“Imagine a singer with the virtuosity of Joan Sutherland or Ella Fitzgerald, the public persona of Eleanor Roosevelt and the audience of Elvis and you have Umm Kulthum.” Virginia Danielson, Harvard Magazine.

Since I was in Cairo this past week, the only thing that caught my eye was Egyptian entertainer Umm Kulthum.

Umm is hailed as the Arab World’s – not just Egypt’s – greatest singer.  She sells nearly a million records every year.  On the first Thursday of every month, Radio Cairo plays her songs.  Not bad for someone who’s been dead for nearly forty years.

Umm shot to fame during the 1940s and 50s when radio was just emerging.  In fact, she was the first artist Egyptians heard the night Radio Cairo first went on the air in 1934.  They immediately fell in love.

Umm’s legacy is largely a result of what Maria Callas called her “incomparable voice.”  But as I walked by an unassuming bronze statue of her, in front of the museum dedicated to her in downtown Cairo, I realized it was also because of her entrepreneurial spirit.

Umm was born the daughter of a poor Egyptian family in a village in the Nile delta.  Her father was a Muslim imam, who not only taught her to read the Koran, but also had her memorize it.  He then had her recite it – and was blown away by her voice.

When she was 12 he dressed her up as a boy and had her perform in a small troupe that he directed.

What put her on the road to fame, however, was her keen ability to network, build a niche, and become a role model, even if she herself didn’t have one.  Umm surrounded herself not only with musicians but also poets, who helped her develop her own “epic” songs and style.

She knew it was not enough to just sing, she had to create a genre.  To do so, she studied Arab classics as well as French imports and infused them both into her long songs that “measured in hours rather than minutes.”

She also surrounded herself with political figures including Egyptian King Farouk, whose uncle she nearly married, and Egyptian nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser.  Umm’s songs are strongly associated with the Arab national movement against Western powers.  In 1996 Michal Goldman made a film called Umm Kulthum:  A Voice Like Egypt. It is about Umm’s music and how it led to the overthrow of the British and freed Egypt in 1953.

What left me in wonderment, however, was finding out how many other singers and artists she influenced, including Bob Dylan who has been quoted as saying, “She’s great.  She really is. Really great.”