Ahmed Ali, better known as Wegz, has quickly risen to become a defining voice in Egyptian hip-hop. Born on 11 September 1998, the 26-year-old rapper has pushed the boundaries of Egypt’s music scene and hip-hop by blending traditional shaabi music, a popular kind of folk music, with modern trap beats.
Wegz, a nickname given to him by a friend, grew up in Al Wardiyan neighborhood in Alexandria where he studied at El-Agami Higher Institute of Management Sciences. His first released song on Spotify, released when he was 19, is Batalo Fake (Stop Being Fake, 2017).
However, Wegz’s first song to go viral was Bazet (It’s Ruined, 2019), and his first track to gain massive popularity and put him under the media’s spotlight was Dorak Gai (You’re Next, 2019).
Dorak Gai was playing at shops, cars, toktoks, weddings, and streets of Cairo at the time. In February 2020, Wegz’s song Bazet was featured in a TV ad for Molto, an Egyptian snack by the food company Edita, bringing his music to every household through television. Then, in March 2020, he released the music video for Dorak Gai, which garnered over 24 million views in less than two months.
Wegz secured the title of Egypt’s most-streamed artist on Spotify for three consecutive years: 2020, 2021, and 2022. His 2020 hit Dorak Gai was the platform’s most-streamed song in Egypt that year.
In 2022, three of his tracks ranked among the nation’s top ten most-streamed songs, with Al-Bakht (Luck, 2022) leading at number one, followed by B’ouda Ya Belady (Return to Your State, my Home Country, 2022) in fourth place, and Keify Keda (That is What I Want, 2021) rounding out the list at number ten.
His cultural influence extends beyond music; in 2021, he made his acting debut in the popular series Bimbo, directed by Amr Salama.
His impact on the music industry was further acknowledged when Forbes Middle East included him in its 2021 list of Arab music stars, and GQ Middle East magazine featured him among the 21 most exciting young musicians worldwide, representing the Middle East. He was also featured in a New York Times article in November of 2023, as the Egyptian rapper who wants to take Arabic hip-hop worldwide.
The rapper has achieved such widespread recognition that even Egyptians who are not fans of Egyptian rap can readily name him when asked about the genre.
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