Sayed Makkawi was born into a simple, popular family in the Quboudan neighborhood in the Nasiriyah neighborhood in Sayeda Zeinab in Cairo on May 8, 1928. He was blind and this was a key factor in the direction of his family to push him to the religious path by memorizing the Qur’an. He used to recite the Qur’an and call for prayer in the Abu Tabl Mosque and the Hanafi Mosque in Hayy. Nasiriyah, Cairo.
As soon as Sayed Makkawi reached the age of youth, he began drawing on the heritage of religious chanting by following the great reciters and vocalists at the time, such as Sheikh Ismail Sukkar and Sheikh Mustafa Abdel Rahim. He has old records from robpicia sellers in the neighborhood to listen to because of his constant thirst for oriental music.

In the mid-fifties, the Egyptian radio began to deal with Sayed Makkawi as a composer besides being a singer and began assigning religious songs to him, through which he presented Sheikh Muhammad al-Fayumi many religious songs such as (Exalted be God Almighty, Amen Amen) and (Ya Rifai Ya Rifa'i I killed all the snakes) and (Hairy at the Gate of Forgiveness) until they went to the Most Beautiful Names of God.
He also presented light folk songs such as (Akher Halawet, Mafeesh Keda) and (Matila, Ya Masada, We Go to the Lady). And the two songs of the late poet Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah. His debut was with the artist Mohamed Kandil in the song (Hadutah) by the poet Salah Jaheen, Rafiq Kifah Sayed Makkawi.

After that, Sayed Makkawi presented many tunes for the radio from patriotic and popular songs. For example, Muhammad Abd al-Muttalib presented the two songs (I recommend me) and (I told my father, Alik and Qali), as well as the song (Every time when I date you), which was sung by Sayed Makkawi in the eighties and gained wide fame.

The beginning of fame for Sayed Makkawi was through a melody by Sharifa Fadel, which is (Congratulations to you, my fans, my dear) and the most famous melody of Muhammad Abdul Muttalib, which is (Ask once to me), which resounded all over Egypt and shed light on that emerging composer, whose genius is manifested in the intensity of his simplicity and the depth of his Egyptianness Which he derived from the two musical schools to which he belonged and benefited from their knowledge, namely Sayed Darwish Expressionist School and Zakaria Ahmed Al-Tabaribi School. A friendship bond with the second, and this is a rare type of loyalty that is rare today.

The artist Warda Al-Jazaery has a large collection of successful songs such as “My times are sweet, my heart is happy, my feelings for you, Yama Layali and I love you believe me.”
He also composed a song for Umm Kulthum, Ya Mossharni
Sheikh Sayed Makkawi set out to go around the bar for the great singers, as well as for the rising generation of them at the time, such as the singer Fayza Ahmed, where the first tune he presented to the Egyptian radio was composed by Sayed Makkawi, which is the song (Ya Naseem Al Fajr Subh).

During the month of Ramadan, the Egyptian radio has been presenting Al-Masharati episodes, and it was a pledge to more than one composer to present these episodes. Among the composers who had previously participated in composing Al-Masharati, Ahmed Sedky, Morsi Al-Hariri and Abdel-Azim Abdel-Haq, they presented it to a band. Al-Masharati rings and required that he sing it. How surprising the radio officials were, when the composer Sayed Makkawi decided to completely dispense with the band and present Al-Masharati with the distinctive drum for that character. It follows that we will dispense with all the composers participating in Al-Masharati's melodies and assign the entire work to Sayed Makkawi.