Nadah El Shazly

Nadah El Shazly isn’t just some artist out of Cairo—she’s basically redefined what it means to be a force in the Egyptian underground. After dropping her debut album 'Ahwar,' which critics couldn’t stop raving about, she shot up as this sort of icon for a whole new wave of experimental sound bubbling up in Cairo. It’s wild—she even landed the cover of The Wire back in 2018, pushing the city’s creative scene right into the global spotlight. Shazly’s not boxed in by geography or genre, though. She’s hopped continents, now living in Montreal, and her musical curiosity just keeps expanding. In 2022, she took on film scoring and basically nailed it, creating the haunting, layered soundtrack for Fyzal Boulifa’s film The Damned Don’t Cry. That move didn’t just go unnoticed; it snagged her two awards for Best Film Score at both the Dublin and Bordeaux film festivals. Not bad, right? Since then, she’s been on a roll, scoring Mahmoud Sabbagh’s Last Party in R. Desert, a follow-up to the director’s hit Barakah Meets Barakah. And she didn’t slow down—by 2024, Shazly wrapped up the score for Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown, which made its debut at Cannes. With every project, she keeps blurring the lines between electronic, traditional, and avant-garde, making her one of those rare artists who can pretty much do whatever she wants and make it sound fresh.