In 2015, we were visited by a mysterious time traveler that departed Earth about 7000 years ago. Upon returning
to Earth, Rozzma was pretty shocked to find that the extent of our reverence for Tutankhamun’s 22.5 karat gold mask,
the epitome of human art at the time, was its presence on the semi valueless 1 pound coin, and that they even
broke the chin off of the mask in the Egyptian museum and had to glue it back together. Rozzma decided to rep the
mask, because according to him, it needs more attention – plus, it’s swag.
We became aware of this mysterious character with the release of some pretty incredible videos back in 2015, such as
Sheyaka in which we are presented with a reimagined modern-day Cairo, where Tutankhamun’s face is projected
all over the city and Rozzma dances on rooftops. In Baby, Rozzma shows off more of his space rave moves
while bragging about how he is so fly and gets the ladies to the dance floor. Since then, he has been unhinging
audiences throughout Europe.
A few days ago, Rozzma released his debut EP titled Donya Fakka. As an ancient being whose last experience on
Earth was during the Pharaonic era, Rozzma seems to be a bit underwhelmed by the present, and has decided to make
music from the future. As people in general find the need to make associations with other things they are
familiar with, so as not to find themselves disoriented, they have called Rozzma’s music “electro chaabi” and “world
music”; the latter of which is especially ironic considering he has been lost in space. Personally, he thinks of his
music as futuristic Cairo rave bass.
The EP is 6 tracks, and features the two songs mentioned above that initially pulled us into this oddball wormhole.
Though Donya Fakka hardly falls into the category of electro chaabi, what they do have in common is
their unadulterated Egyptian-ness. However, Donya Fakka stands alone with a sound fully independent: it is
the perfect soundtrack for a street race in Imbaba, or a year 3017 Pharaoh-futurist mafia party on a sub-woofer
stacked, gold plated felucca. “Rozzma” does in fact mean stacks, as in stacks of money, and aims to inject the
present with an iota of the wealth of the ancient civilization and “find proof for the existence of an era to which
modern science, technology and engineering owe their existence.
”The EP is rich, and exposes the different textures and quirks of Rozzma’s tripped out sound while remaining aesthetically cohesive. In "Asly,"Rozzma’s high pitched, auto tuned voice delivers fast paced tongue twisters over deep sub and zills. "Seeb Nafsak"is one of the slower, more reverb drenched tracks, while "Tany Tany"is a strobing, in your face adrenaline shot. The title of the EP itself is a clever conceptual play, as “fakka” means both “loose change” and “disassembled,” hinting at the phase to which Egypt has arrived in its lifecycle. Rozzma claims to have made this EP in “the attempt of tracing origin through destruction and the transformation of origin and reality within the process.”
Perhaps in the act of making music from a futuristic rave scene that he claims doesn’t exist, Rozzma is spurring the transformation of Cairo reality, and fulfilling a vision where the city can return to a futurist embodiment of its ancient origin. Perhaps he is just trying rack up stacks and upgrade to a 24 karat gold mask. What else is to be expected from a time-traveling Pharaonic gangster.
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