Egypt’s ‘King of Trobby Music’ ABOsahar Warps Shaabi and Trap in Experimental New Releases

Egypt’s ABOsahar is easily one of mahraganat/shaabi’s most pioneering voices. The native of El Minya (an agricultural and industrial town in Upper Egypt) effortly blends genres with his unique style psychedelia-infused shaabi dubbed ‘Trobby’. Following the release of his debut LP, The Caveman, on Cairo label, HIZZ, the mad-hat music maker has been slowly dropping a string of new material on his Soundcloud since the beginning of quarantine.
<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/860421625&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/abosahardj" title="ABOsahar" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">ABOsahar</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/abosahardj/im-the-orignal" title="Im The Orignal.... only imagine" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Im The Orignal.... only imagine</a></div> 
The first of these two recent tracks, ‘I'm the Original…Only imagine’, starts off with a mellow 4/4 beat, intricate percussion and a dramatic orchestral sample that likens the piece to the mellow end of minimal house music. About halfway through the song, things take a much more interesting turn as ABOsahar switches things back to his usual shaabi stylings, this time layering twangy guitars to give the track an old west, cowboy movie kind- of feel. It’s hard to describe, and honestly unlike anything we’ve heard from before.
<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/864661597&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/abosahardj" title="ABOsahar" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">ABOsahar</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/abosahardj/upper-egypt-sound" title="Trap..&amp;..Trobby..&amp;..Shabi..Upper Egypt SounD" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Trap..&amp;..Trobby..&amp;..Shabi..Upper Egypt SounD</a></div> Similar genre experimentations are present on the most recent track, ‘Trap…&..Trobby..&..Shabi..Upper Egypt SounD’, on which ABOsahar tackles the trending genre of ‘trap-shaabi.’ Practically a beat tape on its own, the track is about three different iterations of the same song stitched together, with each tackling a different subset of the trap-shaabi sound. Despite the tracks being almost entirely instrumental, one could easily imagine some of Egypt's best wordsmiths delivering absolutely killer verses over some of these beats. 

Rarely stagnant, and always pushing mahraganat into new sonic territory, ABOsahar is easily one of the most exciting and unpredictable producers on the scene.

Check out our interview with the King himself, here.