Umm Kulthum needs no introduction – along with the call to prayer, her magnanimous voice has reliably been one of the few daily constants across the Arab worlds’ sonic landscapes over the past century. From Aleppo to Alexandria, Baghdad to Beirut and Cairo to Casablanca, in 1934 and for the following forty years her live broadcasts on the first Thursday of each month would see streets and workplaces deserted as millions rushed home to tune in; Umm Kulthum triumphantly became the beating pulse of a new post-colonial Arab world order, and the embodiment of Egypt’s cultural renaissance.