#WaraElMazzika: Hossam El Hossainy on His Return to Rap and Directing Mo Ramadan’s Music Videos
In this edition of #WaraElMazzika, we had an insightful conversation with rapper, director, and actor, Hossam El Hossainy. The established multi-talented artist is making mad waves on different fronts. The music videos he directed for Mohamed Ramadan were a huge success and garnered hundreds of millions of views, including the latest TikTok with international superstar, Super Sako.
We got to talk with El Hossainy after his latest release, “Matsadda’ish”. His much-anticipated return to the rap scene was through his track with Amr El Shazly. Hossam is also the founder of Eye-Con Entertainment for Content Creation & Solutions and he’s the founder of the first underground hip-hop group, ‘Arabian Knightz’. Follow our hashtag #WaraElMazzika for more exclusives from the music scene.
Talk to us about your latest release, “Matsadda’ish”.
The last verse was actually written in 2006, and the song was recorded four years ago, however it was never released. The main message behind the song is a message of empowerment. It speaks to women who’ve suffered trauma and encourages them to move on with their lives, to value themselves and stand up for themselves, and always remember that they’re powerful no matter what.
They say women are fragile creatures, however what I witnessed being
raised by a powerful single mother was the exact opposite. I always empower and support women in every way. We need to stop diminishing or
neglecting women’s voices because they are the most powerful and impactful ones. I believe that everyone, especially artists should state and
support this move which is the least thing we can do to our mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, and all woman by supporting their voices and highlighting their vital roles in our community rather than making them feel vulnerable, women are society’s true backbone.
Why did you decide to release it now after all these years?
My team and I decided that it’s an important time to release such a message during what’s happening right now. It was the perfect time to release. I would have loved to release it back when I first wrote it, but it’s never too late for the message to be delivered.
How did Eye-Con Entertainment come to life?
Eye-Con was named Lamba in 2016, then it was named LSD, and now it’s called Eye-Con; our slogan is ‘We apologize for stealing your eyes’. It’s more of a label, or a creative hub, where we create content and trends. Our work in the past years was always trending. Working with people like Tamer Hosny, Mohamed Ramadan, Saad L’mjarrad, and all those big names paved our way to be out there and be trendsetters.
We’re looking forward to it as it’s the first official release from our company, and everyone who worked on it are people in the company. Hopefully, we do other stuff that also has meaning and delivers a message not only making trends. We want to change our society for the better through the work we do.
Talk to us about your work as the director of Mohamed Ramadan’s most successful music videos.
Mohamed Ramadan has immense energy and a very strong personality. He knows exactly what he wants and where he’s going. He studies hard, he’s always working. He’s a person that will inspire you and influence you to work on yourself because he’s always working on himself. He’s always onto something, always has goals and targets. He knows when to do what. He has a very successful mindset. It was a win-win for me to work with him, and I learnt a lot from his power and energy.
Also, he trusts himself with me as a singer. As I was the one who pushed him to do Number One song. We did a commercial and it really went big and became a very viral trend. I told him that you should definitely go for it, as you have the charisma of a rapper. He trusts me and gives me credit all the time. We still have a lot of plans together, and I’m very proud and looking forward to what’s next.
Talk to us about the creative process that happened prior to shooting the Tiktok music video with Ramadan and Super Sako.
The creative process happened when we met Sako in Marrakech. He suggested to make a track with Ramadan, he really wanted to do a track with him. We welcomed the idea so much. I was wondering what kind of track we can do together and then Sako came up with the music and the beat, Ramadan came up with the idea of TikTok, that time is running. He sent it to Sako, and Sako did his verses. The song was finished, we were supposed to shoot the song in early 2020.
Then the Corona came, we couldn’t to travel and shoot in LA like we were supposed to. We decided to wait until the travel ban was lifted but it didn’t. So we decided to figure out a way to shoot remotely. So I shot in Hollywood remotely from here. And then I shot in Egypt for two days, we blended both together. The idea talks about how this guy is practical and how he doesn’t waste time. Ramadan has the persona during the shoot according to the song, and in this song I saw this sharp look from the first shot we took and we worked on that.
You’ve tried acting, singing, directing, and more. What else do you want to achieve?
Life is about an adventure, and I’ve tried many things growing up until I saw where I fit or where will I blossom and grow. I’m an artist at heart, but I wanted to see which part of the industry is going to be my part. I liked everything, acting, TV presenting, etc. I tried a lot of things, but I liked to be the boss or the director. It’s my character, I’m a Leo. Also, I always have the creative juice in my mind, I’m a very creative person. I feel that I can do so much with my creativity as a director more than doing it in my music or through acting. This is the only part that I know I can do well and have all my creative juice explored and brought to life. It’s also nice to have the artists reach their goals through my work.
Working with different artists is a challenge. My upcoming project is with Hakim. He’s a challenge because he’s a powerhouse, and he’s been there for a long time. And he’s one of the most popular artists abroad. I was one of his fans growing up. I remember getting kicked out of the class in school because of singing his songs.
It’s very challenging for me to be a director, and I like to build new steps for the artists and push them to more limits and greater ideas. I’m always a fan of my artists, so seeing them do something that I create is something amazing for me. And hopefully, the singing is not going to stop because it’s my hobby. I don’t have much for singing because I spend most of my time in directing. But I go to the studio more often, and I’m trying to let the rapper out, especially in those times were the music industry is changing and the rap scene took things to the next level. Acting is not on the radar anytime soon.
What are your future plans?
I’m working on a big film. My first feature film. It’s a huge project with big names. It’s an honor to work with these names. I can’t disclose any names for now, but we’ll let you guys know about the details when we can release them.
