The Meet The Artist series highlights talented performing arts professionals from diverse backgrounds. We’re back with this month’s featured artist. We encourage you to read these interviews with an open mind, and to remember that starting a relationship with an artist can be something smaller than a mainstage show such as inviting them to lead a workshop, sit on a panel, or collaborate with another artist.
This month Ksenija Spasic interviewed Ahmed Hegazy.
What are some of your formative musical experiences and how did you start on the path towards being a singer-songwriter?
My earliest musical memories were when I was living in New York. They involved watching Disney movies for hours on end, and singing the soundtracks. When I returned to Egypt at the age of 4, we got cable and I had access to two essential music channels, Melody Hits and Mazzika, thus beginning my journey with pop music. In those early years, I was especially drawn to kiss-off anthems, so much so that the first song I wrote, at the age of 9, went something like “I’ll rip everything that I want to rip. I’ll do everything that I want to do.” As I grew older, my taste in music broadened. I started exploring more soul, electronica, and avant garde pop. I was drawn to off-kilter rhythms, textures, and vocal stylings. I never stopped creating songs, but, in my mid-twenties, I decided to take it more seriously. This ushered in my 5+ years of learning how to write and produce my own music.
Could you talk about a favourite moment performing?
I once performed a song I wrote in collaboration with the Community Arts Guild choir: “My Heart is a Home.” That song was inspired by the aunties’ experiences and struggles with migration. I wanted to speak to some of the ways we create containers of safety in precarious environments, hence the lyric “My heart is a home / the only one I’ve ever known.” When we performed the song live, the choir was still learning it, so I was the lead in that performance. I had a choir of 60-90 year old aunties backing me up; it was so empowering and wholesome!
What do you wish was better known about the processes and impacts of community art-making?
Joy is central to my experiences in community arts, but it does not come easy. There is also struggle in making these joyful experiences possible. There is money involved. There is emotional labour involved. There is rigour involved.
I’ve learned to let my plans go time and again, to truly listen to what is needed at the moment. It is a practice in taming the ego. There is value in having plans and wanting to steer things in a certain direction. It’s necessary to do that work beforehand, to be able to have an anchor in the process. However, letting go of some or all of these plans is also necessary to create experiences that benefit the collective rather than one’s specific agenda.
In terms of impact, I wish we didn’t have to rely on statistics as much to measure impact. Of course, statistics have some use, but to me, there is so much more value in the qualitative impact of community arts. Project after project, I hear people share stories of how much engaging in community arts has impacted their well being. Some people won’t express it directly but they will just continue to show up, which, I think, is another testament to the powerful positive effects community artmaking can have. Naming those people and sharing those stories is how you really show the impact a program has had.
Could you dwell a little on the interplay of digital and analogue music-making in your work?
A lot of my decision-making is based on what works for my process. I know that I’m more likely to use music production tools if they’re on my laptop, so I fully lean into digital means of creation. I am open to using any tool—digital or analogue—to get the song where it needs to be. Because of my love for electronic music, however, I tend to be more inspired by synthetic, glitchy sounds than traditional instruments, but I use both in my music.
You have worked with Ontario Presents before. Could you describe what that involved? Do you have any stories to share about interactions with venues in Ontario, and elsewhere in the country? What can organizers and venues do to make performing artists feel empowered and supported?
The Community Arts Guild worked with Ontario Presents on a project called Aunties Legacy. We collaborated with Teardrop Collective, formed to create space for Tamil artists and stories. They created a series of five workshops held virtually on Zoom and experimented with movement, dance, music, storytelling, visual arts, and folkloric crafts.
Since this project took place during the pandemic, we did not get the chance to perform at venues. However, the experience did highlight the importance of offering virtual performance opportunities for anyone who struggles to leave their home. It’s important to know that even if the performance is happening online, it does not mean it is free to produce. Virtual platform membership, arts materials and delivery, artist and facilitator fees, administrative expenses all need to be covered. Projects like this must continue to be supported. They make a difference in people’s lives.
Your first LP was recently released. You have chosen to work on that project under a pseudonym. What prompted that choice and what have you learned while working on this collection of songs?
That choice was both a personal and creative one. There’s a lot of freedom for me in constantly redefining myself, uncovering and exploring new characteristics that I may not regularly identify with. People know me as Ahmed, and that comes with a lot of expectations, some of which I embrace and some of which I do not. But with a pseudonym, I could be anyone. I want to continue to stretch myself in all directions. I spent most of my life saying things like “I wouldn’t do that; it’s not me” and there was value in that for a while. It probably got me out of a lot of trouble! But as an adult, I feel like I can explore without losing my sense of self.
Spring is an opening of possibilities and a leaning towards the future. What aspects of your creative work do you hope will flourish in 2025?
I obsessed over every detail of my first project, and I am happy I did that because I am proud of the work, but it made the process more difficult, and at times painful. Most of my favourite music is slow-cooked. The artists I love take 3-6 years to create their albums, and I find myself being drawn to that ethos. Even so, I want to explore what it could feel like to create quickly, to write lyrics, produce and record a song in the span of a few days and not question every minute detail. In a way, it’s an intention to be less intentional. The decision-making about what to release or what to keep for myself could come later. But when I’m creating, I want to learn to be freer.