I'm doing a lot of reading and video and movie watching on the topic of mahraganat for a writing project, and I thought I'd share this nugget.
In
2012 mahraganat artist Sadat was asked to compose a song for the
mainstream film Game
Over,
released in June, a remake of the Hollywood release Mother-In-Law
(starring Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez).
The song, “Haqqi Bi-raqabti” (my right to my neck? -- help, please!) appears in a scene where Egyptian
film stars Yousra and Mai Ezzedine lip-synch it. The scene looks pretty fairly ridiculous, especially Yousra (at age 61) dancing and
singing to the autotuned vocals of Sadat.
Here's the scene:
Sadat’s name does not
appear in the movie credits. I learned this from watching Hind Meddeb's 2013 documentary, Electric Chaabi, which you can purchase from Amazon.
I highly recommend it.
Very soon thereafter it would be hard to imagine mahraganat artists not
receiving credit or anyone other than the artists themselves
performing their own songs.
As a footnote, I love Yousra, especially in Mercedes and Al-Irhab wa al-Kebab.
