Nostalgia, reflection and faith. After garnering millions of views over the past few years with a string of hits, on Afroto’s first real studio album ‘Best Songs of 2024’, the Egyptian hip-hop sensation reminisces on bittersweet memories from a bygone era of his life. In many ways, the 12-track album is a space where Afroto reflects and recognizes where he started, and how far he’s come as an artist.
"During the three months of making the album, all I kept thinking about were my memories. There are plenty of hidden gems inspired by different periods of my life,” Afroto tells SceneNoise. “Even the computer is a memory."
Marking Afroto’s first project with Egypt’s Hip-Hop Beatroot Records, with whom he signed earlier this month, the album is an eclectic fusion of his signature interpretations of shaabi and mahraganat, with elements from reggae, afrobeats and house.
Whilst making the album, Afroto drew inspiration from his older tracks as well as retro Arabic cassette mixtapes, which are usually used to combine all of the best hits of a certain artist on one record tape during pre-digital streaming. He curated the tracklist of the album in a way that showcased his versatility as an artist, with the goal of making it the hit of the year (as he made it quite clear in the album’s moniker, which means ‘Best Songs of 2024’ in Arabic).
The album features a number of collaborative tracks, such as ‘MONW3AT 2019’ with his Ra2smal partner Marwan Moussa, ‘Vodoo’ with Ziad Zaza and Ismail Nosrat, and ‘Kebda’ featuring Wezza Montaser on the production.
