Salmonella سالمونيلا (Salmonella) Tameem Youness

Following on the success of his previous hit “Enti Ay Kalam,” in January 2020 Tameem Youness released another song about coping with rejection — or more precisely, failing to cope. But whereas “Enti Ay Kalam,” in all its simplicity, could be lightheartedly enjoyed as a catchy dance tune, Youness’s new song “Salmonella” is drawing controversy.

The song is ostensibly a satire narrated from the perspective of a nice guy who really isn’t all that nice. In the song, he makes a series of romantic promises to his love interest, such as cooking her pizza, offering her his jacket when it’s cold and getting pop star Mahmoud El Esseily to sing at their wedding. But all these lovely promises come with a condition: she has to say yes. If on the other hand the girl should have the audacity to say no, then all bets are off. All this affection turns to spite, and the list of promises becomes a list of threats. In the classic style of a spurned lover, these threats lack coherence and have all the randomness of a temper tantrum. For example, the singer wishes salmonella poisoning on the girl (hence the song’s title). He also includes such other spiteful actions as throwing his own jacket on the ground, and throwing the pizza on top of Mahmoud El Esseily (who actually makes a cameo in the music video).

But for some Egyptians, this depiction cuts a little too close to the bone. Although Egypt isn’t the only country to suffer from two-faced nice guys, sexual harassment is a particularly acute problem in the country. This phenomenon looms in the background and imbues even the fantastical threats in the song with a degree of menace. Over-the-top as the song may be, it evokes a lived experience that is all too real for many Egyptian women. In their view, the song risks encouraging the phenomenon that it supposedly condemns by suggesting that women don’t have the right to say no. Or more worryingly, the type of guy targeted for satire in this song may miss the point entirely, and instead find endorsement and inspiration for his toxic behavior.

For his part, Tameem Youness insists that the song is satire, and the song’s exaggerations seem to bear that out. The romantic promises veer between the most obvious clichés, such as offering the girl his jacket and waking up next to her every day, and oddly specific offers like an air-conditioned bathroom and membership in the Gezira Club.  As if that wasn’t enough, when Mahmoud El Esseily begins to sing, he sings a line that is an incongruous amalgam of a classic Arabic love song and a modern scenario: “Oh my eye, oh night, you ordered a latte” — as if he had fallen in love with the girl at first Starbucks order.

The video as well displays an awareness that the song’s narrator is not a particularly stable or well-adjusted person. For example, as Tameem Youness’s sugary promises descend into a litany of threats, the background dancers stop dancing and start to make perplexed faces along the lines of “what’s wrong with this guy?” Then halfway through the song, in an apparent nod to Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy,” Youness begins to sport a bloody nose all of a sudden. Although how he got this bloody nose is never explained, it contributes to his character’s psychotic look and suggests that this is not a person for emulation.

It’s been said before that the best satire is indistinguishable from the reality. And although it does appear that “Salmonella” takes steps to make sure we do distinguish the song from the real thing, the fact that some people have mistaken the song for reality is either a mark of the song’s success as satire or a testament to the sad reality we live in.

[1] The Gezira Club is an exclusive country club in Cairo’s posh Zamalek neighborhood.