While the majority of Israel celebrated Independence Day in April, Palestinians remembered al-Nakba, commonly defined as catastrophe, last month. On this day, they remember the loss of their homeland at the expense of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

One way they express their feelings is through music. The Palestinian hip hop movement began as struggle for the world to hear about the Israeli-Arab conflict from their perspective. 

For al-Nakba, Ayman Mghamis and Moataz Al-Hewaihy from Palestinian Rapperz (P.R.) and the group Black Unit, from Gaza, performed a small concert for orphans and talked to them to “show them a peaceful way to express themselves” and a “way for a better future,” Mghamis said.

P.R., started in 2003, consists of Mohammed Al-Farra, 24, a.k.a D.R the Dynamic Rapper, Mahmoud Fayyad, 25 a.k.a Kanaan, Al-Hewaihy, 24, a.k.a Mezo, and Mghamis, 24, who is known as Ayman joined the group a year later.

P.R. is working with Black Unit to help them become known, Mghamis said. They want people to know that there are other groups in Gaza suffering. P.R. and Black Unit collaborated on a song called Gaza Mnha E7na [We are all Gazans].

Through music, P.R. protests the mistreatment of Palestinians in Gaza, with inspirations such as the difficulties in their daily lives and the loss of Mghamis’s father and home during the Gaza operation.

P.R. is also working on releasing their album with five to eight new songs, he said. Afterwards, they hope to do a concert.

Their last concert was about five months ago, Mghamis said, adding it is difficult to plan concerts because one costs at least 1500 NIS.

PR

                                                          Photo: Courtesy 

In addition to about 35 Gaza performances, P.R. performed in Ireland and the West Bank, he said.

Tamer Nafar of DAM, said of Nakba, “It’s the beginning of the struggle in the Middle East.” He elaborated, describing the struggle as, “stealing our identity, taking our rights, treating us as unequal.” He said the day encourages them to “maintain, survive and fight.”

DAM, started in 2000, the first and leading group from Lid [Lod], have performed in U.S., Europe and the Middle East. The group features Tamer Nafar, 29, Suhell Nafar, 25, and Mahmood Jreri, 26. DAM means eternity in Arabic and blood in Hebrew.

According to Tamer Nafar, they work on growing as artists with a lot of colors and styles in their movement. On their MySpace page, their music is described, “a unique fusion of East and West, combining Arabic percussion rhythms, Middle Eastern melodies and urban Hip Hop/Rap.”

DAM

                                                          Photo: Steve Sabella

One of their well-known songs is “Min Irhabi” [Who’s the Terrorist].

They also rap about other messages, such as women’s rights, Nafar said.

Nafar said that DAM is working on their new album, which will feature more story-telling, Nafar said.

Safaa Hathot, 23, of female hip hop group Arapeyat, which started eight years ago, said Nakba is a day that “gives you more power to do something to want to be free,” she said, in reference to continuing her career.

Safaa

                                                          Photo: Courtesy

Arapeyat, from Akka, is composed of Hathot and Nahwa Abed Alal, 25, and they struggle because it is difficult for people from their culture to accept them, said Hathot.

“All these people try to stop you. You’re a girl, Muslim, Arab,” she said.

Arapeyat have messages they want to send out about Arab girls, expressed in the song El Bint al Arabiya [Arab girls].

With a powerful, feminine voice she wears everything from hip hop gear to fancy dresses.

Hathot is planning to do a solo album, which might be released next year.

Arapeyat has performed around Israel, the West Bank and Europe.

Sameh “SAZ” Zakout, 25 and a rapper from Ramla, lights a candle on Nakba day. “For me, lighting the candle is more symbolic, more hopeful,” Zakout said. “I light the candle to remind myself that one day we will have a better day.”

Sameh "SAZ" Zakout

                                                          Photo: Courtesy

Zakout began his career 10 years ago and has a band of five musicians. Another rapper/singer, Hasan MC, performs with him. Zakout said he includes Arabic music in his style with instruments such as oud and qanun.

One song, Falestini, (Palestinian), says being Palestinian is a blessing and a curse, as they have been in an impossible situation since 1948.

He is planning to release a CD, Min Youm (Since that Day) this summer.

Zakout hopes to tour Europe and the U.S. this summer. Zakout has performed in the Middle East, Europe and the U.S.

On Nakba day, Adi Krayem of We7 Boys of Da Hood from Nazareth and Kana village, said, “The Nakba day reminds us of the day it started [the Palestinian crisis].” “It reminds us of the causes of our situation.”

The group formed eight years ago, and features Krayem, 23, from Kana village, Anan Kseem, 24 and Alaa Bishara, 22 from Nazareth.

Voice of the Silence, their first official international album, will be out at the end of the year, or the beginning of next year, said Krayem.

The album’s title features a song of the same name, Sot el Samt (Voice of the Silence), which emphasizes how their parents want them to stay quiet and not get in trouble for speaking out against Israel and our old tradition. “Silence is a huge problem,” Krayem said.

On their MySpace page, their music is described as a combination of, “Eastern melodies and Western beats, with mixed cultural musical ideas and styles of singing, features of the leading eastern oud player “Alaa’ Azzam” and others, give their hard Hip Hop beats a new level of musical uniqueness.”

We7

                                                          Photo: Courtesy

We7 has performed in Norway, Holland and Palestine and held recent concerts in Jerusalem and Nazareth.

Mahmood Shalabi, a rapper from Akka, said of Nakba, “It’s a day that complicated the Palestinian people.” “It’s the day that blew us apart,” he said, referring to Palestinians who live outside the country or live in different areas than they did prior to 1948.

Shalabi said he is working on incorporating Oriental music to develop a new style. He was previously in a group called MWR, but went solo about five years ago. He has a CD with that group.

Between the songs from his group and his solo career, he has almost 40 songs, he said. He’s been working on his career for 10 years.

He is working on a new song about Gaza. On Gaza, Shalabi said, “People like millions of us are stuck in a place like a jail.” He said one war starts and then another war starts. He said sometimes it seems like the world believes Palestinians are nothing.

Shalabi has performed in Israel, the West Bank and France.

Jackie Salloum, creator of the film Slingshot Hip Hop that documents Palestinian hip hop, said a part of Nakba is Palestinian displacement, and rap is a way of reconnecting Palestinians who live inside Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and abroad. Salloum also said hip hop is a way of preserving Palestinian history and culture with their lyrics and beats, which incorporate Palestinian poetry.

The hip hop groups have multiple messages they want to give. For P.R., “Our message is we are Palestinian, we are human beings and we deserve to live in peace,” Mghamis said.

"الراب الفلسطيني" بين مقاومة الاحتلال والمتطرفين

http://www.mmdrap.com/mportal/component/content/article/4/162.html

Features > May 9, 2008

Rap the Casbah

By Michelle Chen

For more than a generation, hip-hop has drawn kids from neighborhoods around the world into the musical intersection of street culture and political consciousness. Now that common ground is making a mark in one of the globe's most conflict-ridden areas: the Arab world.

Tracing the breadth of the diaspora — from French streetscapes to Gaza slums — Arab youth are seizing hip-hop culture as a platform for self-expression.Dam, a three-member crew based in Lyd, a town outside Jerusalem, documents the bleak realities of segregation, violence and poverty under Israeli rule. (Their name means "blood" in Hebrew and "eternity" in Arabic.)

The group's breakthrough protest anthem, "Min Irhabi?" ("Who's a Terrorist?"), released in 2001, reverses a common ideological refrain: "You're killing us like you've killed our ancestors/ You want me to go to the law? What for? You're the Witness, the Lawyer and the Judge!"

In "Inkilab" ("Revolution"), Dam emcee Suhell Nafar warns "all the people of love and peace": "How can we have co-existence when we don't even exist? It takes revolution to find a solution."

As political marginalization stokes hopelessness among Palestinian youth, Nafar says hip-hop's mission is "to deliver the positive message, and to let the people know that they're not terrorists, to let them know that they're human beings."

Nafar also notes that music can cross checkpoints and borders more easily than Palestinians can. "We can't get into Gaza, or go to Nablus, or go to Syria," he says. "But our music got there a long time ago. There's no other way to connect."

On the other side of the barrier, the Gaza-based Palestinian Rapperz (PR) buck at the Israeli occupation with dark, lumbering beats and voices steeped in bitterness. The crew's trademark symbols invoke graffiti and barbed wire.

"Rap is known for people who struggle, and we are here struggling, so rap is our weapon to defend ourselves," says emcee Ayman Meghames. With the military paralyzing nearly every facet of life in Gaza, he says, "it's the only way to express our feelings without getting killed."

The new documentary Slingshot Hip Hop, by Palestinian-American artist Jackie Salloum, follows the daily travails of Dam, PR and other Palestinian artists. Scenes of studio jams and packed clubs are interspersed with police harassment, a cell-phone conversation with friends in prison and vast landscapes of rubble where neighborhoods once stood.

That atmosphere drove young musicians in the West Bank to channel their frustrations into a hip-hop collective called Ramallah Underground. Named after the region's cultural hub, the trio's politically charged rhythms blend trip-hop, electronica and Arab folk sounds.

"We consider our music to be very political, simply because our lives are very political," says co-founder Stormtrap. "Just the mere fact that we know what's happening puts a huge weight and responsibility on us to do something about it."

Hip-hop artists in other parts of the Arab world, while perhaps less explicitly politicized, nonetheless reflect on social tensions that engulf their communities.

Casablanca-based emcee Don Bigg, also known as Al Khaser (or Rude Boy), says class conflict fuels hip-hop in Morocco, which suffers from some of the deepest wealth inequities in the region. Whereas American hip-hop grew out of a racially divided society, he says, in Morocco, "We have the same segregation, but not against Afro-American people, but from the rich [who are] against what we call wlad sha'ab," or the common people.

In Egypt, where rapid economic change has bred alienation among many youth, the Cairo-based Arab Rap Family tries to intone a message of affirmation through its music. Nadoo, an emcee with roots in both Egypt and the United States, says, "We want them to grow with knowledge about life and history, and the courage to speak their mind and not be negative."

As they challenge the political and cultural status quo, Arab hip-hop artists are also looking to upset barriers within their own communities. Abeer Alzinaty's sharp, streetwise voice has complemented Dam and other Palestinian artists on many recordings. But most fans have only heard, not seen, the pioneering Palestinian R&B vocalist, because her family and community have pressured her not to sing publicly. Hamstrung by negative attention, she has limited her performances to venues outside her community in Lyd.

Even within the scene, Alzinaty says some male artists choose to stay quiet on issues of women's equal right to self-expression — a glaring contrast to their pro-Palestinian activism. "When you get revolution personally in your life," she says, "people tend to take a step backwards."

Alzinaty, who plans to relocate to the United States to develop her music, sees hip-hop as a channel for women's empowerment outside of traditional cultural constraints. "We have a lot of issues to talk about," she says. "And traditional music can do that, but not as fiercely as hip-hop can, and you can't really get too angry on a classic song."

Receiving scant attention from the commercial music industry in their home countries, Arab hip-hop artists remain an underground phenomenon. But through viral Internet marketing, Ramallah Underground, Dam and others have attracted international followings and collaborated with artists in the United States and Europe.

Some Arab hip-hop musicians see their budding community as part of a global revival. Nafar says that while mainstream corporate hip-hop goads people to "shake their asses and to forget about all the stuff that's really happening," hip-hop's original iconoclasm lives on wherever social strife roils.

"This is what we need," he says. "We've been hungry for people who speak freely."

Hip Hop culture, in her raw form, is the communication of struggle. It is because of this basic founding principle, that it is no surprise that Hip Hop has become such a large part of the Middle Eastern youth movement. Arabian Hip Hop is stirring and moving with the intensity of a sandstorm across the Sahara. Many Middle Eastern youth have picked up a pen and a microphone and begun to devote themselves to a new way to wake up the world. The sounds are cutting edge, a cross between traditional Arabic melodies and western contemporaries. The instrumentals are incredible, but they become even more sensational when paired with vocals that give you chills. Even to westerners with no knowledge of the Arabic language, the smooth and complicated sound commands respect as it is paired with English verses.

I have been a devoted follower of Arabian hip hop for as long as I can remember, and to me it was the most perfect bridge between my two worlds. Two worlds, that seem so often completely without understanding of the other. The gap is however, beginning to close. Now with the eagerly anticipated, and some may say controversial, launch of MTV Arabia, more mainstream focus is being placed upon the Middle Eastern musical influence. With some two-thirds of the Arab world's population under the age of 30, the market for MTV Arabia is huge. On top of that, the large Arab youth presence within the United States has been crying out for a media venue that expresses who they are, not just as Arab youth, but as Americans as well. Arab youth are not the only ones with their eyes and ears to the Middle East, all of the United States has sat up and taken notice. With this type of attention the need to perpetuate truth and defeat ignorance has become more and more important. What greater way to communicate this than in the international language of revolutionary music, Hip Hop. If you have no knowledge of the mission of Arabian emcees, sit up and take notice, because they are coming up fast with a strength and devotion never seen by western eyes.

P.R The Palestinian Rapperz
Nationality: Palestinian / Group Members: Mohammad Al Farra (D.R The Dynamic Rapper), Mahmoud Fayyad ( Kan3an), Ayman, and Mezo / Homepage: www.myspace.com/palrapperz / Track You Have To Hear: "Sajeen"

Palestinian hip hop is a very raw form of revolutionary hip hop that has grown out of the youth's desire and passion to speak out in a form the west can understand. P.R, The Palestinian Rappers or Palestinian Resistance, started out as four separate colleagues each with their own talents and personal career ambitions. Coming together as a group in 2003, the collaboration was a simple yet brilliant idea.

"One day one of us suggested an idea to collaborate, using our rap to do something for our country, to get away from the violence, let the people outside of Palestine know the truth about our tears, ask the question why. Why are we always the victims? Why is death the only friend for our people?"

It is a powerful statement coming from the group, who state they stand unified in their struggle as well as their vision for their music. The guys discuss the initial skepticism from elders in a similar way to other young Arabs trying to pursue something outside of what can be very traditional norms. However, that initial skepticism has begun to disappear which they credit to their perserverence in their dream.

"Day after day, concert after concert, they started to think, to know, to support our beliefs because our beliefs are their beliefs. It's all about human rights, especially Palestinian rights."

PR contains the principles and ideals that give them an edge that is unseen in the western world. Their tracks are powerful, sustained with commanding lyrics and progressive beats. The group credits "Sajeen" as one of their favorite tracks, and for good reason. Sajeen, which in English means prisoner, speaks prophetically about the pain felt by Palestinian people, many spending their best years watching their family and friends massacred, feeling imprisoned by circumstance and trapped within violence. Sajeen's strong Arabic verses supported by a somber, yet beautiful melodic beat are brilliantly complimented by an English hook. Even those who are unfamiliar with the Arabic language, can feel the evocation of P.R's pain.

The skill necessary to put together rap verses in Arabic is not simply about finding words that rhyme, but also about finding a flow that compliments the beat as well as the lyrical content. PR makes this appear effortless, and when you hear their tracks you can't help but feel their revolutionary spirit.

With their talent and dedication PR has the potential to take the mainstream by storm, however they are quite determined to let others know that it is not about making money or gaining fame, rather it is about gaining a voice for their people, for Palestine.

"Our goal is not necessarily the American market, rather, it is sending the truth and proof to the whole world that Palestine is it own country with a suffering people. To tell the world through our songs and our words, in our language as well as the languages of others that we need peace in our land and have the right to live free within that land as all people of all nations deserve to live."

They have the message, they have the medium, you can expect that PR will reach the world with their music because they get a very basic idea, "I think rap is the power of youth, so as long as there are youth the rap movement will continue."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1592612,00.html

Taking the Rap