Produced by Awakening Records, Egyptian popular artist Hamza Namira’s new album has been released in stores and a number of online platforms such as YouTube, iTunes, Spotify and Soundcloud.

The series of songs on YouTube include video clips complete with artwork, and lyrics in Arabic with their English translation.

Hours after the online release in late hours of 10 December, Namira's video clips garnered tens of thousands of views with a particularly high number of hits for the album's title track "Esma'ni" (“Listen to Me”) which gained150,000 views.

The songs tackle topics such as conflicts between the generations against the backdrop of the Egyptian Revolution (title track Esma'ni), Cairo's traffic jams (Dallemet Kedah Leih), an optimistic take on morning routines (Sabah El-Kheir) and praise for Prophet Mohammed (Ya Seedy), among many others.

The video clip for Dallemet Kedah Leih is a comic strips (by Sarah El-Shafaei) where the protagonist struggles with Cairo's traffic madness saying: "From the morning I'm drowning in troubles... I have to wait for the His Majesty to pass when he shamelessly drives in the wrong direction on a one-way-street... Why am I stuck in this traffic-jam. I should have never come to this city."

Most of the lyrics are written by Mahmoud Farouk with music composed and arranged mainly by Hamza Namira.

This album comes three weeks after the news broke about Namira beingdropped from the playlistsat Egyptian state radio stations.

Born in 1980 and hailed as Sayed Darwish's prodigy, Namira is known for songs that touch on social and humanitarian issues and is particularly known for his support of the 25 January revolution.

Having a very large base of followers – 4.5 million on Facebook and 2.5 million on Twitter – Namira is considered one of the Egypt’s most prominent artists.





https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/117690.aspx