I’m Not Knowing Myself

'About the fabrication of art, that surpassed art'

(#Ana_Mesh_Aarefni), “#I’m_not_knowing_myself”…

I came back that night absolutely stuffed with dark thoughts. And whenever my head is stuffed, my stomach starts screaming, demanding to be treated the same way.

I opened the fridge, hunting for something to end my gloom. My eyes caught a glimpse of a herring hiding behind some green onions and two tomatoes. My fingers actually trembled with excitement as I reached for it.

I pulled out the little treasure and stood there staring at it greedily. This was a tiny feast, perfectly suited for my dark mood. And to set the "mood" even further, I pulled out my phone and fired up YouTube Music, putting my blind faith in its algorithm—which, honestly, always seems to know me better than I know myself.

I threw the herring on the stove, and its oil started dripping in the most tempting way imaginable. Just as the first song ended and the herring was perfectly done, I put it on a plate. Suddenly, the legendary "Hakimdar" himself, the popular singer Abdel Baset Hamouda, started belting out: "Ana!" ("I am!").

I froze and smiled quietly. If the YouTube algorithm was physically sitting in the kitchen with me, it couldn't have picked a more fitting song. Abdel Baset kept going: "Ana, ana, ana, aaaana, ana..." ("I am, I am, I am, IIII am, I am...").

I started chopping the onion, and the tears naturally started falling. Right on cue, the singer cried out: "Ta’abt men el mofaja’a wa nazalt dam3ti" ("I’m tired of the surprise and my tear fell"). For some reason, I found myself laughing out loud. A bitter, sarcastic laugh.

Since the very first time I heard it, this song has stirred up the weirdest, most contradictory feelings inside me. On the surface, the lyrics and the whole vibe of the song seem incredibly contrived, maybe even aggressively superficial. It goes against literally everything we know about how a "man" is supposed to sing.

Men don't sing to their mirrors. We are simply not used to a guy crooning: "Qouli eih ya mirayti, qouli eih hikayti" ("Tell me, oh my mirror, tell me what is my story"). We are conditioned to think of a woman singing to a mirror. Our brains immediately jump to Snow White and the Evil Queen, demanding her magic mirror confirm she is the most beautiful woman in the world, terrified as age stabs her and her confidence bleeds away.

But a man? Singing to his mirror? That’s unheard of. We cynically assume he just threw the word "mirayti" (my mirror) in there because it conveniently rhymes with "hikayti" (my story) and "nihayti" (my end). And then there’s the fact that this "man" is casually confessing that his tears are falling—just like a woman's. All of this practically begs us to roll our eyes, mock the song, and write it off as cheap pop garbage.

The funny thing is, that was exactly my reaction the first time I heard it. He was belting out: "Ana mesh 3arefni, ana taht menni, ana mesh ana" ("I don’t know myself, I’m lost, I’m not myself anymore").

Wait a minute. This is a massive, heavy, deeply philosophical existential crisis. How on earth is it being sung to a cheap, popular Shaabi beat? How is it being thrown at us so bluntly?

Historically, we only know one song that even comes close: Abdel Halim Hafez’s "I don’t know where I came from!" But that was taken from the heavy, intellectual poem "Al-Talasim" by Elia Abu Madi, composed by the legendary musician Mohamed Abdel Wahab, and placed in a highly dramatic context for the movie The Sins. And even then, it wasn’t an ugly, blunt identity crisis; it was just the standard, elegant philosophical question of origin and destiny: Where did we come from, and where are we going?

So who is this Shaabi singer taking these massive, terrifying concepts and stuffing them into a pop song, wailing: "La di malamihy, wala shakly shakly, wala da ana" ("These are not my features. This is not my shape. This is not me")? What is this absolute nonsense?

That is why I immediately looked down on the song. And yet... somehow, against my will, I was entirely captivated by Abdel Baset's performance.

Despite my obvious sarcasm and contempt, I felt the song violently shake something deep inside me. In some bizarre way, it was expressing exactly how I felt.

I tried to ignore it. But every single time I hear it, I go through the exact same emotional whiplash. I mock it. I sing along with the Hakimdar in a sarcastic, exaggerated voice, laughing disdainfully. But deep down, in a place I refuse to admit even to myself, I feel his heartbreak. I feel his burning sincerity when he screams, "Ana mesh aarafni" ("I don't recognize myself"). Because despite my cynical laughter, the terrifying truth is: I don't recognize myself either.

I sat down in front of my plate of herring, now drowning in tahini and oil, and started wondering: Why? Why is this song doing this to me?

Maybe the Hakimdar isn't a "real" artist by the traditional rules. Maybe he just had the feelings of an artist, the desperate desire to be one, and the raw voice for it. But society tells us that feelings, desire, and voice aren't enough to make an artist.

We've been brainwashed for years to believe that art requires a mystical, magical ingredient called "Talent" that no one can actually define. You take this "Talent," mix it with some magical spices called "Academic Study," bake it in an oven on low heat called "Experience," and only then do you earn the right to use that pretentious, skin-crawling title: "Artist." Only then can you produce absolute garbage and get away with calling it "Art."

Abdel Baset was definitely not an artist by those snobby standards. Remember that old movie, “Enta elhatghani ya Monem!”, You’re the one who’s going to sing, Monem!? The poor kid with the beautiful voice has an entire neighborhood sell the clothes off their backs just to send him to the Conservatory to study music. Because unless you study at the Conservatory, you cannot be a real artist.

Abdel Baset didn’t go to the Conservatory. He probably didn't even know what a Conservatory was. I remember the very first time I saw him on TV, on Mona El-Husseini's brutally frank talk show “Hewar Sareeh Gedan”. She was mocking him, and she asked him, "Do you possess the handsomeness of Abdel Halim Hafez?"

He answered with total confidence: "Yes, of course, I have it, and the audience shall judge that."

Abdel Baset didn't even know what the word "handsomeness" meant. He probably thought it was a vocal technique, or a style of performance. He even added, "Abdel Halim, frankly, is a man of art." He didn't understand that "handsomeness" doesn't mean slicked-back oiled hair, severe obesity, and a massive belly. He didn't know the golden rule: romantic singers must be thin, delicate, and have dreamy eyes so teenage girls can swoon over their posters. He didn't understand the cruel link between body shape and "art," so he just used a classic showbiz gimmick: "Let the audience judge."

The Hakimdar was completely, unapologetically confident. He believed in what he was offering. He drew his power from his working-class fans who loved his music, demanded it at their weddings, and blasted it in the streets. He didn't graduate from an academy, he couldn't read sheet music, he knew nothing about music theory, and he couldn't care less about art history. Yet, he captivated millions. He reached the everyday people who believe they have the absolute right to question their own existence without ever having to read Heidegger or Bertrand Russell.

Abdel Baset believed he was an artist. He fabricated art... literally. But he did it without ever realizing he was fabricating it.

Maybe that’s why I laughed so hard the first time I heard the song. It is such a blatant, unapologetic fabrication of a deep philosophical stance on life. Especially that part where he just hums, "Mmmmmmm." If a stand-up comedian had performed this song exactly the same way, the audience would have been rolling on the floor.

But Abdel Baset wasn't joking. He wasn't trying to be funny. He believed every word he was singing. He believed he had the right to scream his inner emotional chaos into a microphone, completely unaware that there is a snobby class of "intellectuals" who have monopolized the right to question existence. To them, existential dread is a VIP club only for philosophers.

Abdel Baset only had his raw, honest emotion. That was his entire arsenal. And somehow, magically, that raw feeling smashed through our defenses. We realized it wasn't a joke. We realized that existential dread isn't a monopoly for the elite. He wasn't faking the lyrics, he wasn't faking the pain, and he wasn't faking his utter confusion at life.

He forced our walls down.

And once the walls were down, we looked deep inside ourselves and realized a painful truth: We just don't want to feel this way. We mock the song because we want to hide from the terrifying realization that we, too, don't know who, the hell, we are. We laugh to pretend we have it all figured out, when in reality, we are totally lost. We have been trained not to admit that we cry. We have been trained to believe that mirrors are only for women to fret over their wrinkles. We have been trained to leave the big, scary existential questions to the philosophers, passively waiting for them to hand us the answers.

That is why Abdel Baset's impact is so staggering. He leaves us emotionally violently conflicted. He forces us to question our own reality. Do we actually know who we are? Or are we just pretending to be deep and romantic? Are we faking an existential crisis just to look profound? Or are we genuinely, terrifyingly lost in the labyrinth of life, hiding behind our own sarcastic masks?

I stopped.

I stared at the shiny, metallic cover of the stove as I lifted it to brew a cup of tea. I lost myself in my own reflection.

The Hakimdar forces us to stand in front of our own mirrors. And he leaves us with one brutal question: When we look at the person staring back at us... do we actually recognize them? Or are we staring into the eyes of a total stranger?