The United States government is warning Americans to stay away from Egypt because of political and social unrest.
Clashes over the newly elected president Mohamed Morsi have led to the murder of seven people including a Central Ohio college student who was stabbed to death on Friday.
Officials from The Ohio State University say there are currently at least three OSU students in Egypt. A number of students have studied in Egypt in the past.
In the film, Egyptian Underground, recent OSU graduate, Nicholas Mangialardi, takes a look at the rise of hip hop music in Egypt after the 2011 Revolution. “After the revolution when the police were off everyone was on the streets everybody was free-styling,” says a man in the film.
Mangialardi says it was music that first drew him to travel abroad to learn Arabic in Egypt, “Music has always drawn me to different cultures I think and there was something about Egypt and Egyptian culture that I really liked.”
During his first trip to Egypt, he says reality struck.
“The first time I was there, there were a handful of incidents. I remember once, there was a bomb that went off in a market,” said Mangialardi.
From a bomb to protests, he says witnessed it all.
“I lived close to Tahrir Square so I would come back and pass by, but I wasn’t instigating any kind of, you know, I wasn’t trying to get myself into it,” says Mangialardi.
He says his studies focused on the way Egyptians communicate; especially through hip hop music.
“They have a slang, a kind of in group language of their own,” Mangialardi says. It is a language that is not found in any text book.
Mangialardi says he picked it up by returning to Egypt and immersing himself in the culture. “You know things have happened in Egypt every year since I’ve gone back.”
Even with the heightened political unrest and warning from U.S. officials will not stop him from returning to Egypt again in the winter. “I think for most students it’s to go to a very different culture. I don’t know. There’s something about Egypt that I really love and I’d go back,” says Mangialardi.
