This is a story about class, music, grief, and the dangers of getting exactly what you want. Names have been changed to protect the living... and the dead. Reader discretion is advised.
Endnotes are included for readers unfamiliar with some of the Arabic terms, places, and cultural references. They're best read afterward so they don't interrupt the story.
Let me tell you about my favorite insult in Egyptian slang: bee’a. Bee’a is an Arabic word that means “environment.” However, Egyptians often use it to connote low-class. Not in the economic sense, but in the sense of loud and tacky behavior. Street rough. Shaabi. It can border on lowlife.
Bee’a is also associated with a poor sense of fashion—clashing colors on cheap microfiber fabrics that make your underarms smell like onions.
Because this word isn’t an expletive, it’s a useful way to insult a person or thing without breaking propriety. So you could say “il-wad da bee’a,” or “il-mazeeka dee bee’a.” (That guy is bee’a. That music is bee’a.) Or, as I once said to my musician boyfriend Adam—my “husband” in public—after he falsely insisted I was cheating on him, “inta bee’a.” (You are bee’a.)
Now THAT I don’t recommend, no matter how deserved it is—deploying it in the second person got me beaten to within an inch of my walking ability.
Moving on…
Ultimately, the concept is rooted in the brutal classism that hangs over Egypt like an eleventh plague. But that doesn’t mean it’s not useful, or that it can’t be a compliment. To me at least.
You see, to the consternation of everyone who took me under their wing in Egypt, I developed a serious affinity for all things bee’a— “trash” music, exaggerated moods and gestures, slums… Or maybe it was lying dormant my whole life. Maybe it was waiting for an excuse to come out after years of suppressing it in school. Especially grad school—I had grown weary from pretending to fit in with old-money, WASP-y types.
I was, after all, raised by lower-class Cuban immigrants on my mother’s side in my early childhood and again in my teens. English was not my native language. Yelling was. On top of that, we lived in a graffiti-covered tenement in the shadow of the Brooklyn Farragut projects. There was graffiti on the inside too—a giant rainbow spanned the ten-foot-long wall leading from the doorway to the rest of the flat. The whole situation was so embarrassing I never invited anyone over.
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| This looks exactly like the Brooklyn tenement of my childhood. |
In that sense, the sensory landscape of working-class Egyptians felt familiar. As did the all-around dysfunction. It spoke to my childhood.
More importantly, it’s how I came to know Egypt. It’s why I shunned the affluent, “American-adjacent” neighborhoods of Zamalek and Maadi and settled in some of the roughest slums Cairo had to offer—Dar il-Salaam and il-Talbiyya. Areas so uninhabitable that to this day, Egyptians of all classes refuse to believe I lived there.
…Power cuts. Cold showers and bucket baths. Clotheslines. Shit-breeze rising from the balaa’a—that gaping drain embedded in the bathroom floors of Cairo tenements.
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| Tuk-Tuk in a Cairo hara. |
Tuk-tuks—those gigantic, black subwoofers on wheels blasting mahraganaat, buzzing around the narrow streets of the hara. Microbuses pounding out the 80s and 90s shaabi of Hassan al-Asmar and Abdel Baset Hamouda…
It was a soundtrack that was even more alive than Brooklyn’s.
And the humanity of it all:
Lean men with chiseled faces hustling as bakers, butchers, bawwaabs. Ten-year-old tuk-tuk drivers. The ayy khidma types parking cars for baksheesh. Ball-shaped haggas sitting cross-legged on street dividers, selling tissues and begging motorists. Children doing the same.
Packs of young men hissing at women — “Ssss!” “Amar.” Half-naked toddlers, caked in dirt, climbing on cars like their canine counterparts. Parents nowhere in sight.
This was “bee’a-dom”—the raw pulse at the heart of Egypt’s mainstream culture. It produced a distinctive sass that often tipped into vulgarity but that was unmistakably earned. Rather than avoid it, I reveled in it. To me, any attempt to mask its “shameful stench” with the perfume of propriety was nothing more than a cultural hooker shower.
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Which brings me to Amir. Amir was the last singer in my band before I returned to the US in 2018. He was the reason I fell in love with dancing all over again; he was also the reason I eventually left Egypt.
From the moment he first stepped onto the Nile Princess, the dinner cruise where I performed seven days a week, I knew he was "the one.” I could tell just by looking at him.
A shorter man in middle age who looked older than his years, Amir covered his shiny, bald head with a hat—sometimes a fedora, sometimes a cabbie cap. There was nothing he could do about the deep grooves etched under his eyes. His daily uniform was an oversized, short-sleeved button down over cheap polyester pants and even cheaper shoes. He stood out against my slick-haired musicians in crisp black shirts, black slacks, and shiny black shoes.
This was the first point of objection as far as the boat management was concerned.
“Madame Luna, shakloo bee’a” the boat managers told me, their faces twisting in disgust. (Madama Luna, he looks bee’a.)
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| At a wedding in Cairo with my band. (This is not Amir.) |
Objection noted. Still, I let Amir audition with the band that night. Live.
Wanting to evaluate “Amir in the raw,” I told him to sing whatever his heart desired. What came out was one of the most powerful shaabi sets I had ever heard. Here was this frail-looking man with a voice that seemed impossible for his body—and his background: he had never taken a singing lesson in his life.
That night, I delivered one of the best shows of my life. It was so good I just knew that the management would change its opinion of Amir.
Boy was I wrong.
“Madame Luna, il-motrib da mish hayenf’a hina. Ihna makaan khamis nogoom.” (Madame Luna, this singer isn’t suitable for this place. We’re a 5-star venue.)
Don’t worry, I told the management. I’ll clean him up.
I had no intention of doing so. For many years and several reasons, I had tolerated truly bad singers in my band. But now, with such a fortuitous change of circumstances, I wasn’t going to let “bee’a” stand between me and the first singer I’d actually enjoyed. Screw the reputation of this “5-star” cruise that tilted for the two hours it cut across the Nile. Screw the pretensions of the boat management.
So I told Amir to come back the next day. And the next…
After two weeks of 45 straight performances, I realized he was a human dictionary of songs—a jukebox unto himself. There was no song I requested that he couldn’t sing…even when I tried to stump him with selections that left other singers blushing in incompetence.
Because of that, I did something no serious dancer is supposed to do: I let him lead. With the exception of high-profile weddings, I let him choose the songs for the night—I didn’t even require advanced notice. Surprise me, I would tell him.
Every night, Amir resurrected shaabi songs from the 80s and 90s—five-minute mawwals and all. Songs like Kitaab Hayaati, A’id il-Gorooh, and Il-Domoo’a Ashkaal wi Alwaan—depression manifestos set to dance beats. They soon became my favorites.
There were many songs I had never heard and was dancing to for the first time. In that sense, it was true improvisation—or rather, improvisation on his end, experimentation on mine. This only worked because I was willing to risk imperfection—my only consolation being that the audience didn’t know any better. ______________________________________________________________________
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| Another wedding with my band. (Violin player is not Adam.) |
The honeymoon with my new music obsession lasted several months. And damn it, I deserved it. For months, I had been carrying the entire band after Adam, my boyfriend and de facto band leader, died earlier that year. Amir’s ability to perform unrehearsed gave me a much-needed reprieve.
I was also learning a boatload of new songs. After every performance, I would call Amir into my dressing room and ask him what he had sung. Waffar Dawak. O’nwan Baytna. Shayyil il-Homool…I wouldn’t even wait until the sweat dried off my face, or until I changed out of my costume. I would then add the song names to an ever-growing list on my phone and listen to the originals in my free time. Many of them were straight-up bee’a anthems.
But I paid for it dearly. Handing some of my artistic control to Amir cost me the band’s harmony. And I don’t mean musical harmony. As other musicians had warned me, Amir’s head grew too big for his hat. He started peacocking, telling the band I favored him over the others—it wasn’t untrue. He would also clash with them on stage. (Never mind what happened off stage.) In the middle of any given song, Amir would direct the tabla player to dum here, change the rhythm there…signal the keyboardist to lower his volume or drop out entirely so the instrument wouldn’t overpower his voice.
Technically, he was right. Amir was always right. He was a superior musician, and there was no way to hide that. My other musicians, however, didn’t appreciate being bossed around by one of their own. They didn’t like this self-appointed maestro making them ‘look bad’ with his skilled, instinctual musical cues.
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It was my fault for not ruling with an iron fist—for trading my control in exchange for artistic excellence. I knew better, but I was desperate for the band of my dreams. Desperate. For years, I had suffered under Adam’s overbearing leadership. He had become possessive of me, so he did whatever he could to scare off good musicians… Like humiliating a tabla player for explaining to the backup drummers why I wanted my hair-flips set to tak instead of dum. “Howa inta shaggaal kawafer wihna mosh a’rifeen?” Adam mocked him in front of the band. (Are you a women’s hair stylist and we just didn’t know?) Or sending even worse violinists to replace himself on his days off, sparking all-out warfare on stage. To him, it was job security.
I could have stood up to him—I should have. Except our lives were inextricably tangled in work, music, and romance. He was the one who discovered me and fought to get me contracted on the boat—a complicated process that took well over a year. He was the one who fought off the belly dance police when they tried to arrest me after a show. Physically. And he was the one who fought off my dangerous ex when the stalking escalated. So even though I wanted control over my musicians, I was too in love, indebted, and intimidated to stage a coup against the man who made my career in Egypt possible. I waited until he died instead.
When that happened, I crowned myself band leader.
Over the years, Adam had demonstrated what it took to lead a group of feral musicians—brute force. Lots of shouting and forceful slaps to the back of the neck. I, however, was too mesmerized by the music to keep Amir in check. And I knew that a guy like Amir wouldn’t respond well to crackdowns from a younger foreign female.
I was also on one of the finest tours of Hell anyone could get. In the three months before Amir showed up, I had:
survived two back-to-back physical assaults by Adam that nearly left me disabled,
watched him drop dead of a heart attack two months later,
cycled through fifth-rate hospitals with near-death panic attacks triggered by Adam's assaults and watching him die,
fought off an untold number of men trying to take Adam’s place in my personal life.
Given the horror show that was my life, I just didn’t have it in me to babysit a group of grown-ass men. Not even when Amir threw a glass of hot tea at the tabla player after a show that went sideways. As long as I got my music fix, I was content to let them kill each other.
One night after our last show, I sat with my musicians on the upper deck at a table that had been dressed with clean plates, glasses, and silverware. I had become obsessed with a few songs and wanted the band to rehearse them before the next day’s first sail. All of my musicians agreed—except Amir.
“Ana mosh gaay.“ “I’m not coming”, he told me, crossing his arms and balancing on the hind legs of his chair.
“Lee ba’a?” I asked. (Why not?)
“Kidda.” (Just like that.)
I reminded him that rehearsals were part of his job…that not attending wasn’t an option.
He countered with: “Ya madame, a’la addi foloosik.” (Madame, I only do as much as you pay for.)
But of course. Amir treated me like Bank Amreeka—Bank of America. So did the others, but he had a sharper transactional edge. This wasn’t the first time he complained about money—he did it so often that the band and I called him il-shahaat (the beggar). But it was the first time he was so defiant.
Since the day I hired him, I had cut into my own salary to raise Amir’s pay several times, unbeknownst to the rest of the band. We had also been working like villains: back-to-back sails day and night, performances on all three decks, plus the weddings and early-morning cabarets we took on afterward. None of us made it home before the 10 a.m. rush hour. None of us took a day off.
It was also true that Amir had been unemployed for a long time before I hired him—not for a lack of talent, but because the initial objections of the boat managers mirrored those of the industry as a whole. He was too bee’a.
Yet Amir had the nerve to tell me in front of the others that night: “Ana ma baksabshi min il-shoghlana dee.” (I don’t make money from this job.)
Incredulous, I asked him why he showed up every night if he wasn’t making money.
He looked at me, then said:
“Ana gaay a’shaan gozik maat.” (I come because your husband died.)
Something in that cut straight through me in a way I didn’t have language for. In less than a second, I smashed all of the drinking glasses into Amir’s face with one forceful sweep of my right forearm across the table. Some of the glasses hit my other musicians as well. Never before had I seen the entire band paralyzed with fear.
As soon as I realized what I had done, I covered my face with my hands and shrieked so loudly that even the janitors on the bottom deck of the boat heard me. I ran out of the dining room and down two stories of spiraling stairs until I reached the dock doors. I flung the doors open and kept running all the way home.
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Somehow, I showed up for work the next day. I didn’t even have to tell the band to replace Amir—they already had.
We all sat in silence between each show—except for Zizo, the whirling dervish who spun around the stage during my costume changes. During a break, he broke that silence and the one lingering between us; we rarely spoke. Sitting next to me in my dressing room, he spoke with the pedantic authority of someone who knew he’d never lose his job:
“Ya Luna, illee intee a’maltee da ghalat giddan giddan.” (Luna, what you did was a very big mistake.)
He went on to lecture me about respect…about professionalism. He didn’t even ask why I attacked Amir. Zizo hadn’t witnessed the whole interaction, nor was he privy to the dysfunction festering between me and the band.
But more than that, Zizo wanted Amir back. He too had suffered years of terrible singers. In that sense, he had been Amir’s biggest defender, second only to me.
“Didn’t they tell you what Amir said to me that night?” I asked him. “That he only comes to work because my husband died? Amir didn’t replace him as a musician—he’s a singer, not a violinist. Amir was just throwing Adam’s death in my face to sexually humiliate me in front of the band!”
“Ikhs a’laykee ya Luna,” Zizo responded. “M’alaysh, intee mabtifhameesh a’rabee.” (Shame on you, Luna. Pardon my frankness, but you don’t understand Arabic.)
“Shaatir, ya Zizo,” I countered sarcastically. “Le, ana bafham il-maqsad.” (Bravo, Zizo. You’re right. I understand intentions.)
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| A whirling dervish on a Nile cruise. |
After two weeks of struggling with some of the worst singers in Cairo, my other musicians chimed in: “A’yzeen narag’a Amir ba’a.” (We want to bring Amir back.)
Even the boat managers wanted him back.
“Ya’kol khara,” I told them. (He can eat shit.)
Funny how all the people who had objected to Amir’s bee’a-ness were now pleading with me to bring him back.
As the weeks rolled by, my anger dissipated—constantly auditioning fifth-rate singers was painful. But I refused to work with Amir. As much as I missed his singing, I knew I had to humble him. Break him.
I also refused to take directives from my musicians. If and when I’d bring Amir back, it would be on my time, not theirs.
I kept this up for three months. By then, I couldn’t take it anymore. Like a dog returning to its vomit, I had my band bring Amir in the following night—on two conditions.
One: he was not to talk to me. Not on stage, not off stage—not even post-show song identifications.
Two: he was to collect his pay from the band, not from me.
Amir agreed. And I began shutting the door to my dressing room so I would only see him on stage.
Afraid to break my rules, he would look at me after the instrumental entrance piece as if to ask, “What direction do you want me to go in, classic or shaabi?”
“Ghanee,” I would tell him. (Sing.) Then I’d give him my back.
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We carried on like this until my very last show two years later. All the while, I had been planning my exodus from Egypt. What happened with Amir made me realize I needed a deportation, an exorcism, and a completely new life—in that order.
It took me a while to extract myself, though. I was up against eight years of sheer inertia and the pride that came with being a belly dancer in Egypt. Oftentimes, I wished the authorities would finally deport me rather than just threaten it. At least then I wouldn’t have had to make the decision. Instead, I self-deported in the spring of 2018… after the excruciating task of tearing myself out of the life I built.
But I remember my last show like it was yesterday. As soon as Amir began singing, tears poured out of my eyes. I stood on stage sobbing, my hands covering my face in embarrassment. When I finally lowered them, I noticed that the music had trailed off—the entire boat was crying. The audience, the managers, the staff, the band, even Amir.
This was goodbye. As much as it shattered me, I knew it was necessary. Years surrounded by men who solved problems with humiliation and force had burnt my nervous system to a crisp. In my case, I had also become one of them.
What haunts me is that I still don't know where the line was. Did I absorb those habits in order to survive, or did they merely expose something that had always been there?
Looking back on it, I’m not sure things could have turned out differently. When I first started working on the boat, I was horrified by how Adam kept order in the band. And I remember asking him to stop.
“Oskotee,” he would tell me. “Il-naas dee a’yza kidda. Il-m’oamla il-mohtarima a’ndoko fee Amreeka.” (Be quiet. You don’t know what you’re talking about. These people need to be treated this way. Respectable behavior only works in America.)
And that was it. The tragedy of his words was that they seemed correct. Not only the entertainment industry, but so many other facets of Egyptian life ran on that logic.
My challenge when I was back in the US, then, was shedding the bee’a skin I had grown in Egypt. I had to trade the rhythm of the hara for the humdrum of American life—to “tone it down,” as my mother would say. No more overreacting. No more yelling. No more haggling at Target.
The withdrawal was brutal. In my weakest moments, I fantasized about importing the entire band—including Amir— just to feel alive again. I even researched venues that might sponsor foreign musicians.
Alas, it was straight-up delusion. Their chaos belonged to Egypt, and that's exactly where I had to leave it.
Some things, I learned, you can only love by leaving.
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Endnotes
Il-Talbiyya is a neighborhood buried in alleyways of the central Haram area (Pyramid Street area). Wedged between Pyramid and Faisal streets, the two main thoroughfares that run parallel across Giza, il-Talbiyya became the ”breeding ground” of the Muslim Brotherhood rank and file during the spasmodic aftershocks caused by the 2011 revolution.
Bikya, or more precisely, robabikya, refers to Egypt's informal economy of mobile junk sellers. Every morning in lower-class neighborhoods, men ride bikes and donkeys attached to wagons full of used furniture, broken appliances, cardboard, and old clothes. They scream “Bikya!” to attract customers as they roll down the streets. Linguistically, robabikya is the Arabized, shortened rendition of the Italian phrase ‘roba vecchia,’ which translates to "old things.” During the 19th and early 20th centuries, Egypt—particularly Alexandria—had a large, influential Italian expat population. When these residents would give away or discard unwanted household goods, locals adopted the phrase to describe the buying and selling of secondhand and scrap items. (Footnote to the footnote: ‘Ropa vieja,’ which is a traditional Cuban dish consisting of shredded beef, means old clothes. It is also obviously linguistically similar to the Italian roba vecchia, although roba in Italian means things, not clothes. Legend has it that a destitute man in medieval Spain, unable to afford real meat, shredded and cooked his own clothes while praying. A miracle occurred, turning the rags into a rich, flavorful meat stew. And visually, shredded beef resembles the frayed threads of torn, old fabric.
A bawwaab is an Egyptian doorman/porter who typically works in apartment buildings. But the role is much more than just a doorman. They control entry to the building and know everyone who comes and goes. They often act as caretaker, security guard, and informal manager of the property. They may do errands, collect packages, help with maintenance, and keep order in exchange for baksheesh. In many neighborhoods, especially in Cairo, they are deeply embedded in the social life of the building and know tenants personally. And in lower and middle-income areas, the bawwaab is often a key figure of authority at the street level.
Ayy khidma translates as “any service.” Egyptians often use it as shorthand for "I helped you—where's my tip?" after performing a service or odd-job—even and especially if it was unsolicited. _______________________________________________________________
Some more pictures of life in the hara.
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