Ali El Haggar - Political Songs

Political Songs

In 1990 Ali El-Haggar was about to release an album of romantic songs when the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait took place. El-Haggar postponed it for a later time and instead released another album Lem El-Shaml, political songs which reflected vents happening at the time. El-Haggar has a repertoire of political songs that reflect his political concerns — for example "Hona El-Kahira", "Ya Masry", and "El-Moot Ala El-Asfalt", a collection of poems written by the poet Abdel-Rahman El-Abnoody describing the violence in Palestine. Recently El-Haggar sang "Lobnan" as a reaction to the attacks that took place in Lebanon.

Throughout his career El-Haggar has said: “My main goal is to present art that lasts after my departure not gets forgotten while I am alive”. He has collaborated with artists such as Baligh Hamdy, Ammar El-Sherei, Yasser Abdel-Rahman, Omar Khairat, Ahmed El-Haggar, Amir Abdel-Migeed, Riad El-Hamshry, Gamal Attia, Khalil Mostafa, and others. He has also collaborated with lyricist like Abdel-Rahman El-Abnody, Sayed Higab, Ahmed Foad Negm, Foad Haddad, Abdel-Rehim Mansoor, Gamal Bekheet, Bahaa Jaheen, Essam Abd-Allah, Hany Shahata, Ibrahim Abdel-Fattah, and others.

El-Haggar has also performed older songs from past generations of musicians such as "Gafnoho Alam El-Ghazal & Saherto" by Mohammed Abdel-Wahab, "Dary El-Oion & Rah Tewhashiny" by Mohammed Fawzy, and "El-Hob Gamil" by Laila Morad. When asked why he likes to sing old songs already sung by old singers he responded: “I want the contemporary generation who do not know much about old music to get more acquainted to it; that’s why I reperform old songs that I personally like most, but in a modern modified way that makes these songs come closer to the current youth generation keeping the spirit of the original piece of music".

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