly programme.
As most venues are unable to offer sufficient fees, musicians often find themselves between a rock and a hard place. This reluctance to commit to music becomes more pertinent within the wider political landscape. There was a fleeting explosion of self-expression post-2011 after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak. But many musicians joined the exodus of artists, academics and political dissidents, following the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power in 2012, and the economic slump that followed its ouster.
Some sought refuge and exposure in venues and festivals abroad (this weekend, Beirut’s Irtijal is showcasing five solo artists, the largest ever participation from Egypt) but a few persevered, including El Shazly, whose debut album will be out at the end of the year.
Is there any bright spot for the live music scene in Egypt? When architect-turned-cameraman Ahmed Zeidan launched Room in the second half of 2013, he envisioned a studio space that could be shared between his musician friends and a young crowd of film professionals, as revenue from coffee and tea was intended to cover rent. But after the opening, music took over, so eventually the wall that separated the studio from the cafe came down and a small but essential live music venue was born.
Zeidan became a curator by chance and now, for eight nights a month, Room offers what Cairo bars cannot: a dedicated listening experience with no distractions.
In December, Room launched a crowdfunding campaign, which allowed the space to repay its debts, install basic sound treatment, invest in two amps, a microphone condenser and live streaming equipment.
For now, its doors are open – a triumph insofar as signaling to an audience ready to take part in the lifecycle of music. But there is no telling what the near-future holds, not for Room or the scene at large.
Online, there is a burgeoning community of hip-hop and rap artists who, in a way, decided to skip the messy middleman, and in the process amassed hundreds of thousands of listeners. For El Shazly – and perhaps taking a hint from the international movement Sofar – what’s to come is a return of music to people’s homes, freed from the uncertainties that cripple artists and the venues that host them, “a space for musicians to hear each other’s work”.
This undoubtedly will defer the hope of a full-grown industry but, perhaps, it will champion a purer celebration of musicians and the music they love to create.
Heba El Sherif is a freelance journalist based in Cairo.
