Thread by @monaeltahawy

This idea popped into my head this evening and it’s been such a gift and I’ve been scribbling away - yes with pen on paper - and it’s exciting me.

I wasn’t looking for it. It just appeared and said “HELLO WRITE ME NOW!”

So I am.

I seem to have conjured it by recalling the first time I heard Holiday by Madonna (on a school bus in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 1983).

And it turned into pages and pages on Umm Kalthoum, Swedish House Mafia, Nina Simone, The White Stripes, and Abdel-Hakim Hafez.

When I was 4 or 5, I would fall asleep only by having a radio next to me. I’ve always loved music - especially pop. I have zero snobbishness when it comes to pop. I love Umm Kalthoum and Nina Simone, yes, but I’m right there with pop stuff too.

And it wants to be written

And in that first tweet it should be Abdel-Halim of course. k and l on my tiny touchpad.

Halim of course doesn’t belong just to #Egypt. It’s so moving to see how many continue to love him.

Sawwah is the one for me.

I will make a playlist of course. But you don’t have to know the songs or even the singers/bands.

And there will be politics. Of course.

Isn’t there always?