Sayed Darwish

About Sayed Darwish

Sayed Darwish is revered as the father of modern Egyptian popular music and one of the most influential composers the Arab world has produced. In a career cut short by his death at 31, he broke from the ornate Ottoman-Turkish style and gave Egypt a musical voice rooted in the rhythms and speech of everyday people. His songs captured the working class, national pride, and the independence movement of the early 1920s, and his melody for Bilady, Bilady, Bilady became Egypt's national anthem. Every major Egyptian composer who followed, including Mohammed Abdel Wahab, considered him the essential starting point of modern Arabic song.