The second of this month marked the 27th anniversary of the death of Egyptian diva Umm Kulthoum. The occasion coincided with the release of noisy remix on a CD bearing the signature of the artist Said Murad.
In his new release, Murad remixed the cadences sung by the late singer and presented them in a dancing tune he described as “special for nightclubs”. The new CD aroused controversy on the advantages and disadvantages of such a move and its impacts on Umm Kulthoum’s art, image and legendary personality in addition to its impacts on the composers who made her these cadences.
This affair, the Kuwaiti daily al Rai al A’m said, needs an extensive investigation regarding the use of allowing such actions. Can anybody play openly with the heritage in such a manner without fearing the consequences? This comes at a time of appreciating all the events that took place in honor of the late singer and her art such as the series directed by Enaam Mohammed Ali, the film directed by Mohammed Fadhel or the various parties held in Cairo and other Arab capitals in honor of this great singer.
For their part the TV stations aired concerts used to be performed live by the late singer reminding us with the beautiful time from which we have been inspiring the best musical masterpieces.
In the same context, we regret to learn of a script about the life history of the singer prepared by the late writer Saadiddin Wahbeh to be directed by Yousef Shahin which was not implemented due to the objection of the singer’s heirs.
The speech about the extremely high sales of Umm Kulthoum’s songs has become recurrent as this phenomenon is the distinguishing feature between modern audience and the productions of prominent singers such as Mohammed Abdel Wahab, Farid al Atrash, Abdel Halim Hafez, Fayza Kamal and others -- Albawaba.com
