Egyptian hip-hop artist Molotof has been on a roll, and it looks like someone cut the brakes - just a few days after releasing his latest album ‘Gabal Ahmar’, the acclaimed producer has announced a new collaborative album to be released on November 11th titled ‘Soot El Share3’. Translating to ‘Sound of the Streets’ in Arabic, the album will consist of nine tracks, each in collaboration with a different artist from the MENA region.
The philosophy behind the album invites us to drag ourselves outside and reconnect with a music style that has been losing its voice in recent years, namely - as Molotof puts it - “the sound of the street, the sound of underground hip-hop and Mahraganat music.”
The artists collaborating on this project all came together to bring the spotlight back on the Arabic hip-hop and Mahraganat scene, focusing on the past decade in particular. This is reflected with the graffiti fonts and hip-hop aesthetic all over the artwork that Molotof has been sharing on Instagram.
Although the tracks will explore a wide variety of genres, the album is meant to encapsulate a single stylistic journey. The collaborators include some of the most influential artists in the region from a diverse range of backgrounds and influences, such as Palestinian hip-hop pioneer Tamer Nafar, founder of DAM, Cheen, Founder of the first female Arab metal band ‘Mascara’, and up-and-coming Egyptian Electronic music producer, El Kady. Sobeh El Fahd is also on the list, which is bound to lead to a Shaabi portion of the album.
The album not only brings on artists who have impacted their genres, like Palestinian- Jordanian rap icon, Synaptik, Shobra El General, who has been performing MC rap since 2004, or Egyptian rapper Rush, whose work in the 90s helped start the conversation of rap in Egypt, but the album also highlights some of the most forward thinking producers and artists of the Arab world such as producer/ singer songwriter Besh, whose genre-bending music is contributing to a new wave of music in Egypt.
While it‘s hard to predict what exactly this album will sound like, the ambition and mentality behind this project have already set it out as one of the most exciting upcoming releases of the year.
