#bent el balad
“Ana Ibn Balad, ana bafham fel ossoul” (I am a child of the country, I understand manners). Egyptian singer Mohamed Fouad’s unique romantic selling point in his otherwise standard Egyptian love song ‘Ibn Balad’ – which accrued almost 6 million views on YouTube since 2011 – is nothing more than this; he is a self-proclaimed ‘child of the country.’ In his defense, it is unquestionably one of the most self-approving statements one can make, packing a distinctive cultural reverence behind its…
