Who they were
Umm Kulthum was born around 1898 — her birth year is uncertain — in the village of Tamay ez-Zahayra in the Nile Delta, and died in 1975. The daughter of a village imam, she began singing religious repertoire as a child, initially performing dressed as a boy, according to her biography. She moved to Cairo in the early 1920s and came to be widely regarded as the most celebrated singer of the Arab world in the 20th century.
What they did
For decades her monthly concerts, broadcast by radio from Cairo on the first Thursday of the month, drew mass audiences across the entire Arab world; a performance of a single song could run beyond an hour, carried by celebrated improvisation. She worked with Egypt’s leading poets and composers — including, late in her career, Mohammed Abdel Wahab — and her signature songs include Enta Omri and Al-Atlal. She was nicknamed Kawkab al-Sharq, the Star of the East. After the defeat of 1967 she toured to raise funds for the Egyptian state, concerts of national significance.
Legacy
Her funeral in Cairo in 1975 drew one of the largest crowds in Egypt’s history, with estimates running into the millions. Her recordings still dominate Arabic classical song, and she remains a lasting cultural symbol of Egypt and of Nasser-era Arab identity.