Umm Kulthum on NPR

This week the Umm is featured on Afropop Worldwide hosted by the melliflously voiced Cameroonian Georges Collinet. In the feature her life is discussed and relevant records played. It is a great introduction to the Egyptian Diva who is perhaps the best known singer in the Middle East. As they mention on the program, she is a singer with no parallels in Western culture, both icon and stateswoman, and musical giant whose songs, often based on the poetry of Ahmed Ramy, could extend for more than an hour in some settings. Her funeral is one of the most important moments of musical history in the twentieth century, and puts Eddie Vedder's crowd surfing in perspective; more than a million people showed up to mourn her, and while her coffin was being escorted to the cemetary, it was lost to the crowd, which trasnported it hand over hand safely for three hours, until it ended in the mosque of al-Sayyid Husayn, believed to be one of Umm Kulthum's favorites.

The Afropop Worldwide program is aired weekly on NPR, and is usually very well done. Another of my favorites was focused on Brazilian cowboy Luis Gonzaga, whose song Dedo Dedo I am still looking for.

www.afropop.org