One of Egypt’s most popular and influential voices in the Arab hip-hop music scene, Wegz has released a new single titled Ana. The song is true to the rapper's style and voice, and blends elements of traditional shaabi music with modern trap beats.
It has a cover showing a woman sitting on the balcony of a home, listening to the song, dressed in a shiny modern take of the Egyptian Jalabiya (a loose-fitting, traditional garment) styled with vintage gold jewellery.
While the portrait does not seem to have much in common with the track, it was selected as the cover art for a reason. The spirit of the song is greatly influenced by one of the Arab world’s most popular entertainers – the Egyptian dancer and actress Fifi Abdo.
“Fifi Abdo’s dynamic presence and unapologetic attitude make her the perfect embodiment of strength and authenticity,” Wegz said.
Shot by the urban contemporary photographer and portraitist Mohammed Sherif, the artwork for the single is a candid but stylised photograph of Abdo in one of her characteristic poses and expressions. Wegz teased the release of Ana to his more than four million followers on Instagram and three million subscribers on YouTube with a short video of Abdo at the photo shoot for the cover art.
The image and Abdo’s styling are meant to appear opulent and flamboyant, mixing a modern sense of glamour with traditional elements of extravagance. It’s a tone and aesthetic consistent with her public persona over the years, one that is considered charismatic and bold – elements that Wegz has fused into his style of music, particularly in his new single.
Who is Fifi Abdo?
Whether familiar with her work or not, you have most likely come across a meme or gif of Abdo on social media. She is one of the few Arab entertainers with a unique and expansive body of work in the region that has also broken into universal contemporary internet pop culture.
Abdo first rose to fame in the early 1970s as a belly dancer. Her unique style, including elaborate costumes and circus tricks as well as her natural charisma and down-to-earth attitude, made her an incredibly popular dancer for almost three decades. While she dabbled with film and television shows in the 1970s, often playing a belly dancer, she started to take on more active roles as an actress in the 1980s.
She starred in the popular film One Woman is Not Enough in 1990 alongside renowned Egyptian actors Ahmed Zaki and Yousra, which tells the story of a journalist’s affair with three different women.
She was also part of the cast of one of the Arab world’s most popular musicals Belt Me Up (to Dance) in 1994, which starred several prominent Egyptian actors including Mohamed Henedy and Hassan Hosny. Abdo played a prominent role and had a notable dance performance. The play follows a poor man who lives with his wife, played by Abdo, and their sons in a small villa that he refuses to sell to developers.
While Abo retired from dancing in the early 2000s, she continued to act in films and television. She starred in popular Ramadan shows including 2003's The Truth and Mirage, 2006's The Green Market and 2018's The Guile of Women.
How Fifi Abdo became an online muse
Over the past decade, Abdo has captured the attention of a younger fan base in the Arab world and abroad, thanks mainly to her active social media. She's done this by posting videos of herself dancing in various locations in Egypt and around the world, and videos talking directly to her fans. She’s accumulated more than eight million followers on Instagram.
Aside from this, many of Abdo’s clips from television dramas and interviews have resurfaced online and gone viral, becoming memes and gifs, which she also shares. Her online popularity surged when Saint Hoax, a Syrian artist, satirist and sociopolitical activist with more than three million followers on Instagram, started using many of her clips as part of his online political commentary.
Wegz isn’t the only artist who has been inspired to capture Abdo’s charisma as part of his work. Acclaimed Egyptian artist and photographer Youssef Nabil, as part of his series of portraits included her as he explored culturally significant Egyptian personalities.
Nabil reinterpreted Abdo's persona in his work where she appears as a belly dancer smoking shisha and as a glamorous actress in diamonds smoking a cigarette.
Crops that could be introduced to the UAE
1: Quinoa
2. Bathua
3. Amaranth
4. Pearl and finger millet
5. Sorghum
Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Essentials
The flights
Whether you trek after mountain gorillas in Rwanda, Uganda or the Congo, the most convenient international airport is in Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali. There are direct flights from Dubai a couple of days a week with RwandAir. Otherwise, an indirect route is available via Nairobi with Kenya Airways. Flydubai flies to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, via Entebbe in Uganda. Expect to pay from US$350 (Dh1,286) return, including taxes.
The tours
Superb ape-watching tours that take in all three gorilla countries mentioned above are run by Natural World Safaris. In September, the company will be operating a unique Ugandan ape safari guided by well-known primatologist Ben Garrod.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, local operator Kivu Travel can organise pretty much any kind of safari throughout the Virunga National Park and elsewhere in eastern Congo.
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Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
Gully Boy
Director: Zoya Akhtar
Producer: Excel Entertainment & Tiger Baby
Cast: Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Kalki Koechlin, Siddhant Chaturvedi
Rating: 4/5 stars
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
