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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 Islamic 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 through 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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