HYBRID BEATS, MASKED STARS & TIKTOK HOOKS:
MAPPING THE NEW EGYPTIAN SOUND
June 16, 2025
by Mai El Mokadem
​​If you asked me five years ago, I’d tell you Egyptian music was stuck in its comfort zone—shaabi, mahraganat, and pop, with occasional experimental flickers. To really feel how much Egypt’s music scene has evolved, you just have to compare what was dominating playlists and street speakers in 2020 vs. what’s moving the culture in 2025. The shift is real—not only in genre but in the entire texture of the sound, the references artists are pulling from, and how they’re performing and packaging their work.
Then the ground shook with beats and basslines. Artists like Wegz, Ziad Zaza, and Double Zuksh started dismantling barriers and rebuilding a fresher, bolder soundscape. Suddenly, Egyptian rap wasn’t underground anymore—it was at the center of the cultural conversation. Now, with global currents shifting fast, it feels like we’re guided by shifts in streaming habits, TikTok virality, and a generation craving authenticity.
In 2020… We were still in the mahraganat-peak era. Hassan Shakosh & Omar Kamal’s Bent El Geran was everywhere; from tuk-tuks down the streets to weddings. Electro-shaabi was raw, aggressive, bass-heavy, with minimal melody and tons of autotune.
Artists like Hamo Bika, 3enba, and Hassan Shakosh dominated streaming charts. Egyptian rap was still more niche—Shahyn, Abyusif, El Joker were big within the rap community, but the genre hadn’t fully broken into the mainstream until names like Marwan Pablo, Wegz, and Marwan Moussa pushed it into broader public consciousness. The trap beats were often simple, heavily inspired by US hip hop. Pop was static. Amr Diab and Sherine were still top of the charts, but none of their older hits kept resurfacing like today pushed by Y2k nostalgia. Very little stylistic experimentation in the pop scene.
In 2025, the sound is way more layered and hybrid. Trap-shaabi and Oriental-drill are defining the streets and TikTok.
Wegz has shifted from pure trap to a global hybrid with collaborations like alongside Montreal-based producer Ash and more.
Ziad Zaza is blending drill rhythms with Oriental samples and vuneralibity (Wrangler Beda).
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Rap has crossed over—no longer niche. Marwan Moussa, Afroto, 3enba—their tracks are playlisted right next to pop and mahraganat on Anghami and Spotify. The rap production has matured: deeper beats, more varied flows, cleaner mixing, with a rise of local record labels like Beatroot Records and independent producers.
Pop is going global via TikTok. Older songs like Amr Diab’s Nour El Ein and Sherine’s Kalam Eineh are reentering public consciousness through viral trends. Ruby’s Leih Beydary Keda, Haifa Wahbe’s Touta, Nancy Ajram’s Enta Eih saw a second life.
Even TikTok kids abroad are dancing to old Amr Diab.
Visual culture has also levelled up. In 2020, Egyptian music videos were either super basic (mahraganat clip style) or ultra-glossy and fake. Now? Look at Ziad Zaza’s SKHNT video—a full cinematic experience. Wegz shoots internationally. Pablo spends millions on visual production. International collabs and aesthetics are also creeping in fast. You see Egyptian rappers featuring North African, Levantine, and even African artists. There’s no more fear of borrowing from amapiano, Afrobeat, drill, hyperpop.
The last five years have been nothing short of a cultural reset for music in Egypt, and frankly, around the world. Where once there was solid division—pop on one side, shaabi and mahraganat on the other—we’re now seeing an explosive mix of rap, trap, drill, and underground sounds happily coexisting with the old guard. In 2020: We were talking about categories—pop vs. rap vs. mahraganat.
In 2025: We’re talking about vibes and hybrid identities. The younger generation doesn’t care if it’s “rap” or “shaabi”—if it hits, it hits.
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We can’t dissect the evolution of Egypt’s rap scene without mentioning Marwan Pablo and Abyusif, who crossed over the genre to mainstream. Pablo, whose 2020 comeback (Ghaba) felt more like a cultural event than a music release, continues to shape the underground’s pulse with cryptic verses and industrial production. Abyusif, ever the shapeshifter, helped lay the groundwork for what Egyptian rap could sound like—dark, experimental, and proudly unpolished. His lyrical unpredictability and punk sensibility still ripple through today’s younger artists.
Wegz enters the frame as a force of his own—his 2021 track Keify Keda skyrocketed him into local success, his 2022 track Ezz Al Arab got airplay during the FIFA World Cup halftime, and this all catapulted him to Spotify’s most-streamed artist in MENA in 2022.
His fusion of trap, hip-hop, and even romantic flows have become the sonic shorthand of a generation. Meanwhile, Ziad Zaza pulls from El Sheikh Hassan’s streets in Fayoum into drill/Oriental trap hybrids. He’s something of a sonic locksmith, unlocking influences from Brazilian funk and diggers.
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Afroto, on the other hand, carves out a different mood altogether. Smooth, melancholic, and laced with emotion, his tracks walk the tightrope between street and soul. His ability to make introspection feel anthemic (Msh Bel 7ozz comes to mind) gives him crossover appeal without watering down the Alexandria-rooted grit that defines his flow. Zoom in on Double Zuksh, a rising talent on the same wave, who mixes urban beats and mahraganat with soulful grit. Perhaps most notably, “El Melouk” by Ahmed Saad, Double Zuksh, and 3enaba landing in the end credits of Marvel’s Moon Knight—a surreal pop-culture moment that signaled just how far Egyptian rap had travelled. What’s exciting here is how Egyptian rappers are morphing global genres—drill, trap, Afrobeat—into musical languages that speak directly to theirs. They aren’t mimicking, they’re remixing, re-contextualizing.
This Egyptian wave mirrors larger global trends propelled by TikTok and streaming platforms. According to TikTok’s Music Impact Report 2024, a whopping 84% of songs in Billboard’s Global 200 chart went viral on TikTok before they hit the charts. This theory doesn’t just apply as a Western phenomenon; it’s a new user behavior, a micro-content culture where a 15‑second hook can define an artist’s trajectory.
As TikTok became the go-to discovery platform, virality became the new launchpad. If there’s one thing the last couple of years have proven, it’s that TikTok has redefined what it means for a song to “break.” It’s no longer about the latest release—sometimes, a track from five years ago can find new life with a Gen Z dance, a remix trend, or a single viral video. Case in point: Al Waili’s track 2010. Originally released in 2019 as part of his ambient-electronic fusion explorations, 2010 has recently exploded on TikTok in Egypt and beyond, soundtracking comedic trends, aesthetic reels, nostalgic edits, and moody late-night montages. The track’s hypnotic beat and sparse vocals lend themselves perfectly to TikTok’s bite-sized, loop-friendly aesthetic, and suddenly, a song once considered niche electronic is back on everyone’s radar.
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It’s not just indie artists benefiting from the algorithmic afterlife. Sherine’s older tracks—notably Kalam Eineh and Sabry Aalil —have been circulating across TikTok, not only in the Arab world but internationally. Sherine’s voice, long a mainstay of Egyptian mainstream pop, has found new audiences through viral clips, reinterpretations, and sped-up edits. On Spotify and YouTube, streams of her catalog have surged as younger, global audiences discover (or rediscover) her ballads through this new format.
Amr Diab is one of the clearest cases of this. Tracks like Tamally Ma’ak, Nour El Ein, and Amarain have been circulating on TikTok internationally — used in lifestyle videos, makeup transitions, wedding edits — particularly in European and US-based Arabic diaspora circles. Suddenly, Amr Diab is getting new streams and reaching a Gen Z audience who may have never interacted with his music before.
Even mahraganat artists are seeing global TikTok moments. Mahraganat by Hassan Shakosh, Omar Kamal and Hamo Bika have popped up on TikTok abroad — used in dance videos and meme edits — and are driving curiosity and streams outside Egypt. Egyptian music, in all its forms, now exists in a constant state of rediscovery, remix, and export. For many artists, that’s the new frontier.
One of the clearest signs that the scene keeps twisting in on itself is the runaway success of Tul8e’s Habeeby Leh. A track that — on paper — shouldn’t have blown up in 2024 the way it did: a pure slice of Y2K Arabic pop aesthetic, glittery synths, syrupy melody, vocals delivered with both irony and love. But that’s exactly why it worked. Habeeby Leh hit TikTok at the exact intersection of retro nostalgia and a Gen Z craving for aesthetic maximalism.
The track spawned hundreds of thousands of TikTok videos — from outfit transitions to ironic dances to full-on 2000s-era edits.
In the process, it introduced Tul8e’s masked persona to a mass audience — and cemented what’s now a clear “masked artist” wave in Egypt’s music scene.
What’s also fascinating is how Tul8e’s viral success looped back to older artists: as Habeeby Leh went viral, so did edits and remixes of older Y2K tracks by the likes of Wama, Elissa, and early Tamer Hosny — creating a feedback loop where new and old sounds became part of the same TikTok-fueled nostalgia wave.
Artists like Tul8e, Snor, Turk, Arabian Panther, and more are now leaning into the masked/anonymous identity as a core part of their visual strategy. It builds mystique, plays perfectly to the fast-scroll culture of TikTok, and allows artists to separate persona from person — critical in a scene that can be polarizing and fast-burning.
Pop artists like Nourine Abouseada and Amira Adeeb, and hip-hop musicians like Ahmed Basyoni are tapping into teasing snippets way before their release on Tiktok. They’re smart about release strategy—your new track or verse goes up, snippets get clipped into rehearsals, dance videos, or GIFs, and the buzz builds. It all feeds back into streaming streams on Anghami, YouTube and global platforms. The industry has adjusted: labels, PR, even brands, keep an eye on TikTok metrics as early adopters.
However, this shift isn’t limited to genre blending; it’s also about how artists position themselves culturally. Egyptian rappers are juggling Egyptian Arabic with English to open global filters, adopting vernacular beats, and reclaiming local narratives, like Pablo’s street-rhythm bravado, Abyusif’s gritty flow or Abo Elanwar reclaiming Mahraganat roots—this is Egypt’s new musical identity.
At the same time, a parallel wave is emerging, one that blurs language and location even further. Artists like Naïka, the Haitian-French-American singer who frequently peppers Arabic lyrics into glossy pop and Afrobeats tracks, are finding global appeal by playing with cultural codes. Similarly, Saint-Laurent, the Palestinian-Algerian artist whose sleek visuals and fluid transitions between English and Arabic reflect a diasporic, genre-fluid identity, is gaining traction among younger audiences both locally and abroad. Their bilingual releases ride the algorithm wave—TikTok edits, bedroom dance videos, and Spotify Discover Weekly slots—without ever having to choose a side.
And it’s not just a sonic decision—it’s a sociopolitical one, too. There’s an irony at play: Arabic, a language often sidelined or even stigmatized in pop cultural spaces, is now being embraced when it’s layered over Western-style production, sung in a breathy tone, or captioned with aesthetic fonts on reels. Many of the region’s so-called “cool kids” wouldn’t necessarily stream classic Arabic albums or know the words to a Warda song, but will quote a line from a French-Arabic track on their IG story if it sounds cosmopolitan enough. It reflects a generational contradiction—one foot in cultural nostalgia, the other in global validation.
This new musical moment doesn’t just sound different; it’s tangled in questions of class, diaspora, access, and aesthetics.
Arabic becomes a texture as much as a language: something you can vibe with without necessarily understanding.
And for many artists, that’s both a blessing and a tightrope.
Meanwhile, the global stage is shifting too. Nigerian Afrobeats, South African amapiano, and regional hip hop are rising across the board (stream counts up 550% on Spotify since 2019). It’s a world where music isn’t just exported, it’s cross-pollinated. South Africa and Egypt aren’t isolated anymore; they’re remixing each other. The last five years have also given rise to micro-genres: hyperpop, glitchcore, digicore—shapes that live and evolve mid-scroll. Egypt’s scene is evolving like that, too—with trap-shaabi, drill, and oriental-trap artists she’s creating hybrid sounds for local playlists and global ears.
If you ask me, the Egyptian music scene of 2025 is unrecognizable from the one in 2020. Our guesses for the next five years? Short‑form content will shape production, genre mashups will keep getting wonkier (trap-shaabi‑drill‑electro‑shaabi anyone?), and Egypt could break deeper into international circuits—festivals, tours, styles.
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Maybe the rise of genre-bending collectives blending traditional instruments with club beats. Or maybe artists will stop chasing virality altogether, creating songs just for the Tiktok algorithm, and start leaning into raw, offbeat experimentation.
What matters is that originality and renewal is what keeps people hooked.
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