02 / How I think
Editorial Judgement, Applied to Marketing.
Culture marketing works when it connects artists, audiences and institutions through something people actually want to participate in. Not a campaign wrapped around a moment, but a reason to show up. Ten years across independent labels, cultural institutions and brand partnerships taught me to hold editorial judgement and marketing strategy in the same hand.
- 01
Editorial Judgement Is a Marketing Advantage
Knowing what an artist or a brand shouldn't say is worth more than knowing what to post next.
- 02
Artists Are Collaborators, Not Channels
The work gets better when the artist's discomfort becomes the creative brief, not an obstacle to route around.
- 03
Trust Compounds; Single Activations Don't
A three-year brand relationship is a different asset than a three-week campaign, and it takes a different kind of patience to build.
- 04
Every Partnership Has Two Clients
The artist's interest and the brand's interest aren't automatically the same thing. Holding both in the room at once is the actual job.
What It Looks Like When I Build One
In 2022 Cairo had plenty of talented young producers and electronic musicians, and almost nowhere for them to actually work. I co-founded WRST with the producer El Waili and others to close that gap: a physical studio, the tools to produce properly, and a team around each artist rather than leaving them to work out distribution alone.
The idea was never just infrastructure. It was guidance and a sense of community for people used to working alone, plus real opportunities, sync placements, label conversations and festival slots, that could make the work financially sustainable rather than a side project.
Four arms grew out of that one founding idea. Everything else in this portfolio sits under one of them.
The founding idea
WRST, 2022 to 2026
Four arms of one company, built so that each fed the others. The artists brought the sync briefs. The sync revenue paid for the studio time. The studio time is what made the mentoring and the residencies possible.
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01 · Artist management
Managing the Roster
El Waili, Donia Wael and Karim Osama, with two junior managers reporting to me on daily artist communication while I held the strategy and the relationships with brands and labels.
02 · Mentoring
A Route, Not an Audience
Rising producers including 5mastashr and HatemBas, brought into the studio and given a way through rather than a platform to shout from.
03 · The sync arm
Where It Paid for Itself
Twelve screen productions on six-figure budgets and a 250-track catalogue, with revenue split four ways: the artists’ share, production costs, management profit and the company percentage.
04 · The bootcamp thread
Where the Residencies Began
The studio made it possible to host people properly, and that turned into cross-border residency work.
- Beirut residency The scavenger-hunt week, 2024
- BBMF partnership Hosting the MASAR programme, 2025