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Quarterly Feature: "Political Art": Arab American Hip-Hop
by Greta Anderson Finn
While Arab Americans have been involved in the Hip-Hop scene for a number of years-including L.A. producer Fredwreck (who works with SnoopDogg) and top Miami DJ Khaled- a new breed of more overtly political Arab Hip-Hop has recently emerged. While still using the freshest Hip-Hop beats and rhymes, this lyrical content focuses on the Arab story, from being stereotyped and strip searched in airports, to more pressing global issues affecting the Arab world. Among these new artists are L.A. based groups The Philistines and The N.O.M.A.D.S., who perform at benefits, conferences, and mainstream venues across the country, and recently played to a packed house at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. These groups, like many other Arab-American Hip-Hop groups, have been able to succeed in the industry without compromising the quality of their music or their message.
Recently, Arab Hip-Hop groups in the U.S. have begun reaching out and supporting their Arab counterparts in the Middle East. Significantly, the Philistines released an unprecedented fundraiser CD to support the making of Jackie Salloum’s documentary film entitled SlingShot HipHop:The Palestinian Lyrical Front. The album, entitled Free the P, features over 20 Hip-Hop and spoken word artists of both Arab and non-Arab descent who donated tracks to the album to support the film and raise awareness about the Palestinian struggle. Included on the album are Suheir Hammad, Immortal Technique, Euphrates, Invincible, the Iron Sheikh, and Head-Roc, among others. Many of these artists are collaborating with groups overseas and providing them with new beats because production expenses are so high.
After hearing Palestinian Hip Hop on American Public Radio four years ago, New York based filmmaker and writer Jackie Salloum began exploring the scene, and more specifically the group DAM (meaning blood in Arabic), a leading Palestinian rap group from Lid in Israel. In 2002, DAM’s notorious song “Meen Erhabe?”, which translates “Who is The Terrorist?”, became the subject of Jackie’s first video project, and has since played in film festivals and art galleries around the world.
In 2003, after realizing that Hip-Hop attracts audiences that would not otherwise pay attention to the Palestinian struggle, Salloum decided to delve even further into the emerging Palestinian rap scene. The multiple voices dedicated to expressing the personal and political struggles that pervade the region have become the subject of a documentary film produced by Salloum with the support of Arab and Arab American artists across the U.S. and Arab world. SlingShot Hip-Hop: The Palestinian Lyrical Front chronicles the lives of rappers living in Gaza, the West Bank and in Israel. And DAM, the most popular of a large handful of artists, is central to the film.
True to form, the Hip-Hop of occupied Palestine evokes themes of struggle and resistance as artists lay beats about drugs, violence, and the daily oppression they face under Occupation. Reminiscent of the multiple messages voiced through American Hip-Hop and Rap, artists in Palestine use music as a means to unify people who share common struggles. Their artistic expression represents the “drama of the streets”, the harsh reality of cultural and ethnic subjugation, and continues to be a productive means of expression for Palestinian youth to communicate with one another across the region and hopefully soon, with the rest of the world.
SlingShot, due to be released this coming winter, narrates alternative voices of resistance within the Palestinian struggle and explores the role music plays within the lives of Palestinians. Their lyrics range from speaking out against racism and oppression, to self criticism and love. As Tamer Nafar of DAM explained in an interview, “You see we live under a physical and mental occupation. People have internalized the situation and have become apathetic. They don’t resist, they’ve given up even to think about that. The generation of our parents is full of fear and apathy. They are afraid for the shabak and want to stay away from politics. We do not accept this. We want to shake things up. We sing about what we see, about the violence, the humiliation we face, and so on. We think this is educational in a true sense; we don’t want to tell people what to do, we know that stuff and we’ve seen it too much. We want people to start thinking for themselves by offering them a mirror. We want people to develop their own potential.”
Beyond Palestine and Israel, mutual friends of Salloum and others working on Slingshot have spread the film's message to different communities across the U.S. and Europe. Because many Arab American and Palestinian rappers discuss the same topics— identity, the state of the Arab world, U.S. foreign policy, ethnic and religious discrimination, and shared pride in heritage—both are using Hip-Hop as an alternative voice of resistance to policy-making and/or occupation in some form or another.
The support Salloum and Slingshot's additional producers continue to enlist for the film is not only lending visibility to Palestinian Hip-Hop and Rap artists, but also is helping them to record professionally and connect them with mainstream artists in Europe and the U.S. Significantly, the Arab American Hip-Hop scene is becoming increasingly aware of the emerging voices out of Palestine. In fact, DAM performed for the first time in the United States last year, filling a New York venue beyond capacity. They were also interviewed on the Chuck D Radio Show. Meanwhile in Europe, Glasgow-based indie pop group Belle and Sebastian toured Palestine last year and met with rappers in Gaza and Israel to learn about how they make music under such difficult circumstances. Belle and Sebastian were traveling with the support of War on Want, a British NGO dedicated to alleviating poverty in developing countries. They even wrote about their experiences and posted journal entries from the trip on their popularized website.
We can expect that the genre’s rising momentum and increase in mainstream American and European interest -compounded with Salloum’s forthcoming film- will begin to bridge a long-standing divide, not only between groups across Palestine and Israel, but between artists and audiences across the globe. For further information, to find out how you can help, and to learn more about the scene, please visit the following resources:
To view the trailer of Jackie's film:
www.slingshothiphop.com
To make a donation to the film: www.slingshothiphop.com/support.html
The film has been almost entirely funded by individual donations and grassroots fundraising
To buy a copy of the Free the P fundraiser CD:
www.freethep.com
To learn more about groups here in the US:
www.thephilistines.com
www.thenomads.biz
The visit the leading site on Arab Hip-Hop:
www.arabrap.net |
