Thread: Shaabi or Pop?

so...I'm just trying to get a handle on Shaabi. What is there, if anything that differentiates "shaabi" from just "pop"? The shaaban are the singers and from what I understand it's connected to a balady style of music, music of regular salt of the earth people, but doesn't that make most all arabic pop just modern shaabi? I feel like I'm missing some nuance here. What are your thoughts on the subject?

Also what do you call the music/singers who don't do the the popular or the shaabi stuff, who sing the more tarab stuff like most classic om koulthum?

There are some helpful liner notes on Yalla Hitlist Egypt about this.

The way I understand it, shaabi is what you said - songs of the working class people. (For example, Hakim.)

Another genre is al jeel, which is basically lighthearted pop intended for just getting your groove on dancing. (For example, Amr Diab.)

I see both shaabi and al jeel as being "pop", just different flavors of it.

This is a REALLY interesting question and one that has been bugging me too. I've explained it to MYSELF (no idea if this is right, though) that sha'abi music tends to be "edgy" in some way, maybe edgy politically, or sexually, or whatever. Like the difference between "insurgent country" and mainstream country/Western music. But then I might be totally off base...

RE: Um Kulthum, I've read her and other singers of that era (like Abdel Halim) described as the founders of Arab "popular" music. I guess if you define "popular music" as music with mass appeal, that makes sense, but it fries my brain a little bit to think of Um Kulthum as being lumped in the same genre as some of the Arabo-Brittneys that are bopping around these days...

Nisaa

ok, the al jeel, shaabi separation is helping a little. I know there is a word out there for the more high art singing that's fus-ha poetry and all that - maybe it is just tarab, but I just can't remember. I know Um K. isn't Shaabi - (well except a little ghanili shway, shway, which is a Shaabi song).

I know Shaabi uses the colloquial language, but so does al jeel right? So I totally can hear the difference between Saad al Soghier and Amr Diab, but where do you sort of draw the line?

Hakim - Shaabi
Ahmed Adawiya - Shaabi
Amr Diab - Al Jeel
Ruby - Al Jeel
Nancy Ajram - Al Jeel
Gawaher - Shaabi?
Baha Sulton - Al Jeel?

Is Shaabi really that much more edgy? Would you say Shaabi is a strictly Egyptian thing or would you say every Arabic culture have their own Shaaban? Maybe it's called something different? Like is Rai sort of Algerian Shaabi?

by the way, what does "al jeel" mean exactly? Does it have a direct interpretation to English?

so many questions I have today...

I LOOOVE Sha3bi! The way I look at the difference between Jeel and Sha3bi is the difference between mainstream pop and R&B here in the US. So Amr Diab would be considered Jeel vs Sa3d el Soga3yer who would be considered Sha3bi. Hakim from what I'm told still falls into the Sha3bi category but in a Will Smith hip hop commercialized kind of way. I could totally be off but this is how I've understood it. Sha3bi is street music, really soulful. The lyrics are usually about nothing or can even be raunchy or just a joke. I love it and spend most of my time listening to Sha3bi. I wish I could perform to it all the time, but I fear that it would be lost on western audiences? The best songs are usually found on bootleg/mix CD's. Its really difficult to find it here in the states but Dee Dee of Little Egypt carries some.

Originally Posted by shems

ok, the al jeel, shaabi separation is helping a little. I know there is a word out there for the more high art singing that's fus-ha poetry and all that - maybe it is just tarab, but I just can't remember. I know Um K. isn't Shaabi - (well except a little ghanili shway, shway, which is a Shaabi song).

I know Shaabi uses the colloquial language, but so does al jeel right? So I totally can hear the difference between Saad al Soghier and Amr Diab, but where do you sort of draw the line?

Hakim - Shaabi
Ahmed Adawiya - Shaabi
Amr Diab - Al Jeel
Ruby - Al Jeel
Nancy Ajram - Al Jeel
Gawaher - Shaabi?
Baha Sulton - Al Jeel?

Is Shaabi really that much more edgy? Would you say Shaabi is a strictly Egyptian thing or would you say every Arabic culture have their own Shaaban? Maybe it's called something different? Like is Rai sort of Algerian Shaabi?

I know for sure there is Morroccan and Syrian Sha3bi. I don't think it's really more edgy rather than more street than jeel.

When I've looked for Moroccan shaabi for my group to perform, I've found a lot of songs that are very political or too heartbreaking in content to really want to put on stage - but there's certainly party shaabi as well. For me, it's a bit like comparing down-home American blues to slick American pop.
ETA: Why do I keep thinking about Bruce Springsteen? LOL

Funny I asked this same question to Hadia in her Level one training. She explained it this way and its not an exact quote!
Shaabi is an offshoot of the beledi style, call it a modern beledi. Yes it is "for/from the people". The kicker is that Shaabi is, as noted above a little bit more cheeky, literal instead of implied. I would also place Mawal in the Shaabi categroy as well.
Although Shaabi can be considered in the "pop" genre so aren't Amr Diab etc. I think the category "pop" crosses different boundaries and is a larger subset of the genre. Shabbi doesn't always equal pop and vice versa.
Think of what you hear on our "top 40" stations and what we would consider pop. Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Madonna, but some country songs come up in there as well as hip/hop, alternative, etc.
I don't think there are exact lines to be drawn.

okay, I did a quick search online and I found a few articles and things. Thanks for your insights as well.

I guess it's music education week for me:

Arab music: genres

Jeel, Rai and Al-Aghanni Wataniyeh from a dancer's Very Incomplete Guide to Arab Music

al jeel: Afropop Style -- Egypt, North Africa

Middle Eastern Music: A Very Brief Introduction

Chaabi (music) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Music of Egypt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by shems

Would you say Shaabi is a strictly Egyptian thing or would you say every Arabic culture have their own Shaaban? Maybe it's called something different? Like is Rai sort of Algerian Shaabi?

There are definitely different sha'abiyat. Others have already mentioned Moroccan, Syrian...there's definitely Palestinian sha'abi music.

I don't have time to read the thread right, but will later, forgive me if I repeat...

According to Tarik, Morocco's protoge', state sanctioned musicians, who have run through state sanctioned university programs and because of this whose music can be played on state sanctioned radio statiosn (are getting the inference?) such as Amr Diab, Nancy Ajram sing pop.

Shaabi is sung by those who have not passed through the state sanctioned music courses, thus they are not approved to be played on the state run music stations, but is the music that does indeed come from the ghetto, barrio or whatever you want to call it, sung by Saad, for example.

This is an interesting topic, I'm reading through the articles that Shems posted right now. One more question: do you have a tendency to pick one over the other?

While reading the articles I realised that I like to use Al Jeel music and that Shaabi isn't my cup of tea (in general) without knowing that they were different types of music. I can hear the difference, but never thought about it being a different kind of pop.

looooove this thread!

Originally Posted by Shaunte

I LOOOVE Sha3bi! The way I look at the difference between Jeel and Sha3bi is the difference between mainstream pop and R&B here in the US.

That's the same analogy Tarik Sultan used at the workshop Kina also mentioned--I think he said pop in place of jeel, but same meaning.

There's also a difference in production in the recordings I have heard--jeel/pop is clean and bright, whereas the sound on sha'bi is grittier. It might just be a function of the sound equipment the musicians have access to, since sha'bi wouldn't have access to state-sanctioned resources, but I would bet it's also a conscious attempt to capture more of a feeling of being in the room with the musicians.

I know there's Tunisian sha'bi, from Aisha Ali's DVD on that subject.

I've also noticed the difference in the past two months. For me, the main difference was that jeel had a more westernized style.

Originally Posted by mekyria

This is an interesting topic, I'm reading through the articles that Shems posted right now. One more question: do you have a tendency to pick one over the other?

While reading the articles I realised that I like to use Al Jeel music and that Shaabi isn't my cup of tea (in general) without knowing that they were different types of music. I can hear the difference, but never thought about it being a different kind of pop.

I prefer shaabi to listen to - but not to dance to unless I can run the lyrics (and implications - as much of street Arabic isn't in the words so much) past a trustworthy Egyptian speaker. I know three songs I wanted to dance to were totally inappropriate.

I love listening to and dancing to shaabi, prefer it to pop.

I am worried about dancing to something that I don't understand and with shaabi even more so.

Hakim is a shaabi style singer but not considered a proper shaabi singer-he comes from a middle class family the important thing is it is street/working class music.Shaabi singers don't have the extensive traing a clasical singer has to have, they work they way up through local weddings and gigs to the nightclubs on Pyramid Road. Shaabi lyrics have often double meanings-sometimes rude,political or religious- they sing using the street language.Al Jael (youth music) is a bit more Middle class-I'm generalising a bit here of course.

Originally Posted by Candi

Hakim is a shaabi style singer but not considered a proper shaabi singer-he comes from a middle class family the important thing is it is street/working class music.Shaabi singers don't have the extensive traing a clasical singer has to have, they work they way up through local weddings and gigs to the nightclubs on Pyramid Road. Shaabi lyrics have often double meanings-sometimes rude,political or religious- they sing using the street language.Al Jael (youth music) is a bit more Middle class-I'm generalising a bit here of course.

This sounds right to me!!!!

And I would agree with what someone else wrote, that there is a kind of natural progression from beledi style to sha'abi style, but sha'abi has that sort of hard-edged urban working-class sensibility, and to me it seems a lot rougher/raunchier.

At least with Egyptian sha3bi, there is a tendency to use car honking. Karim Nagi explained to me that it's common after soccer games for people to honk their cars while blasting their music.

Nancy Ajram is not Al-jeel really. Although a lot of her music is in Egyptian dialect she has this odd tendency to us retro 80's type sounds in her music.

Great thread !!!

Maria Aya

Originally Posted by shems

Is Shaabi really that much more edgy? Would you say Shaabi is a strictly Egyptian thing or would you say every Arabic culture have their own Shaaban? Maybe it's called something different? Like is Rai sort of Algerian Shaabi?

One thing I've been told over and over again when asking about shaabi is that shaabi can be from anywhere but baladi is Only Egyptian

Another article that might interest you:

Listening to Umm Kulthum [MESA Bulletin, December 1996]

****************

"In broad terms, her repertory falls into groups of songs: ...; the colloquial songs, or zajal, often by Bayram al-Tûnisî and Zakariyya Ahmad, most from the 1940s;"

"Bayram al-Tûnisî, one of the outstanding colloquial poets of the century in Egypt, worked often and successfully with composer Zakariyya Ahmad to create songs linked to the grass roots of Egypt. Works and melodies moved with the everyday speech and common entertainments of the country and were at once strikingly familiar and artistically gripping."

****************

It goes on to say some of Oum Kolthoums songs that would be considered in that category are Ana Fi Intaizarak and Huwa Sahih (*sigh* two of my faves)

It's interesting that such colloquial songs would have been considered "popular" at the time (even poshed up) and, in my mind at least, shows an early development/acceptance of what would emerge later as Egyptian shaabi music through artists such as Ahmed Adaweya.

I usually start my shaabi history with Adaweya, mainly because he is so well known and his music career relatively traceable as the fore-runner of modern shaabi music. But the development of shaabi didn't come *from* baladi... baladi is quintessential Egyptian, it's urban folklore steeped in tradition, whereas shaabi can be from Anywhere, it's popular lower class culture from urban or rural sources mixed with growing global awareness. What I mean by that is, shaabi developed alongside the desire to 'get it out there', not in a MTV sort of way but that the music needs to be heard and reacted to. Wether it be shock, laughter or disgust, it was never really for "mainstream" consumption and that's where pop/jeel fills that niche just nicely.

Morocco wrote in the MEDlist that shaabi music came from shaabiya (rural) music combined with modern pop... I'm paraphrasing though 'cos I can't put my hands on the actual email atm.

To be honest, it's getting harder to tell them (shaabi/pop) apart because there are some shaabi artists that are fairly mainstream now (shaabi soft?) and, oddly enough, a prevalence of Egyptian teachers teaching shaabi "dances" to songs that are more pop than not.

Like Shaunte said, real shaabi is hard to get if you can't go down to your local cassette kiosk in cairo to pick up the latest... one can wish

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mAk6BiZs8A&eurl]YouTube - Helene - Shaaby[/ame]

I got this from a thread on Bellydance Forum.
Now That's What I Call Shaabi! - Belly Dance Forums

Subsequent searches for Shaabi have alas only found routines in bedlah sans attitude

interesting thread, I've been wondering about this myself...

curious though...How do Arab audiences feel about dancers dancing to chaabi vs. al jeel songs? Are different songs/singers appropriate/inappropriate for certain venues? (are those questions worth asking?)

Shaabi isn't supposed to be suitable for polite company. As some songs can get quite salacious, controversial or just plain bad taste, they wouldn't be appropriate for a respectable function. Like a wedding.

Well some weddings aren't hosted by polite people

Doesn't "jeel" mean "generation", or is this word everyone is referring to different?

Originally Posted by kamilia

Doesn't "jeel" mean "generation", or is this word everyone is referring to different?

Jeel indeed means "generation". If I understand correctly, it has become associated with pop music in the sense of meaning "younger generation" music - ie, music that the younger generation would use when social dancing.

Hahahahahha...this is very true! Polite weddings are no fun anyway ..g.:

Originally Posted by kamilia

Well some weddings aren't hosted by polite people

Doesn't "jeel" mean "generation", or is this word everyone is referring to different?

Shems,

Thank you very much for starting this thread and all others who shared their knowledge. This is exactly the reason I promote this site to others. What a wonderful group of dancers!