“Egypt is the place to be”: “pyramids are oh so shiny,” and “the women here are oh so cute.” But there’s a heavier message, if you’re listening for it: key afrocentric/afrofuturist theorist George M. James tells us that the Greek conception of “atom” referred to “that which cannot be cut,” while only Egypt’s “Memphis Theology” provided modern science with the know-how to “successfully split the atom” (Stolen Legacy 149-50). And West Coast hip hop pioneer Greg Broussard, coming on like the top dog among ancient Egyptian priests, shifts this knowledge to the turntables and beat science, boasting that, “I mix so fast, I scratch so sweet, there’s not another D.J. on earth who can compete.” But before concluding that the Egyptian Lover is just a mac daddy manipulating Black nationalist themes to accumulate a harem, one needs to hear the two key musical quotations: first, from Kraftwerk, including the heavy breathing from “Tour de France” and a pastiche of the synth line in “Trans-Europe Express” (via Afrika Bambaataa, of course); and, second, “The Snake Charmer” theme, which accompanied Little Egypt’s bellydancing at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. The place called “Egypt,” therefore, bears all the historical marks of the globe: Berlin, New York, and Chicago-style Orientalism, for starters. The doubled title betrays this difficulty: the proper name, lacking a clear and determinant referent, becomes ever more emphatic, but thus all the more open to a cut.

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