Angham

Angham's full name is Angham Mohamed Soliman (أنغام محمد سليمان ). She was born in Cairo, Egypt on January 19th 1972, and has been an accomplished pop singer on the Egyptian music scene for years.

Angham is not a very common first name. It means "melodies" or "tunes." As it turns out she comes from a family in which "melodies" play a vital role. In fact, she has been raised and musically nurtured by her father, reknowed Mohammad Suleiman. Her uncle, Imad Abdel Haleem, is a singer and married to the famous belly-dancer, Najwa Fouad, but unfortunately, died at the age of thirty. Angham, affected by the death of her uncle whom she loved so much, released later an expressive and angry song called Leih Ya Donia Hazzi Ma'aki Kida?.

Angham has two siblings: her sister, Ghinwah, and her brother, Khaled. Her first contact with the audience was with her Mother Day song El Gannah Taht Akdamik in which she sang it among the public at the age of 17. She recalls the mothers who wiped their tears, moved by her performance.

Angham's sucess started with her first album Fil Rokn El Baeed elHadi. The success that it gained pushed the young singer into a further position among the 1989 generation of singers, reserving for herself a special position. Angham lived a state of relief and proud and soon continued to improve her vocal capacities with her father. She also studied in the Conservatory of Music in Cario and excelled in playing the Oud. Egyptian people recall Angham as a little cute girl with big teeth and had faith that this star will soon shine and expand its light around the arabic world.

Angham continued working on her following albums, concentrating on the classical melodies caracterised by the poetic words and the oriental flavour. She released many albums in full Egyptian dilact but also in the Gulf. Albums like "Khally Bokra La Bokra", "Betheb Meen" and "Ella Ana" gained many success in Egypt.

At one point Angham earned the nickname "The Queen of Romance" for her many love songs. However, during the high point of her career, Angham faced a depression affecting her personally and artistically: after successful albums, Angham refused to work with her father in her next albums in the goal of renewing her style. Her dad, surprised by the act of his daughter, disowned her and promised not to do any future artistic collaboration with her. At this time, the arabic music changed form with the apparition of the western influence with pop superstar Amr Diab, Mohammad Munir and Medhat Saleh. Thus, Angham's professional breakup with her father allowed her style to evolve in order to keep in step with the changing demands of the market.

In 1999, Angham made a new album Wahdaniya in which she worked with new composers and writers. In her album, she presented a new flavour of music that represent her only. While keeping the peotic lyrics, Angham changed the oriental music into a more rapid one, minimizing the long tunes. As music videos became increasingly popular, Angham was forced to shoot Ba'atly Nazra from this album in which she appeared in a classic look. The clip appeared simple, showing Angham in a summer flavour, beside the beach and the sand. After that, Angham shot another music video for her song Bithebbaha Walla in which she appeared at the same time in two new looks: an old classic one and a new young one, symbolizing the stylistic transformation taking place.

At this Angham was having more and more trouble with her marriage. She and her husband divorces over irreconcilable differences. Angham found herself obliged to take care of their child, Omar, and thus, slowed down the rate in which she used to produce albums. But this difficult time in which Angham passed through faded quickly as a new unattended surprise awaited her. In 2001, Angham released what she considers her favourite album, Leih Sebtaha, which achieved great success and reached number 1 in the Billboard for many months.

She received two major awards for this work: best clip 2001 and best female singer 2001 in Cairo's Annual Music ceremony. The success she gained caused lots of singers to be jealous. A few weeks after the broadcasting of Sidi Wisalak's clip, Angham fell ill and was hospitalised. In 2000, Angham made a song for the Palestinian cause during the Intifada by participating in a duet, Nihlam Eih?, with the now deceased Thekra (Zikra).

Omry Maak, produced and supervised by Alam Elphan, was finally released in August 2003. With this album, Angham returns to present a new flavour, similar to Amr Diab, in which most of her songs had western flavour in them.

Before the release of Omry Maak album, the press attacked Angham for marrying secretly her Kuweit-origined musical arrangist, Fahed. Angham responded strictly to the matter by annoucing officially her marriage from him after she joined another music production company, Rotana, possessed by Prince Walid Bin Talal. The mariage was done on a yacht on the Nile River and Angham invited many famous pop singers such as Sherine Ahmed, Elissa, Ehab Toufic, and the manager of Rotana Company, Salem Elhindy.

Angham supported her album by doing many interviews mainly Nawart El dar in which her fans consider as the one where she shined a lot. In that program, Angham sang Warda's songs to honour her and in return got praised by her powerful but soft voice. Also, Angham was guest in many famous talk-show and programs like Star Academy 1,El Beit Beitak, Moubashar with Mahmoud Sa'd, kalam nawa3em , Star Search and others.*

*This info is from Angham's website, but the style of writing has been altered in some places to improve clarity and neutrality