Music
7 things you should know about Egyptian Lover
Discover a thing or two about the pioneering American producer before his set at the Red Bull Music Festival Johannesburg.
Egyptian Lover – real name Greg Broussard – is a pioneer of the US electro and hip-hop scenes. He started out making mixtapes as a teenager, rhyming over tracks he recorded off the radio, before taking his mix of rhymes and electro beats to the streets of LA as a member of Uncle Jamm's Army. Synonymous with the Roland TR-808, Broussard made history with his singles Egypt Egypt (1984) and Freak-A-Holic (1986).
In April, he's jetting to South Africa for Red Bull Music Academy Festival Johannesburg on April 3–8. Before he hits the decks, though, here are seven things you should know about the great man.
Egyptian Lover in Sydney
© Ken Leanfore/Red Bull Content Pool
1. He played his first DJ gig while he was still at school
The daughter of a club owner invited Egyptian Lover to play at her party, but he wasn't sure he could recreate the same effects and loops using record players so they offered him $1,000 to try.
He began studying his set at home, where his brother had the idea of rewinding one of the records while another was still playing, so he could keep one loop playing over and over. He used this technique at the party and the crowd went crazy. Not long after, Egyptian Lover joined Uncle Jamm's Army and became an essential figure in US electro and hip-hop.
2. Club Radio helped Egyptian Lover find himself
The small LA venue Club Radio gave Egyptian Lover a space to experiment. "With Uncle Jamm's Army, we were limited in what we could do. We had a lot of gangsters at our parties so we couldn't mess up while we were mixing, we had to be perfect," he recalls. "If you messed up, they came out of the groove and they started thinking stupid stuff and… [imitates gun fire]. The party had to continue to rock all night. But at Club, we had just as many spray painters and breakdancers so we could be more creative. I started DJing a little, started doing more scratching. I didn't have very good turntables at home so my practice came at Club Radio."
3. His name was inspired by Egyptian imagery
"Growing up in the 'hood, the first thing you want to do is to get out of there. In my mind, I took myself out of there, just took myself to any place I could find, which was probably Egypt at the time," he says. Egyptian Lover used the name long before he started DJing. "All my friends were gangsters, and they had their names on the backs of their jackets. You had Mr Guns and you knew that he was the guy with the guns. I had Egyptian Lover on the back of mine. I ain't no gangster, but the women liked Egyptian Lover, so I stuck with the name."
Egyptian Lover
© Samuel Smelty / Red Bull Content Pool
4. A greedy studio engineer gave Egypt Egypt its amazing sound quality
Egyptian Lover credits the sound quality of his 1984 EP Egypt Egypt to the studio engineer, who was being paid by the hour.
"He stretched the song out just to make more money, but in the long run he made the record so clean that it still sounds good 30 years later," Egyptian Lover remembers. He also says that the breathing sample was taken from a Prince record, and not from a Kraftwerk track, but both were a big inspiration. "The Kraftwerk side came with the beats, and the Prince side came from the lyrics and subject matter. Mix those two together and you get Egyptian Lover."
5. Afrika Bambaataa turned him onto the TR-808 drum machine
At Club Radio, Afrika Islam said he knew Afrika Bambaataa so Egyptian Lover took his chance and asked Islam how Bambaataa got his Planet Rock sound. Islam said it was made using a Roland TR-808. Islam took him to a store where the owner programmed the Planet Rock beat into an 808. "I bought it right there, went home, programmed the whole 808 full of beats, brought it to Uncle Jammy’s party and played it. I own that [original machine] and five more," he says.
6. He discovered his signature sound by mistake
Egyptian Lover says the rhythmic click in the background of his songs was, in fact, a mistake. A sound engineer connected the wrong cable to the 808 soundboard, but he liked the click and asked the engineer to leave it set up the way it was. That noise then became a rhythmic tool. "It happened by mistake, but it ended up becoming my sound," he says.
Egyptian Lover’s fans show their love at #RBMASP
© FelipeGabriel
7. Prince used to listen to his music
Egyptian Lover was at a club when someone told him Prince was in the VIP area. "He was walking down the stairs of the VIP area with this beautiful chick – he always had beautiful chicks – and started walking my way. He stood right next to me while his chick was dancing and I was looking at her and then looking at him, thinking 'Damn. He's right next to me, people are going to think I know him, that’s cool'," he recalls.
"So all these girls are surrounding us while we're dancing, and Prince is doing the same dance I'm doing. He flashed me a smile – that was his way of saying 'What’s up, Egyptian?' A friend of mine ended up being his bodyguard and I told him about that encounter. He said Prince knew who I was and that played my music all the time."