A strobe of sunshine dances off bushes within the Santa Barbara mountains because the Egyptian Lover takes the decks. It’s the weekend earlier than Halloween, excessive time for the freaks to descend. The Egyptian Lover steps into the sales space, reducing his iconic determine towards the night time sky — Kangol hat on backward, Roland TR-808 drum machine working as an additional appendage — L.A.’s most mythic determine of freakiness rising. The scene: A vaguely bohemian indie-electronic pageant working rampant with stoned faculty youngsters dressed as Velma and Scooby, tech-house bros and growing older Burners searching for a dopamine hit. It’s not instantly the form of vibe that feels appropriate with the famously raunchy electro-hop that the Egyptian Lover pioneered within the Nineteen Eighties, defining an period of L.A. partying and shaping the West Coast hip-hop scene that might come after. However this infectious sound and the Egyptian Lover himself are their very own universes, have been for a very long time. A crowd connects as a result of they haven’t any different alternative however to attach— even now, he holds a mystique that feels older than the pyramids. Construct it and they’re going to come.
Consider an Egyptian Lover set as a chunk of efficiency artwork that takes you someplace each far-off and eerily acquainted — yesterday, tomorrow, Egypt, South-Central. There’s rapping, there’s pop-locking, there’s scratching, there’s narrative and character. Every set is an homage to a model of the previous that was at all times drawing from the longer term, leaving you on a novel energetic airplane. Tonight, he’s pulling from the identical document bag that he constructed 40 years in the past — his earliest influences being inflection factors in his set: Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock,” Prince, Kraftwerk. He sings into the mic as he performs his hits — “Egypt Egypt,” “My Home (On the Nile).” He scans the gang as his fingers do the form of inconceivable tips on the turntables that cemented him as one of many greats, embodying certainly one of this most well-known songs (“What Is a D.J. if He Can’t Scratch”), and performs his drum machine stay along with his sun shades on within the pitch black, clear that he’s connecting to supply. “Santa Barbara freaaaaaaaks,” the Egyptian Lover says into the mic. “Santa Barbara freaaaaaaaks,” the angels, monsters and Luigis within the crowd parrot again to him.
Most people on the pageant weren’t even born when the Egyptian Lover possessed crowds of 10,000 on the L.A. Sports activities Enviornment when headlining for legendary social gathering crew Uncle Jamm’s Military within the early ’80s, his mixture of turntable expertise, scent of his Jheri curl activator and burgeoning Lothario aura creating an intoxicating vibe soup that impressed collective frenzy. However his lore, his legend is felt right here and all over the place else. Once I inform a pal I’m writing concerning the Egyptian Lover, she begins dancing like a pharaoh, fingers jutting in reverse instructions. Once I inform my mother I’m writing concerning the Egyptian Lover, she instinctively begins singing, “Egypt / Egypt / Egyptian Lover,” pairing it with a reflexive pop-lock, ingrained from her days dancing to his music at golf equipment in Tijuana.
The Egyptian Lover wears an Complete Studios shirt, and jacket, a David Yurman necklace, glasses from Gents’s Breakfast, and his personal hat.
There’s a fragile steadiness between then and now for the Egyptian Lover, who goes by Egypt for these within the know. However the mistake individuals make is their concept of the Egyptian Lover current strictly when it comes to the previous — a nostalgia act. Egypt embraces his previous, retains it as near his chest as he does his 808. He’s by no means been a type of artists who desires to flee the factor that made him fashionable within the first place, feeling creatively imprisoned by his affect after which pivoting, solely by no means to be heard from once more. He made this world from scratch — the place freakiness was inspired, the place hieroglyphics together with camels, pyramids, the Eye of Horus, ankh and pharaohs are a part of the visible language, the place nasty lyrics paired with an entrancing electro beat are the formulation. And he’s introduced that world with him wherever he goes. Over his 40-year profession, he’s by no means stopped touring. In the previous couple of months alone he’s performed practically 20 cities throughout the globe.
Earlier this yr, impartial e book writer Bob Dominguez launched an archival photobook celebrating 40 years of the Egyptian Lover’s seminal album, “On the Nile,” after engaged on it for 2 years. (808 copies of the e book, additionally known as “On the Nile,” have been launched complete.) It charts the Egyptian Lover’s rise by way of previous images, from the artist’s private assortment, the place the gold chains are stacked, curls are juicy, chest hair is popping and the windbreaker tracksuits are scratchy. It options interviews with L.A. musical icons who have been there when it occurred, together with the Arabian Prince, Ice-T, Dām-Funk, and people watching his rise from afar, giving form and understanding to what was taking place in L.A., together with Detroit legend Moodymann. It options hand-written elements of his historical past, drawings, previous social gathering fliers, lyrics jotted down from the album. Seeing all the ephemera in a single place, it strikes you what number of layers and the way a lot time it takes to actually construct a world and an id, how sturdy you must be in your artistry and conviction to carry onto it for many years after.
“I don’t even need to cease,” the Egyptian Lover says into the mic on stage in Santa Barbara. “I’ve been on this s— for 40 years. Oh, yeah. I’m loving it. I’m loving it.”
Born Greg Broussard in 1963, the Egyptian Lover grew up on the east aspect of South-Central in a home the place the document assortment included Dean Martin, the O’Jays, Barry White, Tom Jones and Frank Sinatra. The classics. Broussard’s father, Creole from Louisiana, was objectively fly — “the Rat Pack man” — a photograph from the e book reveals him in a slick black turtleneck beneath a swimsuit jacket, lengthy pendant chain hanging right down to his torso. His mom, as soon as a choir singer and certainly one of 16 youngsters, had generational roots in Watts and Compton. She was supportive of her son’s burgeoning musical pursuits, lending him the $600 he wanted to purchase his first drum machine, successfully altering the course of his life and the state of L.A. music as we all know it. His brother, David Broussard, is a musician, too, and served as his earliest affect — he performed the saxophone and skim music, encouraging his brother to hone in on his observe. “He didn’t know the best way to DJ, however he taught me the best way to DJ — he taught me all the things,” Egypt says. “I used to be listening to this document. He mentioned, ‘Begin it over, solely hearken to the bass line.’ I’d by no means heard that earlier than. He mentioned, ‘Begin it over, solely hearken to the drums.’ Now I heard the document in layers. Once I began making music, I made it in these layers.”
The identify, legend and sound of the Egyptian Lover drew from the lure of the unknown, from popular culture. It was an amalgamation of his favourite artists, infused with a genetic code that was particular to L.A. The Nile was a spot far-off sufficient from the violence of his neighborhood, the place gunshots have been par for the course and the streets have been being hit exhausting by the crack epidemic. He was additionally an aspiring Casanova, impressed by the swag of silent movie actor Rudolph Valentino, often known as the Latin Lover. Egypt was moved by the Dean Martin data his dad had at dwelling — they confirmed him how an artist might create a novel imprint for themselves. “It doesn’t matter what document you select of his profession, all of them sounded the identical. That they had that Dean Martin sound — that signature,” Egypt says. “I mentioned, ‘If I used to be an artist, I might try this. Each document I make might be my model — the Egyptian Lover model, not the West Coast, not the East Coast, however the Egyptian Lover model.’” (The world-building has been so sturdy that to at the present time, individuals nonetheless make the error of pondering he’s from Egypt. He’s traveled the world taking part in music, however that’s one place he nonetheless hasn’t made it to.)
Broussard was shy rising up, and his means of attending to know individuals — or, extra particularly, assembly ladies — was by making mixtapes and promoting them along with his pal and classmate Snake Pet (a future hip-hop pioneer who would go on to be a part of L.A.’s Dream Workforce), at James Monroe Excessive Faculty within the San Fernando Valley. Even the bus driver purchased the Egyptian Lover’s mixtapes, which pulled everybody from Rod Stewart to Rick James into the identical universe. “I had one turntable, one cassette participant, a boombox and I used to be simply making the very best mixtape ever,” he remembers. “I put a rap on an instrumental tune, ‘Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll.’ I used to be promoting that at my highschool for $5 after which it acquired so fashionable certainly one of my associates mentioned, ‘Man, it’s provide and demand. You’re promoting out earlier than you get to high school. Double the value for $10.’ Ten {dollars} is loads in 1979.”
The Egyptian Lover wears a Margiela swimsuit, David Yurman necklaces, stylist’s personal footwear and sweater, and his personal ring, hat and glasses.
On the time, Uncle Jamm’s Military, led by grasp programmer and promoter Rodger Clayton, was throwing essentially the most legendary capabilities in L.A. The Egyptian Lover as we all know him as we speak was born of that ecosystem. His technical talent was instinctual and his model was unmatched — up till this level, scratching was largely an East Coast factor. Underneath Egypt’s regular hand, every zip of a document appeared like an incantation. “[Fellow Uncle Jamm’s Army DJ] Bobcat at all times known as me the satan,” Egypt remembers. “He was like, ‘There’s no means you are able to do this stuff that you simply’re doing.’” After a number of months of DJing with Uncle Jamm’s, one other member, Gid Martin, got here as much as him and mentioned, “Between me and also you, individuals are solely paying to get in to see when you’re DJing. They’re coming to see you.”
Egypt tells the story of how he found the Roland TR-808 drum machine for the primary time the best way somebody recollects assembly the love of their life — half of it prescriptive, each inflection level memorized; the opposite half nonetheless novel and nearly unbelievable, the miracle of discovering a foundational reality about your self for the primary time. Egypt felt one thing kindred in listening to “Planet Rock,” the genre-bending anthem by East Coast hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa. When he met Afrika Islam, Bambaataa’s mentee, he advised him that the observe was made utilizing a drum machine. A drum machine? He’d heard of drum units, by no means drum machines. “I went to the Guitar Heart in Hollywood to purchase it and I requested the clerk, ‘Are you able to present me the best way to program it?’ So I made ‘Planet Rock’ over and I used to be listening to it on these large amplifiers. I began altering the beat up a little bit bit and doing loopy stuff — simply making an attempt it and it was working. That’s when the clerk mentioned, ‘Don’t flip round.’ So I rotated and I noticed all these rock and roll guys who I’ve seen on MTV earlier than me, dancing and clapping. Like, ‘Whoa.’”
The night time he performed his 808 stay for the primary time at an Uncle Jamm’s Military social gathering in 1983 is “what remodeled Egypt from a DJ to an artist,” Egypt’s brother, David, is quoted as saying in Dominguez’s e book. The group was screaming his identify whereas dancing, wholly possessed by the deeply ancestral, bewitchingly robotic beat of the drum machine coming from Uncle Jamm’s Military’s common set-up — a temple of sound worship made up of 100 Cerwin Vega audio system. It was this second, partly, that might spark a meteoric rise for Egypt, leading to practically a dozen albums (the newest of which was made this yr), KDAY programmer Greg Mack taking part in his songs on a loop on the radio, and changing into the label boss of Egyptian Empire Information. “To at the present time, I nonetheless do my concert events primarily based on the final hour of the Sports activities Enviornment,” Egypt says.
Egypt’s model of electro is as bodily as it’s psychological, the primary time you hear it, it’s endlessly ingrained. Dominguez, who was born years after Egypt’s debut “On the Nile” got here out, remembers driving round his hometown of Logan Heights in San Diego as a child along with his dad, who would play the Egyptian Lover as an schooling. “Egypt simply caught my ear as a child,” Dominguez, who additionally works in tradition advertising at Nike, remembers. “Skipping up a number of years, in highschool once I’m impartial by way of my music, I bear in mind having “Egypt Egypt” on my iPod Nano. This was the tune to large me up. Like, ‘I’m within the combine. I’m in it.’”
There’s one factor that may be agreed upon: the Egyptian Lover is, has at all times been, that man. Within the e book, there are images of him in highschool, posing with two ladies flanking both aspect of him. “He’s the most effective DJs on the planet, particularly nonetheless mixing vinyl, and he holds his personal to all these guys who’re principally sticking a USB in one thing,” his childhood pal AJ Kirby says. I get to our interview early, watch Egypt get out of his BMW from my rearview mirror and head into Mexican hang-out El Cholo’s South Park location he’s been coming to for the previous couple of years at any time when he wants a quiet place to speak enterprise. Once I stroll into the empty restaurant a pair minutes later, he’s sitting in a nook sales space holding courtroom, chips and salsa already on the desk. The servers appear to know him. He simply acquired again from Croatia, the place through the years he’s performed festivals like Love Worldwide and Dimensions. I observe his Instagram the place he offers updates on tour. One of the vital latest: “Berlin…. Yall prepared?”
Egypt reveals me a video of a pageant he performed in Latvia. It’s the a part of his set the place he does a name and response with the gang. A wall of hundreds of our bodies, not a telephone in sight, are in complete admiration, locked into the second. “8-0-mothaf—-8,” they scream in reverence of Egypt’s drum machine. “8-0-muthaf—-8.” The power is overwhelming, even by way of a video. It’s straightforward to see why touring, regardless of being exhausting on anybody, particularly somebody who has been doing this for many years, would drive him all these years. There’s nothing like affecting a crowd together with your sound — which for Egypt’s has transcended its birthplace (L.A.), even its metaphorical birthplace (Egypt), and has gone international.
An August Virgo with no agent and a capability to answer emails at lightning pace, Egypt has been doing his personal reserving for years. Since retiring from the police drive, his childhood pal and former neighbor, Kirby, has been touring with him. In Santa Barbara, he was hawking a few of Egypt’s data and attire, together with a letterman jacket that has the phrases “FREAK-A-HOLIC” working down the arm sleeve. Every present is an opportunity to return to the self, remind individuals of the story he’s telling. Egypt recollects the time he opened for Afrika Bambaataa. He wished to see the artist carry out “Planet Rock” stay, however he went in a totally completely different course, abandoning his hit fully. The second caught with Egypt for years. “I wished to see why he’s who he’s,” he recollects. “He didn’t present us that. I noticed I needed to present them why I’m who I’m.”
Egypt is confident and humorous, cocky in a clear-eyed means. Even in his 60s, his “pyramid playboy” persona stays. There appears to be an understanding that artists just like the Egyptian Lover exist in relation to their atmosphere: Within the ’80s when Egypt was DJing for hundreds, a dance known as “The Freak” was king — glorified grinding. Whereas one of many major references, Prince, might need been nasty in a delicate means, songs rife with double entendre, Egypt was simply nasty. Every tune turned permission for the gang to turn into embodied: “Give me a freaky, kinky nation with a complete feminine inhabitants / I can take care of that scenario / I don’t care about my repute,” he raps on stage in Santa Barbara to “Egypt Egypt.” Even his earworm “Soiled Passionate Yell,” launched earlier this yr on his “1987” album, proclaims: “I can do the issues your lover can’t do / Fly you locations and simply spoil you / I can maintain you content day by day and each night time / With this ultra-freaky urge for food.”
The lyrics in Egyptian Lover’s first album, “On the Nile,” served as a form of manifestation of his final 4 many years within the recreation: “I’m the Egyptian Lover, child / I’m primary / I’m a mixing-scratching-rappin’-lovin’-son-of-a-gun.” Today, Egypt lives what some may see as a double life. He’s been married because the ’90s, elevating two stepdaughters and taking over the function of “Papa” to a few grandkids who regardless of having no blood relation to Egypt look precisely like him. They’re shut. He doesn’t have turntables or a studio in his home however he does have a playroom stacked with toys for his grandchildren.
The Egyptian Lover wears a Professional Membership tracksuit, David Yurman necklaces, classic Yves Saint Laurent glasses from Gents’s Breakfast, and his personal hat and ring.
The story of how he met his spouse was its personal form of kindred second, an encounter that might unknowingly carve out his path as an artist. Proper after graduating highschool, he was dwelling in his dad and mom’ backhouse and courting certainly one of his classmates. Sooner or later, she came visiting and shared a brand new album she’d stumbled throughout, Kraftwerk’s “Laptop World.” She requested Egypt to make a tape of it so they might each have a replica. When he heard it for the primary time, it shifted one thing in his mobile make-up. He didn’t know music might sound like this. The German digital band would turn into certainly one of his musical touchstones endlessly extra. “It blew me away. Like, ‘What is that this?’ That is futuristic.” He ended up retaining the document and he or she stored the tape. After that, they misplaced contact. He turned a touring musician, and he or she married another person. Then his 10-year highschool reunion occurred and so they bumped into one another once more. How might he ever overlook the woman who confirmed him Kraftwerk? “I mentioned, ‘The place’s your husband?’ She mentioned, ‘I’m separated.’ We went on a date and acquired married,” Egypt remembers. Even along with his grueling schedule, he tries to not be on tour for greater than a pair weeks at a time. He’s a household man now.
“I feel he’s actually the busiest now since he’s been because the late ’80s,” Dominguez says about Egypt. In between tour dates earlier this yr, he launched a tune with producer Josh Baker and Rome Fortune, “Dr. Really feel Proper.” He’s additionally within the technique of finishing his subsequent album, set to be out mid-next yr.
There’s a lineage of L.A. DJs who would arguably not be right here if it wasn’t for the Egyptian Lover ripping all these years in the past. He nonetheless serves as supreme inspiration. On the launch social gathering for the archival photobook, “On the Nile,” held at Peanut Butter Wolf’s Highland Park vinyl bar, the Gold Line, L.A. DJ Spiñorita watched in reverence as Egypt signed copies of the e book. His music is a mainstay in any set she performs. “The Egyptian Lover is such a legend that it goes off anyplace,” she says, however particularly for what she calls a “Dodgers crowd,” in different phrases, L.A. individuals. “It’s turn into a part of who I’m as a DJ. I’ll say that on the mic, ‘The place the freaks at?’ The group will get this excited feeling of: ‘We’re free, we’re right here, we’re dancing, we’re being who we need to be, we’re feeling horny.’”
Egypt’s music has been handed down by way of eras, generations, locations, every group or second claiming one thing about it as their very own. “I’ll do some concert events, and all I’ll see is younger youngsters singing the phrases to the tune,” Egypt says. “I’m like, ‘That is so cool.’” On New 12 months’s Eve, Egyptian Lover performs on dwelling turf at Zebulon. The New 12 months’s Eve present in L.A. has turn into a form of custom. It’s becoming: He was at all times the particular person meant to attach our previous with the longer term. The ‘80s to infinity.
Grooming Carla Perez
Manufacturing Cecilia Alvarez Blackwell
Styling assistants Berlin Ventura, Jael Valdez
The Egyptian Lover wears an Emporio Armani jacket and hat, a Professional Membership shirt, Second/Layer pants, David Yurman necklace, classic Cazal glasses from Gents’s Breakfast, stylist’s personal footwear, and his personal ring and hat.
