ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
MELISSA BLOCK, host:
And I'm Melissa Block.
Now, some sounds from the alternative music scene in Egypt. Pop music there is dominated by slickly packaged songs and videos. A few bands are providing an alternative. One of them is called Black Theama. It combines Nubian rhythms with R&B, hip-hop, reggae, and other African-influenced sounds. Lyrics are sung in colloquial Egyptian Arabic. Black Theama has almost no money and not a single CD to its name.
But as NPR's Peter Kenyon reports, the band still manages to pack every show with adoring fans.
PETER KENYON: Getting to hear Black Theama isn't easy even for Cairenes with a taste for music found off the beaten path. The band's shows are not heavily advertised and they have almost no recordings to speak of. The band refuses to work inside the commercial music industry, preferring to painstakingly save money to produce its own recordings one at a time with the help of friends and supporters. This song, "Kharsan," is one of the few studio-quality recordings that exist.
(Soundbite of song, "Kharsan")
BLACK THEAMA (Singing Group): (Singing in Egyptian Arabic)
KENYON: Until the band's financial situation improves, Black Theama fans have to content themselves with seeking out their irregularly scheduled lived shows, and they do - forming an avid underground following that packs venues such as the Al-Sawi Cultural Center along the banks of the Nile River where they sing along with songs apparently learned from very low-fidelity, amateur live recordings passed around on the Internet.
(Soundbite of song, "Sheraton")
BLACK THEAMA: (Singing in Egyptian Arabic)
KENYON: This song, "Sheraton" is one of the band's most popular. Its lyrics, sung in a shorthand that assumes a lot of local knowledge, describe an early morning Cairo scene as ordinary Egyptians walk home to their poor neighborhoods, shuffling past the tourist-filled towers of the five-star hotels that line the Nile.
Nubian actor Amir Salah Eddin is one of three singers who front the band. He says they take their name, a stylization of "Black Theme," seriously, as they do their goal of avoiding standard pop-music cliches in their lyrics.
Mr. AMIR SALAH EDDIN (Member, Black Theama; Actor): (Through translator) What Black Theama does is that they combine the music from all the different black people in the world, like reggae, jazz, rap, hip-hop, and Nubian. But it's also in colloquial Egyptian language.
KENYON: In other words, don't expect high poetry or anthems to black power. What Black Theama provides are very personal street-level views of Egyptian life.
Singer Mohammed Abdo, who met Salah Eddin through theater work, says they try to celebrate the black experience in Egypt through their music.
Mr. MOHAMMED ABDO (Member, Black Theama): (Through translator) It means being special, and being dark-skinned in Egypt is always connected to the South. And people from the South have their own character, their own culture - even their tone of voice is different.
KENYON: Ancient Nubia included much of northern Sudan and southern Egypt, and dark-skinned Egyptians are invariably referred to as Nubians. Traditionally, they were given menial or servants' jobs.
But Black Theama doesn't want to be mistaken for a protest band. A song called "Magnoon," Egyptian for crazy, features one of the group's most popular musicians, violinist Mohammed Sami. For now, the only available version is this amateur recording posted by a fan on the YouTube Web site.
(Clip from YouTube video)
KENYON: Amir Salah Eddin says young Egyptians are familiar with alternative bands from other countries, and they're eager to embrace a homegrown group that bypasses the music industry to speak directly to them.
Mr. SALAH EDDIN: (Through translator) When they found a band here that achieves this, so they said, yeah, we should support this band.
KENYON: While mainstream Egyptian singers may croon about starry-eyed love and teenage heartbreak, a character in a Black Theama song responds to his fiancee's question about marriage by saying, why not ask me about the corrupt politicians who stole my dreams? Or about wealthy countries with children sleeping under bridges?
Salah Eddin says Black Theama's amazingly loyal fans, who flock to concerts that cost around $2 to attend, have reinforced his desire to pursue this, so far, unprofitable style of music-making.
Mr. SALAH EDDIN: (Through translator) We're not into this to be famous, because if we had wanted to be famous, we could have done one of the - just a Nubi song and we dressed like Nubians and we do the Nubian dance, and we could have been famous. But we are trying to do the thing that we believe in, the thing that goes straight to the hearts of people.
(Soundbite of music)
KENYON: Music critics say it's not clear that Black Theama could have achieved instant fame by sticking to traditional Nubian folksongs, but it is clear that their band has tapped into a hunger among young Egyptians for something that feels authentic to them today.
Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Cairo.