Destined to become one of the most popular singers in the Arabic-speaking world, Hakim showed a fascination with music from the beginning. "I started singing when I was 10 or 12," he says. "I didn't do it professionally; it was just my friends and I getting together. We decided to start a band and we'd play for our friends' birthdays and parties. Then I found that people really liked it. So we decided to put something a little more professional together, and we started rehearsing. My first paid job was when I was fourteen. The money that came in, I would just spend it to improve the band, to get more musicians. It was now starting to become a profession."

But there was a problem. Hakim's father was mayor of his town, Maghagha, and he had no intention of seeing his son become a musician. He insisted that young Hakim put his musical aspirations aside and attend university in Cairo. "It became a big, big problem," Hakim recalls. "I had to leave home. There were constant arguments, and I would leave and go to Cairo and start to play there. From 14 until about 21, it was a very difficult situation for me. I didn't start to record until about 1990, when I was 28." Hakim did in fact graduate from University of El Azhar in Cairo in 1983 with a degree in communications. During his school years, he had kept up with the music scene in cafes of Mohammed Ali Street in Cairo. The legendary accordionist Ibrahim El Fayouni became a mentor during those years.

Degree in hand, Hakim returned to Maghagha and started a band. With his strong, sure voice and gift for melody, he quickly became a local sensation performing in the jeel style--that's the youth version of shaabi music. "Shaabi was the first music that I felt close to," says Hakim. "It is the ordinary music of the people. The lyrics of shaabi are the words of the people, ordinary people. Even the composition comes really from the people, from the Arab language. It's the language of the people turned into music."

Hakim cites many great singers as inspirations, among them Ahmed Adaweya, Mohamed El Ezabi, Abdel Ghani Al Sayed, Abdel Halim Hafez, and Abdel Wahab. "I listened to many musicians and shaabi performers," he says. "I can say they all influenced me, a little bit from here, a little bit from there, in order for me to find my own style." In 1990, Hakim went to Cairo to try his luck in faster waters. He worked with producer Hamid El Shaeri to make his first album, Nazra, in 1991. From the start, it was a runaway success. With his second release, Nar in 1994, Hakim began to attract international attention, including an invitation to France and a nomination as Best North African Singer at the 1996 Kora awards. Hakim won that award in 2000.

In 1998, Hakim let British world music club music maestros Transglobal Underground remix eight of his songs for the experimental album Hakim Remix. This release made it abundantly clear that Hakim was not just going to do what was expected of him, namely crank out shaabi hits. He wanted to press the envelope, try new sounds and fusions of ideas, and keep shaabi music evolving. The international version of Hakim's 2000 album Yaho continued the trend, incorporating some of the Transglobal Underground mixes as well as ground-breaking new material from Hakim and his band.

Hakim's next move may turn out to be his boldest yet. He decided to release a powerful, 2-CD live set recorded in March, 2001, in Brooklyn, New York. The Lion Roars: Live in America was about to hit the street in advance of a major U.S. tour with rai legend Khaled when the terrorist attacks of Septermber 11 jolted the world. The tour was postponed, but the album came out as planned. Speaking just days before the attacks, Hakim told Afropop Worldwide that releasing a live American performance sent a message to his fans around the world. "It shows my audience in the Arab world that I've gone beyond them," he said. "I'm now crossing borders. That raises me to another level. I'm big in the Arab world. This takes it to the next step. And remember, it's not just anybody who can come to America from among the Arab singers and actually have success." Those words are more true today than when Hakim spoke them. But Hakim's sensational voice and the ebullient, positive spirit of his music will prove hard to resist. Hakim plans to tour in the U.S. in February, 2002, and he is poised to become an important ambassador of Arab world music at a critical juncture in world history.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre