Arab hip-hop and rap artists get inspired by recent events

Arab hip-hop and rap artists get inspired by recent events
by Janne Louise Anderson – Nov 28, 2011 – The National

On January 25, 2011, the day of the first major demonstration in Tahrir Square in Cairo, the 28-year-old Syrian-American rapper Omar Offendum, aka Omar A Chakaki, went to his studio in Los Angeles and wrote a verse calling for the overthrow of the former president Hosni Mubarak.

He called a fellow rapper, the Iraqi-Canadian and Dubai-born Yassin Alsalman – more widely known as The Narcicyst.

“Yo, Yassin,” he said. “Do you have time to write a verse?”

The Narcicyst did and recorded it that same day in Montreal. Quickly the stars aligned: The HBO Def Poet Amir Sulaiman sent in a third verse from Atlanta.

Freeway, an American Muslim MC, sent a verse from Philadelphia. And finally, the Palestinian-Canadian R&B vocalist Ayah did the hook. Everything was produced by Sami Matar, a Palestinian-American composer from California, and within three days #Jan25Egypt hit YouTube:

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

The words are Gandhi’s but the voice is Offendum’s, laid over a backdrop of rows of praying men being dispersed by a water canon. Then, saluting the 26-year-old Tunisian vegetable-seller whose self-immolation prompted the Tunisian revolution, The Narcicyst raps:

“But first God rest the soul of those who choose to be free, from poverty they rose, knee-deep in robbery, souls will plummet and burn like Mohammed Bouazizi. From Cairo to Baghdad.”

On the day of the video upload, tweets from Tahrir Square started ticking in, thanking the artists.

Within a week the track had been viewed more than 100,000 times, mainly in the Middle East. A Libyan, Yemeni and Syrian uprising later, the number has more than doubled. …more