Arabic Hip Hop - History

History

Before Arabic hip-hop emerged as a separate genre, Arab-Americans were regularly involved in hip-hop in the United States, notably producer Fredwreck, based in L.A. and Miami-based DJ Khaled. American hip-hop music began to see popularity in the Arab World in the early-to-mid 1990s. Northern African Arabs, mostly residing in France, the epi-center of European hip-hop, were the first to begin making the music that constitutes the Arabic hip-hop genre. For example, the Super Saian Crew and IAM had Arabic members. This music, a product of the French banlieue’s beur and noir communities, was a blend of traditional American hip-hop, the French styles popular at the time, and Raï, a popular music style from Northern Africa. French hip-hop rose to popularity partly because of Francophone radio broadcasting requirements, begun in 1994, that established quotas for all stations of 40% of daily broadcasts to be in French.

Groups began to emerge in Palestine in the mid-90s, including popular group DAM. DJ Lethal Skillz was promoting new local groups “such as Aks El Seir” at around the same time. In Egypt, hip-hop was less popular, but a small buzz led to an emergent b-boy population. In 2004, the first hip-hop show took place there when the RZA, member of the Wu-Tang Clan, performed in the Siag Hotel in Cairo alongside Kinetic 9 of Killarmy, a Wu-Tang Clan affiliate, Cilvaringz (a Moroccan-Dutch, and the first Arab to get signed by an American rap group) and Saleh Edin, an Arab Moroccan rapper.

In 2006, Arabic hip-hop solidified its mainstream presence in the Arab World with Hip Hop Na, a reality TV show on MTV Arabia hosted by Fredwreck and Qusai, a Saudi Arabian Artist. Hip-hop, both Arabic and American, is followed and created to varying degrees in most of the countries of the Arab world, including where social and political restrictions make this difficult. For example, Saudi Arabia is home to the group Dark2Men, who competed in the HipHopNa reality show mentioned above. In addition, break dancing "has become a popular pastime in the kingdom".

It is difficult to establish numbers for albums sold or listenership by demographic in the Arab world due to the lack of reliable statistics. Furthermore, viewership of satellite TV in the Arab world cannot be accurately quantified. However, we can discern popularity through marketing techniques utilized by satellite television providers. According to a 2007 report, more than 85 percent of urban households in the Arab world have satellite television," a forum that has expanded to include music channels such as MTV Arabia which " plan to offer a hefty dose of hip-hop and much of the same youth-lifestyle programming MTV beams across the U.S."