{"id":111756,"date":"2022-09-16T16:44:44","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T14:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/maha-orkos-habibi-funk\/"},"modified":"2022-09-19T17:36:52","modified_gmt":"2022-09-19T15:36:52","slug":"maha-orkos-habibi-funk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/maha-orkos-habibi-funk\/","title":{"rendered":"Orkos: 70s cassette of Egyptian vocalist Maha resurfaces"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Habibi Funk unearthed yet another lost gem, this time pertaining to Salah Ragab&#8217;s Cairo Jazz Band vocalist Maha. <em>Orkos<\/em>, recorded in Cairo in 1979 combines jazz and Egyptian vocal traditions with funk, latin and soul.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In the 1970\u2019s and early 1980\u2019s, the arrival of the cassette in Egypt coincided with a deep change of the country\u2019s musical landscape. The widely monophonic Egyptian musical traditions made way for something new and many musicians started to incorporate into their tunes influences emanating from outside Egypt. Indeed, releases on cassettes were not as time-consuming nor as expensive as manufacturing a vinyl. This pushed producers to venture into new territories, then considered too risky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More musicians were able to release their sounds, with various levels of success, giving diggers a massive repertoire to go through. Back in June, it allowed DJ Disco Arabesquo to curate <a href=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/sharayet-el-disco\/\">Sharayet el Disco<\/a>, a compilation of 80s Egyptian boogie from his vast collection of old cassettes. Habibi Funk also draws on this almost bottomless ressource. Their latest find is a completely unknown album by vocalist Maha.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Habibi Funk \/\/ \u062d\u0628\u064a\u0628\u064a \u0641\u0646\u0643 : Maha - Law Laffeina El Ard (Egypt, 1979)\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7ajRQ0eVH2A?feature=oembed&#038;autoplay=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption><meta charset=\"utf-8\">Habibi Funk \/\/ \u062d\u0628\u064a\u0628\u064a \u0641\u0646\u0643 : Maha &#8211; Law Laffeina El Ard (Egypt, 1979)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Orkos <\/em>was originally published in 1979 by Sout El Hob and sales were most probably very limited in scope, resulting in the cassette being quickly forgotten after its release. No follow-up records were produced after this. Through their work on previous <a href=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/habibi-funk-releases-its-first-compilation\/\">reeditions<\/a>, Habibi Funk managed to put their hands on the album. Indeed, Sout El Hob label also released most of the music by Tunisian disco band Al Massrieen, which was honoured on one of the label\u2019s reissues. Pleased with their work, the label gave access to their back catalogue. Maha\u2019s <em>Orkos <\/em>stood out because of the singer\u2019s \u201cstrong and energetic voice equally grounded in jazz as well as Egyptian vocal traditions\u201d and the record\u2019s various influences: \u201cfrom the funk sounds of \u201cLaw Laffeina El Ard&#8221; excursions into Latin music in \u201cOrkos,\u201d to the moody mellow sounds of \u201cWe Mesheet.\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The German label located Maha in late 2021 to obtain her blessings. They learned she had played with various bands, including Salah Ragab\u2019s \u201cCairo Jazz Band\u201d. She stopped doing music altogether in the mid 1980\u2019s, as she faced some challenges, common at the time for women trying to make it in the music industry. Habibi Funk worked closely with aforementioned digger DJ Disco Arabesquo (it\u2019s a small world) on the reissue which will give a new life to Maha\u2019s music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><meta charset=\"utf-8\"><em>Orkos <\/em>out October 10th via <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/habibifunkrecords.bandcamp.com\/album\/habibi-funk-020-orkos\" target=\"_blank\">Habibi Funk<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/943943.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-111716\" width=\"840\" height=\"840\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/943943.jpeg 970w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/943943-759x759.jpeg 759w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/943943-100x100.jpeg 100w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/943943-661x661.jpeg 661w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/943943-465x465.jpeg 465w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/943943-375x375.jpeg 375w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/943943-200x200.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/943943-85x85.jpeg 85w, https:\/\/pan-african-music-production.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/943943-73x73.jpeg 73w\" sizes=\"(min-width:1010px) 759px,100vw\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Listen to Maha in our <a href=\"https:\/\/idol.lnk.to\/SongsWeekPAM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Songs of the Week<\/a> playlist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Habibi Funk unearthed yet another lost gem, this time pertaining to Salah Ragab&#8217;s Cairo Jazz Band vocalist Maha. Orkos, recorded in Cairo in 1979 combines jazz and Egyptian vocal traditions with funk, latin and soul. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3944,87],"tags":[5384],"location":[7958],"yst_prominent_words":[21416,21408,10225,8447,21417,8402,8435],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111756"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111756"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=111756"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=111756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}