Ya Khal

Ibrahim X grew up in the industrial city of  Kafr El-Dauwar, where he and a group of other artists, including keyboard player and producer Yunis, founded Kafr El-Dauwar Records, challenging the notion that great new music was coming only from big cities like Cairo and Alexandria. Their first release was Ibrahim X’s Ya Khal, which captures the live energy of a wedding shaa’bi performance with its slow rhythms, psychedelic keys, and low bass grooves. Ibrahim here acts like a nabatshi, the MCs that keep the energy high during weddings and celebrations, delivering half spoken, echoey lyrics and repetitive refrains over looping, hypnotic synth lines.