What happens when a sound born in the streets grows into one of the most influential music movements in the region?
In Mahraganat: A Cultural Movement, Shehta Karika, Bassem Fanky, Dezel, Ortega, and Eslam Kabonga reflected on nearly 20 years of mahraganat, from sha3by weddings and homemade production to becoming a genre that reshaped Egypt’s music industry entirely.
“At our time there was no YouTube, no TikTok, no Instagram. We just had a dream,” said Shehta Karika, reflecting on the movement’s early days before it entered the mainstream.
The panel explored how artists like Oka & Ortega helped shape mahraganat into a recognizable genre rather than a passing trend.
“People thought it was simply a trend that would disappear, but we disrupted the industry.”
The conversation also highlighted how deeply the music is tied to place, with every neighborhood and city leaving its own fingerprint on the sound.
“To us, this was the sound of Egypt and its people and its streets,” said Bassem Fanky.
As mahraganat evolved, artists spoke about blending western influences with Middle Eastern sounds while constantly innovating without losing the genre’s roots.
Dezel reflected on seeing the genre travel far beyond Egypt.
“Not everyone there is singing along, but everyone is dancing. Not everyone understands it, but everyone is enjoying it. That’s the most important thing.”
Nearly 20 years later, mahraganat is no longer confined to sha3by spaces or dismissed as a passing phase. It has become one of the defining sounds of modern Egyptian music and a cultural movement that continues to evolve.
Why do certain songs end up becoming part of a country’s collective memory while others disappear just as quickly?
In this panel discussion, Hla Roushdy, Mostafa El Sweify, and Tarek El Sheikh unpacked the unpredictable journey behind hit songs, and the strange mix of instinct, timing, faith, and chance that can turn music into something that captivates an entire nation.
One of the strongest themes throughout the conversation was tawfiq, luck, rizk, and the belief that sometimes success comes from a feeling you trust before you fully understand it.
For Tarek El Sheikh, some of the biggest hits of his career started as risks he almost didn’t take.
“Some of my most famous songs, I was reluctant about in the beginning.”
The panel reflected on how stepping outside your comfort zone can sometimes lead to the songs people connect with most unexpectedly.
Mostafa El Sweify also shared how some of the most successful songs he worked on were never even meant to make the final album in the first place.
“Sometimes it’s the last minute additions that make the album.”
The conversation also explored how dramatically the songwriting process has changed over time. What once took months can now happen in a single day, changing not only the speed of music production, but the relationship artists have with creating music itself.
At the center of the discussion was one idea everyone seemed to agree on: no matter how much music evolves, there will always be an unexplainable element behind the songs that truly stay with people.
A music festival can start with a lineup, but the best ones end up reshaping how people experience a place.
At our panel discussing music festivals, culture, and tourism, some of the biggest names behind the region’s most influential festivals explored how festivals have evolved into cultural experiences that drive tourism, build communities, and create entire worlds, while also announcing the arrival of EXIT Festival to Egypt at the pyramids.
The conversation focused on one major idea: people no longer travel just for artists, they travel for experiences.
For Dušan Kovačević, EXIT Festival was always about more than music.
“EXIT served as a space for connection, reconnection, peace.”
As EXIT prepares for its Egypt edition at the pyramids, he emphasized how important location is to the festival’s identity: “Location is definitely part of our DNA.” - Dušan Kovačević.
The importance of worldbuilding and cultural representation came up repeatedly throughout the discussion. Speaking on behalf of MDLBEAST and Soundstorm, Ramadan Alharatani reflected on creating a festival that represented the Middle East through scale, variety, and unexpected collaborations.
“That’s where you create music history.”
Discussing Sandbox Festival, Tito El Khachab shared how the festival helped create an entirely new tourism moment for El Gouna, with occupancy rates now competing with major holidays.
“We try to represent as many genres as possible.”
The panel also explored how location itself shapes experience, from transforming warehouses into immersive spaces to activating historical areas without changing their identity.
“It’s about innovation and trying to give people space to experience new things.”
With EXIT aiming to welcome 15,000 attendees a day at the pyramids, the conversation made one thing clear: festivals today are no longer just events. They are becoming part of the cultural identity of a place itself.
Inside the mind of Hany Farahat:
from intimate conversations to live orchestration and real-time creation, a rare look at how music is imagined, built, and brought to life.
📍Townhall Stage at 7PM
Built to Break, live at Channel 4+
A conversation on one of music’s biggest structural flaws: talent without infrastructure becomes wasted potential.
This panel challenges how the industry treats artists, not as products to monetize, but as companies to build, govern, and scale.
From ownership and IP to governance and long term value, this is about rethinking what it really takes to build artists that last.
Artists are not products. They are companies.
#BuiltToBreak #Channel4+ #DROP
How does a song actually come together in real time?
In From Scratch: Building a Song in Real Time, Marwan Moussa broke down his creative process from the very beginning, while also speaking honestly about one of the hardest parts of making music: finishing.
Artists often collect unfinished demos and ideas, but turning those fragments into a complete song is the real challenge.
For Marwan, the process starts with listening first.
“I’m a multi genre artist, and the same applies to the music I listen to. I listen to a range of music and that inspires my music.”
From there, he walked the audience through experimenting with sounds, reversing them, sampling them, cutting them apart, and transforming them into something completely different from their original form. He explained how imagining the tempo early and locking the sequence of sounds can become the backbone of the entire track.
One of the most interesting parts of the workshop was hearing how he draws inspiration from Egyptian sounds in their rawest form, then removes them from their natural context to create something entirely new. Traditional textures blended with hip hop production, western influences merged with local references, and familiar sounds gained completely different meanings through timing, spacing, and experimentation.
When it came to writing lyrics, he shared how he approaches the song almost like a listener first.
“When I listen to the top line, I try to imagine it’s not me singing. I ask myself: what is he trying to say?”
Layer by layer, beat by beat, the audience watched the skeleton of a song come to life in real time.
