The Hip Hop African

The artist I’m choosing to highlight from Egypt is Marwan Moussa. Marwan Moussa is a rapper and producer. He can make a beat for him to write to and then mix the songs by himself. This makes Moussa a triple threat. Moussa grew up in Cairo but now resides in LA where he makes his music and studies sound engineering. Moussa’s music is heavily influenced by American rap. Moussa use to listen to 50 cent, The Game, Eminem, Twist and Camron when growing up. When he heard the rolling Hi hats, and 808s, in trap music, Moussa knew that was the sound he wanted to make. Evident in his sound, Moussa has much of an Atlanta style. His flow and lyrics play hand to hand. His flow on songs can go from slow to fast pace. Its kind of an unexpecting sound. Moussa raps over those classic type trap beats, with a blend of pop, and electro sha’abi beats. The mix is becoming the new mainstream in Egypt. His album Propaganda, did great numbers and put Moussa on the map in his region. On Spotify he has 47,348 monthly listeners and 12.480 followers. On his album Propaganda, he takes his fans on a lyrical journey with melodies and impactful lyrics. He only started making music in 2016 but has songs with other Arabic Hip-Hop artists like Abyusif. Abyusif is featured on his song “la2 mafeesh”. Moussa’s trying to push the boundaries of Arabic Hip-hop with his less mainstream style of sound. By listening to Moussa music , the listener can tell it still has some Arabic pop sounds. However, he has heavily infused sounds that come from American Hip-Hop that sounds more trappy. I wanted to highlight Moussa as an artist because I see him as an innovator in a industry that is still on the rise. I can tell he wants to push the sound and change the narrative of Arabic Hip-Hop.