Montreal musician having international success with Egyptian-inspired house music
Posted October 28, 2022 10:13 am.
Last Updated October 28, 2022 6:29 pm.
He has impressed many with his Egyptian musical touch on house music.
Ashraf Moawad, better known as Ash, came to Canada in 2014 to study in Montreal.
Now he’s one of the most popular artists of his genre.
“I grew up in the era of electronic music, listening to a lot of electronic musicians,” said Ash. “So I wanted to introduce my piano skills… That’s when I discovered DJing at first. And then I realized that there was more to it, which was producing electronic music. So I started producing electronic music and that’s how I got into the electronic music world and doing these live shows today.”
The 26-year-old, originally from Cairo, Egypt, was inspired by Amr Diab. He wanted to mix eastern musical instruments with western electronic music. He started uploading his music on SoundCloud not thinking anything of it and hoping a few people would listen to him.
“Growing up my dad was showing me a lot of Arabic musicians. He showed me a lot of Kulthum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Fairuz,” he said.
“I was listening to a lot of this music growing up so it made me obviously interested in these sounds and it was always touching me. And I thought you know it was interesting to incorporate a lot of my culture and what I’m used to listening to in my music.”
He now has millions of views on his live sessions around the world, in Turkey, Europe and elsewhere, as well as millions of followers and subscribers on Spotify.
Growing popularity with Middle East youth
Ash gained popularity within the Middle Eastern young demographic. His songs have become the interpretation of what the young generation of Middle Eastern Arabs who live in the west and in the east look like.
He has had two sold-out back-to-back shows in both Montreal and Toronto and is starting to gain more local attention after becoming very popular all over the world.
“I feel like definitely Montreal had a big impact on my music as much as Cairo, growing up in Cairo. Honestly, I used to hope that just a few people would listen to my music. I would put it on Soundcloud and I was hoping I would get just a hundred streams or a hundred people would listen to it. Being here today and selling out two shows in Montreal, it’s a dream. I would have never expected to achieve that.”
