Baladi is a rhythmic style common in Middle Eastern music

Middle Eastern music

The music of Western Asia and North Africa spans across a vast region, from Morocco to Afghanistan, and its influences can be felt even further afield. Middle Eastern music influenced the music of India, as well as Central Asia, Spain, Southern Italy, the Caucasus and the Balkans, as in chalga...

, and the associated traditional dance raqs baladi.

This is the most common rhythm among music used for oriental dancing, including Arabic pop and traditional Egyptian dance music. Traditional Egyptian dance is most often done to a beledi piece.

The basic structure of the beledi rhythm, played on the darbuka, is as follows:

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
D-D---T-D---T--

(Dum Dum ... Tek Dum ... Tek ...)

(Capitals represent stressed beats. Dum is the dominant hand on the middle of the tabla, Tek either the dominant or the non-dominant hand on the rim of the tabla.)

What is perhaps the most common beledi version is more correctly called Masmoudi Saghir ("small masmoudi") as it is really a masmoudi contracted into 4/4 time. The drummer has freedom to “fill” in between these stressed beats as he/she sees fit to interpret the music. A common fill is something along the lines of:

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
D D tkT D tkT
D D tkT D tkT tk

(the second version has a "bridge" to lead it into the next bar)