Egyptian composer, arranger and musician Hany Shenouda, who died on Monday aged 83, helped shape the sound of modern Egyptian pop music across a career spanning more than five decades.At a time when the long orchestral song still dominated, Shenouda embraced earthier sounds and subject matter. He brought bass, drums and guitar into shaabi music, developed a modern band sound with El Masryeen and shaped early recordings by Mohamed Mounir and Amr Diab. As a composer, his melodies reached established singers such as Nagat Al Saghira, while his instrumental pieces became familiar through television and cinema.These nine recordings reveal how Shenouda drew on the rhythms and details of everyday Egyptian life, while creating music that crossed genres, generations and mediums.1. Zahma Ya Donia Zahma by Ahmed Adaweya (1977)▶The streets of Cairo, from traffic jams and missed appointments to frayed tempers, course through one of Ahmed Adaweya’s defining songs. Shenouda captures the frenzied energy of the city through pensive bass, drums and driving guitar, paired with Adaweya’s streetwise vocal delivery. The result is both a wedding and club hit, and an early example of how Shenouda drew inspiration from daily life.2. Aalmony Eneiki by Mohamed Mounir (1977)▶Mohamed Mounir’s debut single brought together his distinctive voice and Nubian musical language. Shenouda helped turn those elements from what could have been an offbeat composition into something contemporary and rooted within the Egyptian pop crooner tradition.Meaning “your eyes taught me”, Aalmony Eneiki paved an early path for Egyptian artists to showcase their distinctive heritage within mainstream Egyptian pop. In turn, it helped establish the foundations of one of the Arab world’s most singular careers.3. El Shawarea Hawadeet by El Masryeen (1977)▶Once again, Shenouda took his cues from Cairo’s streets in this track by El Masryeen. El Shawarea Hawadeet, meaning “the streets are stories”, sets observations about everyday romances and frustrations against a lean arrangement. The song showed other songwriters that Egyptian pop could speak about grand subjects through small details.4. Hatkhabi Leh by Ali El Haggar (1979)▶Ali El Haggar’s rich, classically trained voice meets Shenouda’s concise melodic songwriting style on Hatkhabi Leh, which translates as “why would you hide?” In the track, Shenouda shows once again why he was a master arranger, harnessing El Haggar’s technical ability within a warm arrangement that made him more accessible to the public.5. Ana Baashaq El Bahr by Nagat Al Saghira (1979)▶In Ana Baashaq El Bahr, Shenouda ushers Nagat Al Saghira into one of her most contemporary recordings to date. She sings of her love for the sea, sky and open road in a song whose minimalism contrasts with her grand orchestral recordings and which became an enduring part of Nagat’s catalogue.6. Longa 79 by Hany Shenouda and El Masryeen (1979)▶Longa 79 is a bright instrumental remembered by Egyptian television and football fans through the programme El Camera Fil Malaab. It later served as the opening theme to Emmy award-winning comedy series Ramy and played as Ramy Youssef went up to receive his Golden Globe in 2020.7. Lama Kan El Bahr Azraq by El Masryeen (1981)▶One of El Masryeen’s more pensive works, the group’s trademark nostalgia is laced with disillusionment, extending its range beyond playful pop and social commentary. Lama Kan El Bahr Azraq, meaning “when the sea was blue”, recalls a time when happiness seemed simple and the future less complicated, while the arrangement surrounds the melancholy with keyboards and a steady band rhythm.German producer Habibi Funk released the track as part of his 2017 Modern Music compilation, which introduced it to an international audience.8. El Zaman by Amr Diab (1983)▶Before developing the Mediterranean pop style that defined his later career, Amr Diab was a young singer from Port Said trying to establish himself in Cairo. Shenouda was among the first major musicians to recognise his potential and wrote several tracks for his debut album, Ya Tareeq.On El Zaman, meaning “time”, Diab sounds youthful but already displays the talent that would make him one of Arab pop’s biggest names. Although the track never achieved the reach of his later hits, it marks the beginning of a career that reshaped Arabic pop over the next four decades.9. Shams El Zanaty main theme by Hany Shenouda (1991)▶Shenouda’s main theme for the Adel Emam film Shams El Zanaty is another showcase of his compositional skills, pairing a sparse yet forceful melody with a galloping rhythm that channels the story of seven men hired to defend an Egyptian oasis from raiders.