The waves of the sea crash together, creating a melody of their own. The birds chime in, each chirp a note in their song. The wind, carrying both sounds, is softly singing its own tune. And with all of these melodies flowing together, in unison and in harmony, another melody moves alongside them: the sounds of TUL8TE’s new album Narein (Two Fires, 2025).
This is the kind of scene that is needed to experience this new album. Every couple of years, there comes a record best heard by the shore, and this year, that record is Narein.
Beyond the fact that the music video for one of its singles, Habeeby Da (My Lover, 2025), was filmed at a family-owned resort in Hurghada (Desert Rose), the album itself claims its place as a summer soundtrack; an Egyptian love letter to tourists and visitors, inviting them to witness the diversity of Egyptian music and the truly global nature of a country situated at the crossroads of Africa, the Levant, and Mediterranean Europe.
Last year, TUL8TE turned heads with the release of his album Cocktail Ghena’y (Cocktail of Songs, 2024), sparking a wave of viral TikToks and quickly positioning himself as a fresh face with the potential to become Gen Z’s legacy artist. What made his rise stand out was how it brought back 90s Arabic pop nostalgia, and how his success unfolded entirely organically, without the backing of major record labels.
This year, TUL8TE dives even deeper into his pop nostalgia and sentimental ballads, but with a broader, more experimental palette, blending in rumba-soul and flamenco, jazz and bossa nova, Afrohouse, and even a dabke-inspired beat. The result is an album that feels like a vivid portrait of Egypt’s global identity, one that resists being boxed in and draws freely from every corner of the country’s cultural landscape.
The clear standout of the album is its title track, Narein, opening with flamenco-rumba instrumentation that sweeps the listener into a distinctly Mediterranean atmosphere. It establishes the album’s signature mood, tying every song together into a cohesive, flowing whole.
While some might find the lyrics leaning into cheesiness or evoking a more adolescent than mature view of love, TUL8TE strikes a delicate balance between infatuation and emotional depth. In lines like, “Look at me, my love, what have I become? I’m asking about you and your eyes, where did they go?” he captures the complex feelings that come with distance, and the commitment it takes to stand by someone as they change and grow.
Even with its cohesive mood, the album never slips into monotony, avoiding the trap of repeating the same storyline or instrumentation. Instead, it carries listeners on a journey through diverse cultures, emotions, and sounds. The track Shedeeny, for instance, blends Nubian rhythms with the emotional depth of Mohamed Mounir’s musical legacy, which includes songs that face hopelessness head-on but still find clarity in life’s challenges. As TUL8TE sings, “Many times, I felt sorry for myself, and that’s life’s wisdom.”
The lyrics in this track carry a distinctly poetic tone, as if written in real time, capturing raw emotions and moments every Egyptian can relate to, such as hitting life’s lowest points and finding solace only in a mother’s arms.
As he sings, “I wish I could be in your arms, mama, and you’d soothe me,” TUL8TE moves beyond crafting pop songs meant purely for entertainment, stepping into a more mature and grounded space, one that feels especially relevant in a world weighed down by so much pain.
He echoes a moment in life when the goal is no longer just finding someone to grow old with, because that alone is not enough. The real secret is finding someone you can also stay young with, someone who brings out that childlike playfulness and comfort, even when the weight of the world feels overwhelming.
And this sense of playfulness comes through in tracks like Enty Crazy (You are Crazy, 2025), layered with Afrohouse beats, and Daroory (Necessary, 2025), which blends a dabke-inspired rhythm with nods to Palestinian heritage. In Daroory, he sings, “You have to show me your home, and we’ll fall into the land of faith,” and, “And I didn’t forget the enemy, we’ll spray them outside of Sham (the Levant).”
With most Egyptian youth now immersed in a spectrum of global sounds through social media, TUL8TE speaks directly to this new generation by knowing exactly how to mirror their global surroundings while also stretching the boundaries of the Egyptian sound, pushing it into entirely new territory.
Like a world map in motion, the album guides listeners through every corner of Egypt, bringing in the diverse influences—past and present—that continue to shape the nation’s identity.
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