Reem Kelani does Sayyid Darwish's "The Porter's Anthem" لحن الشّيّالين

And she does it live.


Kelani's next album will be dedicated to the music of Sayyid Darwish. Read about it here.

Bou7hayrat Tabarayya: rap from Lebanon (Ram6 a.k.a. Al Hamorabi) and Palestine (boikutt)

This is one rugged track, great collabo between Lebanese producer/rapper Al Hamorabi and the Palestinian boikutt (ex-Ramallah Underground, now a member of Tashweesh.) Check out Al Hamorabi's myspace page and/or his facebook page for more info.

Breaking News, Tamer Abu Ghazaleh

I love this song by Palestinian artist Tamer Abu Ghazaleh. I wish I had time to make an effort to translate. But here are the first two lines:

إلى كل الجعانين من تشيلي للصين
هناك أكل مجاني في أرض فلسطين

To all the hungry, from Chile to China/There's free food in the land of Palestine.



Tamer describes himself as follows: "A composer of alternative Arabic music, and an Oud, Buzuq, and vocal performer. The lyrics in his compositions are in formal (fus-ha), Palestinian, or Egyptian dialect, written by himself or by Arab poets. The lyrics, in general, are not directed towards a specific theme; they express an array of human experience that is not defined by time or place: love, challenge, insecurity, boredom, thrill, frustration, etc."

To learn more about Tamer and to listen to more of his music, go to his Myspace page.

Hussein Barghouthi and Sabreen

Short doc on poet and Sabreen lyricist Hussein Barghouthi. Notable especially for footage in the beginning of Sabreen in concert. Footage must date from the early 80s?

Katibe 5: Palestinian rap from the refugee camp of Burj al-Barajneh, Beirut, Lebanon

Another interesting article about Palestinian rap, this time from Lebanon. I found this in today's Daily Star (Jan. 31, 2008). Go here for an interview broadcast on al-Jazeera English with the group in question, Katibe 5. It's useful because it gives you some idea about conditions in Burj al-Barajneh camp. Go here for a video of the group in concert. A more recent, short clip of the group live (and a better song) than the previous vid, is here.

The sounds of Public Enemy re-routed through Burj al-Barajneh

Five well-read, fast-talking, wisecracking young men are putting the social content and political volume back into hip hop

By Ayman Oghanna

BEIRUT: In the 1980s, hip hop exploded onto the world music scene like a heat-seeking missile. Groups like Public Enemy spat poetic political activism into the formerly apolitical "party music" of their predecessors. In doing so, they gave America's black, poverty-stricken and racially oppressed underclass much more than entertainment.

"Fight the Power," "Don't Believe the Hype," "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" - these were anthems of emancipation, empowerment and education, a lyrical call to arms charged with the poetry of Gil Scott-Heron and the fury of Malcolm X.

Today, however, political hip hop in the United States is as dead as disco. Flip through any of the music channels and a horde of diamond-encrusted children flog you with crass, self-indulgent materialism, vanity-label perfumes and a shopping list of expensive pretty things you will never own.

The articulate activism that once defined the genre has all but disappeared, leaving in its place a grotesque serving of the worst kind of capitalism - a vain, vacuous, self-serving materialism where you either get rich or die trying. Little wonder, then, that one of American hip hop's most successful sons, Nas, entitled his last album "Hip Hop is Dead."

But, then again, don't believe the hype. Hip hop as a political medium is far from dead. Throughout Africa and across the Arab world it is thriving. In particular, young musical renegades from Algeria to Gaza have embraced the genre as an exciting new sociopolitical platform. The subculture of Palestinian hip hop is adeptly captured in Jackie Salloum's critically acclaimed documentary, "Slingshot Hip Hop," which made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, earlier this month. Salloum's film profiles a number of home-grown hip-hop groups, including DAM, Palestinian Rapperz (PR), Arapeyat, Abeer, Mahmoud Shalabi and more.

Another group at the forefront of this musical intifada is Beirut's latest hip-hop sensation, Katibe 5. Refugees straight outta Burj al-Barajneh, these five talented twenty-something MCs are the heirs of Public Enemy and its ilk. As artists who combine Arabic music, political activism, social commentary and, of course, hip hop, they are creating a fresh, dynamic form of political resistance.

Each member of Katibe 5 goes by his chosen nom de guerre. Nadir, or Moscow, is the group's stern-faced, serious and solemn pragmatist. The affable Amro, aka C-4, boasts a confident, extroverted charisma that is nowhere near as menacing as his plastic-explosives nickname would suggest. Katibe 5's resident graphic artist is Tarek "The Butcher" Jazzar. Bobo is quick-tongued and articulate, originally from Sierra Leone. And Yousri, known as Molotov - "Or Molo," he quips, "What name do you want? I've got plenty" - is the joker of the pack.

These eclectic characters have been recording music together since they were 15-year-old mates in a Burj al-Barajneh school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). "No, not a school exactly. It was a small prison," Bobo promptly clarifies.

The group recently signed a deal with Lebanon's Incognito, an upstart record label and independent distributor associated with La CD-Theque, a record shop with branches near Sassine in Achrafieh and the American University of Beirut in Hamra.

"Like the name says, they're not commercial," says Bobo. "They're underground." Katibe 5's first album, "Welcome, My Brother, to the Camps," is due to be released on Incognito in two weeks' time.

The group's music encompasses a variety of subjects, including the conditions of refugee life, corrupt humanitarian aid agencies and non-governmental organizations, Iraq, capitalism, Palestine, the 2007 conflict in Nahr al-Bared and relaxing on a Saturday night. Inspired by the older, more political generation of US hip-hop acts, Katibe 5 shares their same idealism.

"We're the students of Public Enemy," says Bobo. "They succeeded in teaching people and we want to continue this. Our message is sociopolitical. You can't separate the social from the political."

Chatting on the roof of the building in Burj al-Barajneh where Jazzar lives with his family, the members of Katibe 5 converse about politics, philosophy, literature and economics with the same passion and energy they put into their music.

"Have you read Nietzsche?" asks Moscow. "You like Frantz Fanon?" chimes Bobo. "What about Yukio Mishima?" adds Molo. "You don't know Mishima? Kenzaburo Oe then? C'mon, man. You must read Mishima, Oe, all the Japanese writers, man. They're good. They're like this," Molo explains, holding his thumb and forefinger together to create an exact, precise point. "They give the wall its true image."

These well-read, fast-talking, wisecracking, chain-smoking refugees don't present themselves as musicians but rather as Marxist revolutionaries - more PFLP than Notorious B.I.G.

"We are part of a revolution," says Moscow, "a musical revolution. It's happening here and all over the world. We're the adverb. We come before the verb. We're preparing people for action," he says, a Che Guevara bracelet slipping out from under his sleeve to punctuate his revolutionary rhetoric.

Katibe 5 sees itself as being on a genuine musical mission to increase awareness, educate people and instigate global action and resistance.

"We want people to wake up and realize their rights and responsibilities. We want people to realize that companies are trying to control their behavior," says C-4.

The audience that Katibe 5 addresses doesn't only reside in the refugee camps. The group expresses a Trotskyite solidarity for all of the world's oppressed.

As Moscow explains Katibe 5's aims, "We have a responsibility not just to reflect this life. We're not just Palestinian refugees speaking about our problems, or our lives in the camps, because the problems we face are not only a Palestinian problem. All over the world there are people who are oppressed, people who are incarcerated, people who are suffering."

So what or who, in Katibe 5's view, is the cause of this global suffering? "It's the system, man," says Bobo/

"The system" is a recurring bogeyman in Katibe 5's music and ideology: a perceived, pervasive superstructure that keeps people ignorant, poor and backward.

"We're fighting the system," Bobo expounds, "the system that makes people blind, and makes people ignore their rights and responsibilities.

"Look at hip hop," he adds. "The mainstream record companies want to say that hip hop is about cars, b****** and getting money. You should have this, you should have that. You should have a mobile phone because if you don't have a mobile phone, you're not a human. [But] hip hop's not about that."

So what, exactly, is hip hop about, then?

"Hip hop is a weapon for all oppressed people," says C-4.

"Hip hop is a movement," says Bobo. "It has always existed because hip hop is life. From the beginning there were always people living, people suffering. Hip hop is the art of talking, of expressing yourself. Lyrics are its base. You find it in poetry, essays and here in Arabic culture. It has existed from the beginning. As long as people are oppressed and incarcerated they will have something to say."

Illustrating their point, they start free-styling over the camp's background beats: children playing, hammers hammering, the call to prayer coming from a nearby mosque and - this being last Sunday afternoon - the sounds of deadly riots in the Dahiyeh.

"Hip hop is based on the street and so it cannot be anything but political," says Bobo, satisfied with the clarification.

Perhaps it's a reflection of their context, youth or political and musical influences but there is an ominous paranoia undercutting Katibe 5's worldview, as well as an open acceptance of resistance by any means necessary.

"You know what, man?" C-4 warns. "They know what hip hop does to society and they want to kill it and stop its flow."

"You have to fight for your rights," adds Molo. "Peace means politics, politics means negotiations, negotiations are meant to sustain negotiations and not bring a solution. So I say, f*** negotiations, f*** politics and f*** peace."

Putting aside the philosophical musings and antagonistic worldview for a bit, what really counts is the music and, thankfully, Katibe 5's debut album is good, good enough to give some merit to Katibe 5's grand ideas and political pretensions.

The group's sound - a mix of traditional Arabic melodies, rap, beat-boxing, poetry and sampled news footage - is in many ways unique. It's a far cry from the majority of loved-up popular Arabic music and perhaps more importantly, it's enjoyable to listen to. Think Public Enemy with an Arabic twist - loud, satirical, relevant and hard to ignore.

The contrasting voices and styles of the five members complement one another well, and they give the music variety and depth. To be sure, some songs are a little rough around the edges, but that is also part of the appeal. On track after track, Katibe 5's sincerity, raw energy and youthful vigor carry their music. Furthermore, the group isn't afraid to experiment. This gives them the potential to get bigger and better, and to receive the attention they deserve.

But ultimately, they couldn't care less about what other people think. "All that matters is this," insists Molo. "Know your aim in life, do it and then die. There's nothing else. Everything else is emptiness."

Lyrics for DAM's "Who's A Terrorist?" (Min Irhabi?)

Who's a terrorist?
I'm a terrorist?!
How am I a terrorist when you've taken my land?
Who's a terrorist?
You're the terrorist!
You've taken everything I own while I'm living in my homeland
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!
If you are my Judge
I'll be sentenced to death
You want us to be the minority?
To end up the majority in the cemetery?
In your dreams!

You're a Democracy?
Actually it's more like the Nazis!
Your countless raping of the Arabs’ soul
Finally impregnated it
Gave birth to your child
His name: Suicide Bomber
And then you call him a terrorist?

You attack me and then you cry
And then you rush to complain about me [to the world]
When I remind you that you started the whole thing,
You jump to say
"You let small children throw stones!
Don’t they have parents to keep them at home?"
WHAT?!
You must have forgotten you buried our parents under the rubble of our homes
And now while my agony is so immense
You call me a terrorist?

Who's a terrorist?
I'm a terrorist?
How I am a terrorist
When you've taken my land?!
Who's a terrorist?
You're the terrorist!
You've taken everything I own
While I'm living in my homeland

Why terrorist?! Because my blood is not calm
It's boiling!
Because I hold my head for my homeland
You've killed my loved ones
Now I'm all alone
My parents driven out
But I will remain to shout out
I’m not against peace
Peace is against me
It’s going to destroy me

You don't listen to our voices
You silence us and degrade us
And who are you?!
And when did you became ruler?
Look how many you've killed
And how many orphans you've created
Our mothers are crying
Our fathers are in anguish
Our land is disappearing

And I'll tell you who you are!
You grew up spoiled
We grew up in poverty
Who grew up with freedom?
And who grew up in confinement
We fight for our freedom
But you've made that a crime
And you, the terrorist call me the terrorist!

Who's a terrorist?
I'm a terrorist?
How I am a terrorist
When you've taken my land?!
Who's a terrorist?
You're the terrorist!
You've taken everything I own
While I'm living in my homeland

So when will I stop being a terrorist?!
When you hit me and I turn the other check
How do you expect me to thank
The one who harmed me?!

I tell you what!
You tell me how you want me to be!
Down on my knees with my hands tied up
My eyes to the ground
Surrounding by bodies
Houses destroyed
Families driven out
Our children orphaned
Our freedom chained up

You oppress
You kill
We bury
We'll remain patient
We'll suppress our pain
Most importantly you feel secure
Just relax and leave us all the pain
You see our blood is like that of dogs

NOT EVEN

When dogs die they receive sympathy
So our blood is not as valuable as a dogs
No - My blood is valuable
And I will continue defending myself
Even if you call me a terrorist