07
Apr
2007
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Political hip hop in the Middle East

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Several months ago, we discussed the role of rap music and hip hop in the region, and now I see more influential hip hop than ever through the biggest social networking site, MySpace. Pages and pages of hip hop by Arab, Kurdish and general Muslim artists. A lot of it has to do with Israel and Palestine, or in the case of Kurds, Kurdistan, and most of it is generally political. As Liora already said, we just started targeting MySpace for PR purposes, and I am using it to learn more about creativity amongst youth in the Middle East. I think we don’t realize our musical talents in this region. After interacting with some of the artists I realized that a lot of them only play their music amongst friends or at a recording studio. Many of them are young and obviously can’t afford official production and distribution. Wouldn’t it be great to create contacts that would eventually lead to contracts for these young individuals? To promote their work way beyond MySpace and the internet? To be honest, I never heard of any of these people before. How come we don’t play these songs in our radio, rather than Jay-Z, Ja Rule, and all the other useless mainstream rap who only talk about cars, money, and women (oh sorry, I mean hoz)?

After swifting through the many pages of political hip hop I came across a very interesting artist from New Jersey, Hasan Salaam. I listened to the song Hezbollah, and I am loving the tune a lot, even though I don’t agree with all of the lyrics. But I realized how influential this is. I mean, if I didn’t know any better, this is something that I would really be passionate about and easily buy as a concept… I know that there are members here who don’t believe that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization but I think any organization that resorts to violence falls under the definition of terrorism. This controversial topic aside, I am wondering how much power hip hop artists have over youth, particularly those in the Middle East. Young people are more likely to listen to this and be influenced rather than say, a moving political book. This is why the power of these artists is so incredibly underrated.

Moreover, some of you already know my fascination with the Kurdish issue. I came across many Kurdish artists who sing a lot of nationalistic songs about Kurdistan. And I have to say, it’s very beautiful to be this active and involved through this creative medium. I just wish I was exposed to this earlier so I can catch up with all the artists! Here are some examples:

Rezgar – Kurdish hip hop

Siwan Erdal – Kurdish rap from Germany

KU Ciz – Also from Germany

Serhado – Kurdish rap from Sweden

You can easily be linked to much more if you see the friends list on these pages. It’s a big network of many talents!

Now for some other political hip hop music -

Palestine aka Ref-UG

Eslam

Salah Edin – Political rap from Morocco (much of which in Arabic)

I also came across some bands and DJs that I never heard about in Bahrain, they’re all great. I am really saddened by the fact that they’re not as mainstream as they should be. I wish the radio here would make an effort to play music by our own youth rather than getting the music elsewhere. It’s very important that we use this method of creativity to convey our thoughts and opinions. Even if you disagree with the lyrics and its political (or sometimes religious) implications, it’s still inspirational!