Since I'm in the middle of re-exploring things that I used to love a decade or so ago, to again see in them what I saw, and to perhaps see in them what I missed, here is one that falls under the rubric of music. This is an Egyptian singer and actress called Ruby (her actual name is Rania). Back in the mid-to-late 2000s, Ruby, and a lot of the music she made, occupied a space in my world, for a variety of different reasons that I think I now understand better than I did back then. First off, she has got that distinct Egyptian beauty, that is in her eyes as well as in everything else, not to mention that girls who dance will save the world from misery one day, and maybe from that chronic disease called the Abrahamic religions. Ruby enchanted the guys, and made the girls dance; girls would watch her with joy on their faces, because you can tell that they wanted to be as seductive and beautiful as her. Ruby sang and danced in her little corner of the world, and little corners of the world danced with her. She had a good sense of Egyptian culture, and her songs had a folkloric tinge that made them addictive, and that now makes them nostalgic. Ruby sang in a clear Egyptian language, language both in the sense of the Modern Egyptian Language that we currently speak, and language in the broader sense that includes the things for which there are no words. It also helped that she worked with equally talented people. Now in my late 20s, a little over a decade later, it seems that not only did Ruby occupy a space in my world, but that she occupied that space permanently. Unfortunately, Ruby stopped making new music a long while ago, but I think she is slowly coming back. [Note: as per usual, the video players and the music players below may not show on the dashboard, so view the post on my blog, and if you are using your phone, then they probably will not work, even on the blog. Also, I tried to find better qualities of the music videos below, but these are the best I could find. I did not attempt to translate anything here. Oh, and if you get an error instead of the video, just refresh the page.] Let us start with the following song, where she describes a certain kind of beauty with the aforementioned sense of culture; as an aside, our magnificent Bayoumi Andil astutely noted that the Egyptians tend to sing for the sun in their poetry and folk songs repeatedly, always equating it with beauty in one form or another. It is something that seems to be embedded in our psyche, and its ubiquity cannot be "un-noticed" once it is noticed; this song too equates the sun with beauty. This song is perhaps just Ruby singing to herself. The music video was shot in the ruins of Siwa, western Egypt:
And here is a recent live version of it from an interview (three years ago):
This next song's music has a nostalgic tone here and there, specially near the end. Ever since the discovery of the bust of queen Nefertiti, we are guilty of seeing the specter of Nefertiti in every beautiful Egyptian girl, but come on, I think you too will see it. This is her being wonderful at the Pyramids of Giza. The "darbuka (goblet drum)" is an ancient Egyptian musical instrument that is still in use in Egypt today; this song has one of sexiest incorporations of the darbuka that I have heard; if you are clueless, it is that "rolling" drum sound that starts at 3:21; this song combines electronic music, a classical instrument, namely the violin, and the darbuka, but most importantly, it is sung and performed by Ruby (ignore the director's cheesy quote):
And here is her recent live version of it:
This next one is in a set that is a "modernized" imitation of an ancient Egyptian temple; back in the day, this song was a bit surreal to me for some reason, I think it was the temple setup, her attire which has touches of ancient Egypt, and some aspects of the editing, combined with that snake, and with Ruby's beautiful voice and seductive performance:
And here is her recent live version of it:
Here is one of her earliest, and one of her most catchy, songs, this music video has that characteristic low-tech feel of the early 2000s, and I think it adds something, rather than detracts:
This next one is her very first music video; if I'm not mistaken, it was shot in Prague:
And here is her recent live version of it:
Here is another one of my favorites of hers (which has no music video), it is an enticing mix of different instruments and styles, there is a country blues style harmonica, along with the aforementioned "darbuka", and another ancient Egyptian instrument, namely the "ney" (the Egyptian ney has younger Persian and Turkish counterparts that sound a little different), it is that flute-like instrument at the beginning with the darbuka; also, this song has a sexy bassline: Let us end this with Ruby singing an Egyptian folklore song. This folk song is about 130 years old, it was written by a peculiar Egyptian woman who was born in 1865 in south Egypt, after a handsome young man greeted her with a bit of flirtiness, hence the name of the song: "He Greeted Me"; she wrote many songs that were sung throughout the 20th century, one of them was sung by the Egyptians in the streets during historical events in Egypt at the turn of the 20th century (during the aftermath of the "Denshawai Incident", if you are curious; it is sometimes referred to in Egypt as the "Denshawai Massacre"). She was not widely recognized for them, however, and she did not profit from them, but her songs outlived her, and outlived those who failed to recognize her. Ruby's beautiful and wistful cover of this song is, by far, the best I have heard: In my little corner of the world, Ruby was, and still is, something special.