Maryam Saleh

Maryam Saleh habitually pushes the boundaries of Arabic music. A luminary of Egypt’s alternative music scene, she delivers a savvy mix of old and new, infusing shaabi and folk styles with innovative techniques and fearless personality. Once described as a “musical supernova” by Scene Noise, Saleh is a singer, composer, actor, and poet. As the teenage frontwoman of the band Gawaz Safar in the early 2000s, she revived the decades-old protest songs of folk legend Sheikh Imam for a younger audience. Her debut album, Mesh Baghanny, is considered a landmark of Egypt’s bustling underground scene of the 2010s. She broke new creative ground with the dizzying electro beats and sarcastic poetry of 2015’s Halawella, recorded with Soap Kills’ Zeid Hamdan. In 2017, she expanded her reach with Lekhfa, a collaboration with Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, Maurice Louca, and poet Mido Zoheir. She has also taken on memorable roles in TV, theater, and film.