Mark Stefanos
Within minutes of walking into Nubia Cafe in Anaheim, TUL8TE’s voice echoes through the air otherwise filled with the aromas of shisha and classic Egyptian cuisine.
It’s almost midnight Wednesday and the large restaurant and hookah lounge is packed, parking lot filled — probably the most poppin spot in all of sleepy Orange County at this time. The lounge is located off West Lincoln Blvd., one exit off the 5 from where TUL8TE will be playing a sold-out show at House of Blues at Downtown Disney this Sunday, Nov. 15.
“I love TUL8TE. I’ve been listening to him since the first songs he’s ever had,” says Nardine Shehata, an Egyptian herself, who controls the playlist here between taking orders of mulukhiyah from patrons playing cards and backgammon. “Honestly, I can’t even pick a new one. They’re just all so good.”
About 24 hours earlier, TUL8TE’s name appeared on the Coachella 2027 flyer. He will be playing the two Sundays of the internationally renowned festival next year — a fitting booking for the masked Egyptian talent who, since the debut of his first EP in 2023, has captured worldwide fandom with his sultry, velvety voice and songs that bump between R&B, jazz, bossa nova and psychedelia.
The accolades have followed: over a billion global streams, a Billboard Arabia Music Award with multiple tracks charting, and recognition from all corners. His latest hit “Garee2a Awy” spent 15 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Arabia Hot 100, and his COLORS performance of the song currently has 128 million views on YouTube alone, the fourth most-watched video on the channel.
The track comes from his latest album Sadeek El Bernameg on MDLBeast Records, his fourth, which translates to “friend of the show” and creatively tackles the challenges and mishaps in modern communication with a concept that has him in conversation on a fictional program with radio veteran Osama Mounir.
He’s reported to have started writing music as a child, with a more official launch as a teen in 2016, where he spent a few years exploring more aggressive material under a black mask and the mentorship of prominent Egyptian rappers and musicians, before pivoting to a more romantic sound that echoes 90s and early 2000s nostalgia, eventually breaking out with Cocktail Ghena’y, his second album released in 2024.
His native Cairo has long been regarded as “The Hollywood of the Middle East,” which — even as the capital of the most populous country in the Arab world — has an outsized representation in music, media and general culture. Because of this, everyone can understand the peculiar Cairene dialect which deviates from formal Arabic. And a 2025 Spotify report found that Arabic was one of the fastest-growing languages on the platform in 2024, and that “85% of all royalties earned by Egyptian artists came from listeners outside of Egypt,” led primarily by listeners in the U.S. and Europe, according to SceneNoise.
TUL8TE (Photo: Marwan Abouzeid @shotbymaro)
As Egyptians are making more of a splash on the world stage in sports, on screen, and even in politics with the recent Michigan U.S. Senate election of Abdul El-Sayed (and it’s not just this Egyptian LA Weekly correspondent saying that), TUL8TE holds the torch along with a slate of Gen Z musicians soundtracking the lives of the Arabic-speaking world. He frequently draws comparisons to Egyptian superstar crooners Amr Diab and Tamer Hosny, and he tells us he’s honored to be “part of the continuation” of these greats.
Anaheim makes sense as the last stop on his North American tour. It’s the home of Little Arabia, the first officially designated Arab-American cultural district in the U.S., a stretch primarily on Brookhurst where you can find shisha bars in the corner of strip malls they share with restaurants, bakeries and stores slinging MENA wares. Back in June, TUL8TE had top billing at the inaugural OC MENA Fest nearby in Costa Mesa, where he brought the house down.
Some artists are private, but TUL8TE kicks it up a notch, always wearing his signature white, woven mask, which he says is so people can focus entirely on his music rather than his identity. The strategy has worked, for now, as people are mostly talking just about his music, and his voice, which they love.
Nubia Cafe in Anaheim (Photo: Mark Stefanos / LA Weekly)
“Some people ask for him when his music’s not playing,” Nardine tells me before singing me the hook of “Garee2a Awy” — pretty nicely I’ll add. When his music comes on at Nubia, she says, “It’s just a vibe. It’s a high vibe.”
TUL8TE spoke to us via email, diving into the music, his place in the culture, the memories he’s made so far in SoCal, and new music on the horizon:
LA WEEKLY: Your show at House of Blues Anaheim is literally a ten-minute drive from Anaheim’s Little Arabia, where your music is played at the restaurants and shisha lounges. What has been your experience with the SoCal MENA community?
TUL8TE: That’s amazing, I love hearing that! California has honestly started to feel more and more familiar. I first came on my Cocktail World Tour in 2025 and I’ve been back twice since. In August I played OC MENA Festival in Orange County, and it’s one of those nights I still replay in my head. Everyone was so warm and kind, and the energy was unreal.
TUL8TE (Photo: Marwan Abouzeid @shotbymaro)
What was your biggest takeaway from the OC MENA Fest?
It was the energy, without a doubt. The crowd was electric, and it made all of us on stage want to give 500% more. It was such a beautiful show. Thank you so much to the SoCal community for showing up the way you did, we felt every bit of it.
Much of the diaspora has been raised on Umm Kulthum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Amr Diab, Tamer Hosny, etc. Your music really resonates with varying generations given its range of sounds. How do you feel you fit into the legacy of Egyptian music?
First of all, thank you for putting me in the same sentence as these legends. Umm Kulthum, Abdel Halim, Amr Diab, Tamer Hosny — they’re the reason so many of us fell in love with music in the first place. I don’t see myself replacing anyone, I see myself as part of the continuation. Carrying Egyptian music forward and taking it further around the world is my biggest honor, and we always do it with pure intent and a lot of love.
Many of us here have discovered new Arabic music from playlists and social media, and locally, a recent invigoration of Araby music parties and events — do you feel a different connection when performing for people who may have grown up between cultures, an ocean away, and generations removed?
I love performing here, the crowds are always electric, especially the Arabs from the diaspora who really give it everything. I think it comes from a yearning for home, the nostalgia, the memories. With that energy in the room, it feels like we’re all stepping into a time capsule back to the good old days together, and I think that feeling is something we all share no matter where we are in the world. I also see so many different nationalities at my shows, people who don’t speak Arabic at all! They learn the words, try their best and have the time of their lives. That’s the most humbling thing, and an honor every time.
If someone in the SoCal community is new to your music and wants a song or moment as an introduction to understand you better, what would you point them to?
Start with my new album, Sadeek El Bernameg, from beginning to end, ideally late at night. It says everything better than I ever could in an interview. And keep your ears open for my new song “Sebeeny,” it’s coming very soon!
Where did that concept of building Sadeek El Bernameg around a late-night radio call-in show come from? How did you get Osama Mounir to take part?
The concept came to me pretty quickly, actually. I was playing around recording these interludes and thought, why don’t we build a whole world around them? Then I remembered the great Osama Mounir’s radio show, where people would call in late at night and pour their hearts out about love. He was the perfect narrator for this world. So I recorded a demo doing both voices, him and me, sent it over and explained the idea. He was gracious enough to say yes, and that was a real milestone for me.
TUL8TE (Photo: Marwan Abouzeid @shotbymaro)
The album dives into the struggle of modern communication. How did you explore that in the writing process? Was there a particular experience or observation that made you want to continue to dive into that theme?
Honestly, that deserves a whole essay! But in short, as people, we’ve never been more connected and somehow never understood each other less. Messages left on read, voice notes we record five times, feelings we type out and then delete. I kept noticing how much of love today happens through a screen, and how much gets lost there. That’s why the radio show felt so right: someone calling in at 2 a.m. and saying exactly how they feel, out loud, to a stranger. It’s the opposite of how we talk now, and I think part of us misses it.
“Garee2a Awy” via COLORS has been massive, but you’ve also emphasized the importance of music being consumed as part of full-length releases — does anything get lost when an individual song goes viral, and how would you suggest those who only saw your COLORS release to follow up with you?
I think virality only lasts if it’s backed by consistency and great creative work, that’s really it. If you found me through COLORS, thank you for being here! If you liked what you heard, then try listening to my albums in order. Each one is its own world, with its own moods, and a lot of love inside.
What do you look for in a collaborator, and are there any artists you’re interested in working with after this tour?
For me it always starts with a real conversation, getting to know the person before we ever make anything. There are so many artists I’d love to work with down the line, but obviously none other than the legend Amr Diab, and the queen of emotion herself, Elissa, who I was lucky enough to meet last year!
TUL8TE (Photo: Marwan Abouzeid @shotbymaro)
With the increasing presence of Egyptians in American culture, Egyptians seem to be having a moment in the U.S. How does it feel to be a part of the global movement of Egyptians pushing the culture, and what do you hope newcomers can learn about Egyptian culture through your work?
Big congratulations to them! For me, it all comes back to making art and sharing it with the world. The music is the heart of everything I do, so seeing it travel far beyond Egypt and reach people all the way here in Los Angeles makes me so happy and honored. I’d want newcomers to know that our culture is thousands of years old and full of history, but it’s also alive and young and constantly reinventing itself. We’re a people who love deeply, laugh loudly and turn everything into a song. If my music can be someone’s first doorway into Egypt, I hope they walk through it and keep going: listen to the classics, eat the food, learn a few words, visit one day. There’s so much love waiting for them on the other side.
Finally, any new music coming soon?
Absolutely! I’m putting out a new single “Sebeeny,” which is out November 19, a winter song that sounds like a hug, and I’m also performing with a full orchestra for Red Bull Symphonic in Cairo on November 27, where you will hear 20 songs from my catalogue in an Orchestra format, including the new single, so stay tuned!
Follow TUL8TE on Instagram @tul8te.
TUL8TE on the November 13, 2026, cover of LA Weekly. (Photo: Marwan Abouzeid @shotbymaro; cover design: Mark Stefanos)