INTERVIEW WITH EGYPT’S ASFALT

While attending the Urban Voices 2014 music festival in Stockholm, Sweden, Freedom Beat interviewed the festival’s performing artists about their music, the political atmosphere in their respective countries, music of nonviolent resistance, and how their own music engages these issues.

Freedom Beat first interviewed Asfalt back in the summer of 2013 when Arash Sobhani of Kiosk was visiting Cairo. Freedom Beat caught up with Asfalt in late August 2014 before they performed at the Urban Voices festival in Stockholm, Sweden. Asfalt talked about one of their new songs عايز, electricity instability in post-2011 revolution Egypt, and their current work using hip-hop for empowering both young women and refugees.