A figure of the Egyptian Spring, Le Cri du Caire sings with urgency and rage in a hauntingly beautiful voice.
If you should only discover one new artist this year, let it be Abdullah Miniawy.
He is LE CRI DU CAIRE, a young singer, barely 25 years old, who emerged from the Egyptian Spring and continues to express the hopes of freedom of a people whose revolution was stolen. In socked feet he skips toward the microphone like a child, and begins in a slightly awkward whisper. Then his hauntingly beautiful voice swells and takes flight, a throbbing lament rising from deep within, somewhere between spoken word and Sufi chant, and touching in us a fountain of emotion. Without understanding Arabic, you can sense the urgency, rage, suffering and love contained in his lyrics. Tremendously sensitive, Miniawy puts our hearts in a trance, to the continuous modulations of saxophonist Peter Corser, the baroque bow of celloist Karsten Hochapfel and the aerial plumes of trumpet player Erik Truffaz. Each song ends in sudden silence: Abdullah Miniawy’s voice, so intense, vanishes. We wish it would go on forever.
Le Cri du Caire feat. Erik Truffaz
EN