What is Arabic Pop ?

Arabic Pop is a style of popular music in the Middle East and North Africa. The music production is mainly focused on the city of Cairo in Egypt and in Beirut, Lebanon prior to the Lebanese civil war. The music enjoys popularity throughout many Arabic countries and many countries with large amounts of Arabic Ex-Pats.

Arabic Pop tends to mix traditional Arabic songs and styles with instruments often more associated with western countries. As with many musical genres, it often overlaps with other musical styles including Raï and a number of Arabic pop singers have performed duets with Raï singers.

While Arabic pop tends to go relatively unnoticed in the UK music charts there are a number of artists that are well known both in their native country and parts of Europe and the Middle East. Artists such as Haifa Wehbe, Amal Hijazi and Mohammad Fouad have enjoyed popularity within this genre and we have created a profile for each of them in the Artists page which can be accessed using the Artist button at the top of the page