Los Angeles in the early 1980s was undoubtedly wild—cocaine was a routine party favor, reaching near-epidemic proportions throughout the entertainment industry, dance clubs were bumping with new wave, and gang wars were exploding in the city.
Amid the chaos, a musical revolution was happening inside places like the L.A. Sports Memorial Arena and The Penthouse. Armed with a Roland TR-808 drum machine, Greg Broussard, better known as the Egyptian Lover, helped pioneer West Coast electro-hip-hop, a genre so cutting edge and novel at the time that he was initially hesitant to introduce it to the crowd. But once he dropped the beat, the audience erupted. Broussard was hooked, and he practically sprinted to the studio every chance he got to make more 808-driven masterpieces.
Though Broussard’s first single, “Dial-A-Freak,” was a local club hit, it was his breakthrough record, “Egypt Egypt,” that really pushed the genre to the forefront and was being obsessively played on local radio stations like KROQ, but it quickly spread across the nation. The phones were ringing off the hook for more of that Egyptian Lover sound.
Since catching the bug from Afrika Bambaataa’s 1982 single “Planet Rock,” Broussard has never wavered from his original style. More than 40 years later, albums like 1984, 1985 and 1986 are still anchored by the boom-bap beats of the 808, intoxicating synths and vocoders along with Broussard’s party-oriented lyrics. He’s been able to tour the globe multiple times and sustain a career he never imagined possible as a young student at James Monroe High School.
“I definitely have a lot of ‘pinch-me’ moments,” he says. “Right now, everything is one big blur. It’s like one big concert, and I just did it. One time a promoter came over and says, ‘So what was your favorite show?’ I’m like, ‘Man, it’s like one big blur.’ My friend was sitting there and says, ‘I’ve only been working with you for two years now, and it’s one big blur to me, so I know 40 years of this is one big blur.’ He was right.”
Prince also played an integral role in the birth of the Egyptian Lover. After hearing the song “Controversy,” in which Prince does what Broussard calls a “chant rap” at the end, he wanted to emulate that style.
“Give me a freaky kinky nation,” a part of the lyrics to “Egypt Egypt,” was his attempt at his own chant rap. He essentially married Prince’s vocals with Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock,” Kraftwerk’s “Numbers,” and Twilight 22’s “Electric Kingdom” to come up with the Egyptian Lover sound.
He recalls a trip to Sydney, Australia, where he really wanted to take a picture of the Sydney Opera House but never got the chance. So he asked a booking agent if he could play a show there in the future.
“He called me back about a month later and says, ‘I did one better—you’re playing at the Sydney Opera House and headlining the festival,’” he recalls. “I’m walking up to the Sydney Opera House and I’ve got goosebumps. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, can’t wait to hear the 808 in this building.’ When I go on the back of the building, I see all this equipment that says Prince. I’m like, ‘What!? Oh my god. Prince performed here last week!’ All his equipment was there.”
Broussard’s music is being discovered in 2026 like it’s 1986. Last year, “Rack City” rapper Tyga sent Broussard a simple Instagram message that read, “Hey fam, let’s work.”
Tyga’s father, Stevie J. Stevenson, had been a friend of Broussard’s in the ‘80s (though in 1991 he was sentenced to life without parole for several federal charges, including drug trafficking and kidnapping). Initially, Broussard thought maybe it was a favor for his father, but he soon learned that Tyga landed the lead role in a movie called Baby You’re a Star and wanted Egyptian Lover music to be the soundtrack.
“I was like, ‘Sure, let’s do something,’” he says. “When he told me the whole story and that he was doing a movie based in 1989, I was in. He said instead of doing Egyptian Lover-sounding records, he’d rather have me just do it. I went to the studio and worked on some stuff with him.”
Broussard estimates he did around 20 songs, but he isn’t sure how many of them are going to make the cut. The musical drama, which is loosely based on Tyga’s life, is currently in production in Portland, Oregon. According to Deadline, Baby You’re a Star co-stars Madison Bailey and Ashton Sanders as well as Apollonia, Clifton Powell, Patrick Cage, David Alan Grier, and Mike Epps. For Broussard, it’s another moment in his career that seems surreal and the best part, he says, is he’s “still having fun.”
He adds, “As long as I’m still having fun and traveling, I won’t stop. I usually save ‘Egypt Egypt’ for the last song of my set. They usually sing along and love it. A kid ran up to me after a show once and goes, ‘Did you make Egypt Egypt, too? Is that a new song?’ I’m like, ‘No that’s an old song from 1984,’ and he says, ‘The album 1984?’ I reply, ‘No, the year 1984.’ He told me it sounds brand new [laughs].”
Months later, the same kid found Broussard on Instagram and told him he did a deep dive into his catalog and is now a “big fan.” It blows Broussard’s mind.
“I did a small club tour in the U.K. and I hit this one club up and the promoter says, ‘There’s about 50 kids who asked me if you’re really using real vinyl; they said they’re tired of A.I. and all this fake stuff,’” he remembers. “They lined up early and were all in the front row. While I’m DJing, I hear one kid scream out, ‘He is real. It’s not A.I.!’ I had to keep a straight face and keep mixing and doing my thing. He just was loving it.”
It gives Broussard more hope for future generations.
“The kids are loving it,” he says. “When a video of me mixing in Germany came out, it went viral. All these kids started loving it, so a lot of things happened to me at the same time. I did a song with Josh Baker called ‘Dr. Feel Right’ and that went viral. I got all these friend requests on Instagram and this whole year is booked up as well as the first four months in 2027.”
Despite Broussard’s demanding travel schedule, he’s been able to continually carve out time for his family—it’s a must.
“I was off last week and I had the grandkids over to the house,” he says. “We had a summer vacation at the house. I’ll be going on the road soon and I won’t be back on the weekends, so I just took this whole month to spend with them.”
Broussard married somebody he went to high school with, the same girl who introduced him to Kraftwerk. They’ve been married for 27 years, a rarity in the music industry. He notes, “She knows that this is my life, and she’s okay with it.”
Broussard, now 62, is in awe his records are selling the way they are. In fact, sometimes it feels like he can’t keep up.
“They’re selling faster than ever now,” he says. “I think last month [June 2026] and during COVID, I sold more vinyl than anything. Everybody was buying vinyl during COVID. And when I put out ‘Everything She Wants’ last year, it actually outsold ‘Egypt Egypt’ for the last 20 years. We’re selling them out. It’s so crazy.”
