National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

Umm Kulthum has been called "the voice of the century"—and with good reason. Few musicians in any genre could stake a claim to the enormous sway that this Egyptian vocalist held for decades on audiences across a huge swath of the world; even now, some 30-odd years after her death, you can hear her recordings being played daily from Morocco to the Gulf states.

Born in 1904 to a poor family in a rural village of the Egyptian delta, Umm Kulthum was the child of the imam of the local mosque. She learned Koranic Arabic in her early years of schooling, and first learned to sing by listening intently to her father instruct her older brother. When her father realized her talent, he began teaching her recitation of the Holy Book and the religious songs to be performed at holidays, weddings and other special occasions. Soon, she was singing publicly, and she sometimes dressed as a boy during those years to escape the wrath of religious authorities.

Her parents were confident enough in her early, local success to move to Cairo in the early 1920s; by the end of that decade, the country girl had honed her skills and stage presence into that of a major star. During this time, she formed a friendship with the secular poet Ahmed Ramy; 132 songs in Umm Kulthum's repertoire were based on Ramy's work. He also introduced her to such delights as French literature and to the composer Mohamed al Kasabji, who opened doors for her at Cairo venues as well.

In 1932, Umm Kulthum put on her first large tour of the Middle East, appearing in such cities as Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut and Tripoli. With her huge power, an almost superhuman capacity for melodic improvisation and ornamentation, and an extraordinary depth of shaggan, or emotional yearning, in her voice, it's no wonder that she became a true icon for hundreds of millions of listeners.

By 1948, she was a favorite performer of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who later became Egypt's president; Umm Kulthum, who was quite patriotic herself, was in turn sympathetic to Nasser's Arab nationalist political ideas. In the 1950s and 1960s, when many of Nasser's speeches were broadcast immediately after Umm Kulthum's immensely popular monthly radio presentations, the president enjoyed a large listenership as well. To this day, many radio stations in the region broadcast Umm Kulthum recordings on the first Thursday night of each month, in homage to her famed live radio concerts.

In her final years, Umm Kulthum was plagued with health issues, and her condition began deteriorating in 1971. When she died of heart failure in 1975, millions of mourners turned out in the streets of Cairo to pay tribute. Even with her passing, her voice and the iconic image of her onstage, holding a kerchief in her hand, remains one of the great symbols of modern Arab culture.

Although various collections of Umm Kulthum's music come in and out of availability on EMI Egypt and EMI Arabia, it is worth seeking out releases like Al-Atlaal and Hajartek (also known as Hagartak) on EMI Egypt. To get a better sense of her mesmerizing stage presence, try the video documentary Umm Kulthum: A Voice Like Egypt, narrated by Omar Sharif and based on an excellent academic biography of the same name, written by Virginia Danielson. —Anastasia Tsioulcas