Laughter in the Dark: Egypt to the Tune of Change

In this insightful study, cultural critic El Rashidi (Chronicle of a Last Summer) examines the local hip-hop, rap, and trap scene born out of the 2011 Egyptian revolution that brought down President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year regime. Known as mahraganat, this distinctive Egyptian genre embodies the discontent of Egypt’s youth, tackling political, sexual, and socioeconomic realities, and young mahraganat artists such as Ramy Essam performed in Tahrir Square, the center of the uprising. When Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11, 2011, Essam’s “Sawt Al Horreya” (“The Sound of Freedom”) was played on every TV, radio, and satellite channel in the country, according to El Rashidi. But with the contrived election of army general Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as president in 2014, censorship became more extreme, for the first time extending to song lyrics and social media posts. Now, El Rashidi notes, mahraganat artists are prohibited from performing in public venues, and their music is banned on university campuses. But, she argues, a new flowering of free expression has taken hold, and young people now gather to listen to mahraganat in the streets. Told with an insider’s perspective—El Rashidi writes with equal authority when chronicling the revolution and analyzing song lyrics—this is a persuasive appraisal of the connection between art and politics. (July)