Umm Kulthum

Fatima Ibrahim es-Sayyid el-Beltagi (31 December 1898 – 3 February 1975), known by her stage name Umm Kulthum, was an Egyptian singer and film actress. She was given the honorific title Kawkab el-Sharq (Egyptian Arab lit. 'Star of the Orient'). Immensely popular throughout the Middle East and beyond, Umm Kulthum is a national icon in her native Egypt; she has been dubbed "The Voice of Egypt and "Egypt's Fourth Pyramid".In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Umm Kulthum at number 61 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Amin El Mahdi invited her into the cultural circles in Cairo. In 1924, she was introduced to the poet Ahmed Rami, who would later on write 137 songs for her, and would also introduce her to French literature and become her head mentor in Arabic literature and literary analysis. The mid-to-late 1920s marked her transition into a professional recording artist and cultural icon. She made her first audio recordings in 1924 for labels like Odeon Records, but it was her 1927 recordings that truly launched her career.