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The Musicians’ Syndicate and the contradictions of state control over music in Egypt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Sophie Frankford Open the ORCID record for Sophie Frankford [Opens in a new window]
Sophie Frankford*
Affiliation:
Centre d’Études et de Documentation Économiques, Juridiques, et Sociales, 23 Gamal Al Din Abou Al Mahasen, Qasr El Nil, Cairo Governorate, 4272023, Egypt
*
E-mail: sophie.frankford@gmail.com
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Abstract

Based on 21 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Cairo with musicians who perform a musical style known as shaʿbi, this article unravels the complex role that the state-affiliated Musicians’ Syndicate plays in musicians’ working lives in order to investigate the contradictions of state control over music in Egypt. Focusing on moments of encounter between musicians and Syndicate officials, I consider why my interlocutors’ time was split between evading the Syndicate and its restrictions, and embracing the Syndicate by calling for it to implement harsher interventions. Doing so not only sheds light on the reality of cultural production in an authoritarian state, but also prompts a broader reconsideration of scholarly approaches to popular music censorship, requiring us to move beyond dichotomies of ‘state vs. society,’ ‘censors vs. censored,’ and ‘resistors vs. oppressors’ that have tended to dominate scholarship on music censorship.

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Article
Information
Popular Music , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , October 2023 , pp. 292 - 309
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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