Egyptian Streets
In the summer of 1975, a 19-year-old with no formal musical training sat down with a decade-old poem and, amid the beginning of a civil war, composed a melody he assumed few would hear. Fifty years later, Ounadikom (I Call on You, 1976) is still being sung in the streets. Born on 9 July, 1955, in Beirut, Kaabour studied theatre at the Lebanese University before beginning to perform in small cultural gatherings. He came of age during the Lebanese Civil War, a period that would shape both his artistic voice and his political outlook. A Song Born in Crisis In 1975, with the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War, Kaabour turned to the 1966 poem by the Palestinian poet Tawfiq Ziad, Ounadikom, setting it to music and performing it as both his first composition and his first vocal test. While he had no formal musical training, the song was born out of a desire to offer moral support to those fighting across various fronts. Shared between his voice and a chorus, his youthful delivery gave the song a raw authenticity. The song spread in ways he could not have anticipated, Continue reading "Ahmad Kaabour: The Man Who Made Art a Form of Resistance in the Arab World" The post Ahmad Kaabour: The Man Who Made Art a Form of Resistance in the Arab World first appeared on Egyptian Streets .
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