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Category: Music
Young Palestinians in Gaza find their voice through hip-hop
The Maqusi Towers in Gaza
City look a bit like US housing projects. The neighborhood consists of
several tall apartment buildings grouped together in the northern part
of town. It is also ground zero for Gaza's growing Hip-Hop community.
On a recent evening in one small but well-decorated apartment, a dozen
rappers and their friends and families relaxed, danced, smoked flavored
tobacco, and rapped the lyrics to some of their songs.
The occasion was a post-show celebration of the taping of Hip Hop Kom,
an "American Idol"-type talent competition for Palestinian rappers.
Fifteen acts from across Palestine performed on Thursday night, and the
show was broadcast simultaneously in Gaza City and the West Bank city
of Ramallah. Through the use of video conferencing and projection, each
city could see and hear the performances happening in the other. Five
groups from Gaza participated, and Gazans came in first, third, and
fourth place.
The Gaza City show was held in a small theatre in the Palestine Red
Crescent building. Although only publicized by word of mouth, nearly
200 young people filled the theatre, loudly cheering for the rappers
and breakdance crew who took the stage.
One of the organizers of the contest, a charismatic literature major
named Ayman Meghames, is a minor celebrity here. Part of Gaza's first
Hip-Hop group -- named PR: Palestinian Rapperz -- Ayman dedicates his
time to supporting and publicizing Gaza's young music scene.
Armed with a ready smile, Ayman was seemingly everywhere at once that
night. He was on stage introducing the acts, helping with technical
difficulties, greeting friends, and coordinating with the West Bank
organizers.
For Ayman, making music is a form of resistance to war and occupation,
and also a tool to communicate the reality of life in Palestine. "Most
of our lyrics are about the occupation," he tells me. "Lately we've
also started singing about the conflict between Hamas and Fatah. Any
problem, it needs to be written about." Rapper Chuck D, from the group
Public Enemy, once called rap music the CNN for Black America. For
Ayman and his friends, music is their weapon to break media silence.
"Most of the world believes we are the terrorists," he says. "And the
media is closed to us, so we get our message out through Hip-Hop."
The audience at Hip Hop Kom in Gaza City. (Jordan Flaherty)
One of the first acts to take the stage was a duo called Black Unit
Band. Mohammed Wafy, one of the two singers, displays the innocent
charm of a teen pop star as he jumps from the stage and into the
audience. Tall and skinny with a shock of black hair, Mohammed is 18
and looks younger. Khaled Harara, the other singer (and Mohammed's next
door neighbor) is a few years older and several pounds heavier, but no
less energetic on stage.
As the evening progressed, the energy in the room continued to rise.
The next act featured six members from two combined groups (DA MCs, and
RG, for Revolutionary Guys) now collectively called DARG Team. The
crowd was up on their feet, many of them singing along as the
performers displayed a range of lyrical stylings.
In Mohammed Wafy's apartment, the performers waited anxiously for the
results of the contest. The call came in on Ayman's cel phone. Putting
it on speaker, everyone listened as the results were announced: DARG
team had come in first place, and Black Unit had placed third. There
were no hurt feelings apparent for those that didn't win -- for these
young performers, every victory is a shared victory. DARG members will
now go on to Denmark to produce an album (if they can get out of Gaza).
Fadi Bakhet, a studious and slightly preppy looking Afro-Palestinian in
wire-rimmed glasses, is DARG's manager, and also the brother of one of
the members. As the night continued, the gathering moved to his
apartment. They celebrated the successful show, which also fell on the
last day of exams for many students, and the laughing and conversation
continued late into the night. The next day was hot and sunny, and
thousands of Gazans gathered on the beach to swim and relax by the
Mediterranean.
These stories may seem incongruent with much of the international
reporting about Gaza and the Hamas government. But it is exactly for
this reason that they should be told.
If you follow the reporting on Palestine in the US media, you may
imagine a fundamentalist state. Hamas-stan, as at least one Israeli
commentator has called it. You may imagine a nation of terrorists,
where women are oppressed and men launch rockets. But perhaps when we
learn that Palestinian families swim on Friday afternoons, that they
study literature in the day and rap about imprisoned friends at night,
we can rethink the America's unquestioning support for Israeli
aggression against this almost entirely defenseless population.
Yesterday, I visited a journalism class at the Islamic University,
taught by Rami Almeghari. The students had many questions, but one
young woman's words in particular stayed with me. "What can we do to
reach people in America and tell them how things really are here," she
asked. "How can we get them to listen, and to see?"
Jordan Flaherty is a journalist based in New Orleans, and an editor
of Left Turn Magazine. He was the first writer to bring the story of
the Jena Six to a national audience and his reporting on post-Katrina
New Orleans shared a journalism award from New America Media. His work
has been published and broadcast in outlets including Die Zeit (in
Germany), Clarin (in Argentina), Al-Jazeera, TeleSur, and Democracy
Now. He is currently traveling in Gaza with a delegation of
journalists, organizers and human rights workers from the US south. He
can be reached at neworleans@leftturn.org.
12:44 PM
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