Young Pharoz

History

Young Pharoz started in 2007 as an underground rap group that eventually developed into another shape with the inclusion of singer Shahd El Shaarawy in 2009. At that point, Young Pharoz consisted of 4 rappers (Mohamed Magdi, Ayman Seleha, Mohamed Hani and Hazem Alaa) and Shahd as a singer, the band played at many local gigs and talent shows searching for opportunities and seeking record labels' attention. In 2011, Hazem Alaa split from the group for personal reasons. The group continued to record underground tracks until Ayman Seleha went to France for college, thus making it harder to work on projects. In 2012, Mohamed 'Mesho' Magdi, Mohamed Hani and Shahd El Shaarawy recorded a remixed version of the song Mirror for rapper Lil Wayne which garnered a relatively adequate amount of views on YouTube and which grabbed the attention of X Factor Arabia talent scouts. In early 2013 and before the band went to X Factor, Mohamed Hani split from the band also for personal reasons which lead to the band taking its final current form. Young Pharoz received an invitation from the X Factor Arabia to audition in Beirut for the 2013 season, leading to them being on the show in 2013, making it to the finals and signing a record deal with Sony Music International.

The X Factor

Young Pharoz auditioned for the X Factor Arabia in Beirut in front of renowned judges Hussain Al Jasmi, Wael Kfoury, Elissa and Carole Samaha who later became their mentor in the following rounds. In their audition, Young Pharoz remixed the song Invincible by American rapper Machine Gun Kelly who later recognized their version of the song on his Twitter account and Facebook page and praised the band's musical ability. Young Pharoz received 4 Yes's from the judging panel as well as many positive comments about their lyrical ability, Shahd's voice and the technique of their performance. The audition video's YouTube views rocketed to 100,000 views in a matter of hours and later gained more exposure from the international media. After the audition phase ended, the successful contestants were distributed into four categories: Solo Male Artists, Solo Female Artists, Artists Above 25 and Bands. Each judge was assigned a category to mentor making Carole Samaha in charge of bands, six out of the ten bands made it through to the next round: The Judges' Houses. In this round, Young Pharoz performed their own version of the hit Run This Town by American Rappers Jay-Z, Kanye West and Barbadian singer Rihanna in front of Carole Samaha and Egyptian superstar Ahmed Mekky. Of all the contestants that passed the auditions round, only 13 made it to the live shows, where crowd voting determines the elimination process. Young Pharoz continued to present their original versions of hit international songs throughout the live shows, making it to the semi-final phase, where they lost against Ibrahim Abdel Atheem who later became runner-up.

Record Deal

Sony Music Middle East approached the Young Pharoz with a record deal after they were knocked out of X Factor in the semi-final round, they signed a deal with Sony to record one studio album, release a single and a music video. The first single "Yalla Ben Ne3eesh" was released on June 16th 2014 in both Arabic and English ("Flying The Flag") supporting the FIFA World Cup 2014 and is written and produced by Swedish top songwriter Gustav Efraimsson (Snoop Dogg / New Kids On The Block / Backstreet Boys). The band is currently under the management of Sony Music Entertainment.

Live Performances

Young Pharoz have appeared in many live performances after X Factor, their first performance was in Porto Marina in the North Coast, Egypt where they performed in front of a large crowd alongside their fellow X Factor finalist Adham Nabulsi. They also participated in the X Factor Finalists tour alongside X Factor Arabia finalists Mohamed El Rifi, Ibrahim Abdel Atheem, Salwa Anlouf and Imane Karkibou, the tour was very successful with show attendance reaching 70,000 people per show.

Media Reception

A remarkable fanbase for Young Pharoz going by the name of 'YPians' started to take shape after the X Factor auditions were broadcast. Young Pharoz were the feature of many news articles in Egypt and the Middle East, where they were perceived by viewers as a phenomenon that didn't before exist in the Arab media scene, due to the fact that they present their music in English and Arabic besides addressing issues that are popular within the Arab community, such as politics and social problems. Many fans started uploading versions of their X Factor performances and the view counts started to witness a significant rise reaching 500,000 views for one of the more popular songs.