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Hamza was born in November 1980 into a
Muslim family. Although Hamza is Egyptian,
he was born and grew up in Saudi Arabia
until the age of 12 when his parents returned
to Egypt.As with all children, he didn't
like school but thoroughly loved the summer
holidays! But he considers it had a good
impact upon his personality. At school,
he was deeply affected by Islamic principles
and religious studies was a favourite subject.
He was also interested in the Arabic language
and Typography.
Upon completion of school, he went onto
college and then to University, graduating
with a Major in Accounting.Hamza didn't
come from a musical background, in fact
he notes that his Father is a Doctor who
during his youth had some amateur-artistic
involvement. Hamza's father supplied his
children with private musical education
as it wasn't provided at school. The lessons
involved memorising rules and theories without
actually ever understanding it. This was
a complete disaster and made him hate music.
He even admits escaping from the lessons!
During his teens, a musical interest started
to develop and set about learning the keyboard,
guitar and Oud (Middle Eastern style Mandolin).
He composed his first songs and succeeded
in getting a few like-minded friends together
and went through what he calls "The
Musical Bands Experience". Nowadays
he realises the importance of studying music
on a professional level.
His main musical influence is Nabil Al
Bakly - a relatively unknown musician, Hamza
joined his group from 2000 to 2001. This
influenced the way music affected him and
taught him music. Other than that, he cites
influences as Middle Eastern, Arabian Gulf,
Egyptian traditional and folk music. He
also likes light rock, jazz and latin music.
He admits that describing his music is a
difficult question and that the audience
would be better placed to say. He expresses
that while not interested in categorisation
or description, his main goal from music
is to express the way he thinks towards
life. Like all the youth in his generation
- there are worries, conflicts, issues,
thoughts and ideas that come from every
direction around us - and he is just trying
to express them through his songs.
Currently he is working on his band "Nomaira",
doing rehearsals of current songs for up
coming concerts and producing new songs,
as well as continuing his music studies.
All is going to plan so far.
Islam has had both a direct and indirect
impact on the music. The music isn't religious,
but he makes music about life in general,
which of course uses Islam beliefs to create
boundaries. These boundaries protect him
from making work that supports everything
against goodness, humanity and songs that
incite immorality. Also contemporary debates
and challenges that Islam faces these days
are definitely reflected in some musical
works. The message he likes to send out
in his work is: "Life has a lot of
things that are worth while, things that
deserve expressing in music/song, so it's
not fair letting musical works just focus
on love and romance."
His best achievement to date is gathering
friends who share the same dream, because
without teamwork and friends who believe
in you, you may not achieve your goals and
make your dreams real. Another achievement
is his first album. In his spare time, he
likes to read, play football, travel and
socialising.
During 2008, Hamza plans to keep practicing
and learning music, perform concerts in
Egypt and other countries and to gain audience
feedback to help him improve his work. In
2009, he plans to start work on his second
album, Insha'Allah.
As for particular goals there are two.
In the short-term, he would love to initiate
a new wave in the market through presenting
new types of songs which discuss all aspects
of life, not just romance. For the long-term,
he wants to improve the music industry in
the Middle East and guarantee the sustainability,
through establishing an association that
has multiple aspects. (study, production
and theatre for musical performance.)
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