CAIRO — Wagih Aziz's sharp voice echoed recently through an old theater in the heart of the city, striking a nerve with an audience of hundreds of Egyptians who face an uncertain future in a country overwhelmed by poverty and political disillusionment.
"Speak out loudly and ask seriously with me," he sang, accompanied by his lute. "Are we alive or dead . . . ?"
A counterweight to vacuous pop songs, the acoustic Aziz, 47, probes his nation's repressive conditions with sparse lyrics and simple chord changes. Limning frustration, apathy, alienation and bewilderment, the tall, slim singer delves into the anxiety that gnaws at his countrymen.
"Nobody knows where we are heading. We are all tense," Aziz said after a recent concert. "Egypt comforts neither the rich nor the poor. Corruption affects everybody. . . . The rich may live in better houses than the poor, but at the end of the day they both suffer from similar problems. Even the rich do not know what awaits them on the political or the economic level."
His music is praised by activists and intellectuals who regard him as a champion of the marginalized.
This year, Aziz was invited by the residents of Qorsaya island to perform as part of a protest against government attempts to evict them and turn the island into a tourist site. Such initiatives are rare in the Middle East, where freedom of expression is tenuous and bloggers and Facebook activists can end up in jail.
"If you want to hear a song that expresses your dashed hopes in this country or your boredom with anything in life, you need to listen to Wagih Aziz," read a column in an independent local newspaper after the release of Aziz's latest CD.
The singer's appeal is widening, drawing in youths from different social classes. His new CD's hit song, "A Piece Is Missing," was perceived by critics as a candid portrayal of Egyptians, nearly half of whom live on less than $2 a day.
"Aziz is the only singer who expresses the confusion of the Egyptian citizen now," said Ibrahim Issa, editor of the independent newspaper Al Dustour and a prominent government critic. "This confusion is caused by the political conditions based on oppression and coercion and by poverty and economic deterioration.
"He takes the words that people on the street use in their daily conversations and turns them into songs . . . that reflect the realities of his time in an honest way."
