To kick off the new year, the seminal US pop-culture magazine Rolling Stone released its “200 Greatest Singers of All Time” list, selected by staff and contributors. “In all cases, what mattered most to us was originality, influence, the depth of an artist’s catalog, and the breadth of their musical legacy,” the magazine tweeted.
The only Arab artist mentioned in this prestigious list is the late Egyptian icon Umm Kulthum. Ranked at number 61, she precedes major names in Western music including Michael Jackson, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin, Barbra Streisand, and Elton John.
Umm Kulthum’s neighbors in the list are “Careless Whisper” singer George Michael (#62) and Kate Bush (#60), whose 1980s hit “Running Up That Hill” was revived in 2022 thanks to a “Stranger Things” episode. According to the article, all of the singers were chosen for a crucial reason: “They can remake the world just by opening their mouths.”
Umm Kulthum’s listing mentions that she “has no real equivalent among singers in the West: For decades the Egyptian star represented, and to an extent still does, the soul of the pan-Arab world.” It also describes her as “a fiery preacher,” who had international appeal and was praised by luminaries including Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant. The latter once said of hearing her voice: “Somebody had blown a hole in the wall of my understanding of vocals.”
“This is great news,” the Saudi theater producer Mona Khashoggi, who created a play about Umm Kulthum’s life, told Arab News. “(But) she should be on top of the list.”
Umm Kulthum was born in a village on the Nile Delta. As a young girl, she dressed in boys’ clothing and sang religious songs in social gatherings. In the 1920s, her family moved to Cairo, where her glittering career, during which she recorded more than 300 songs, began. She gradually become the talk of town, and, eventually, the entire region.
“To us, she was not just an artist. She was a freedom fighter and an activist,” said Khashoggi. “She did it in a man’s world a hundred years ago. She did it her way.”
