Political and Social Influence
While some Arabic hip hop artists focus on the topics most closely associated with mainstream American hip hop, many choose a topical focus influenced by and addressing a number of social and political circumstances and situations. The topics approached depend largely on region, and there is a particular divide between Arab emcees who live and work in the Arab World and outside.
Much of the hip hop generated in the Arab World deals with a mix of social circumstance, such as poverty, violence, and drug-use, as well as political reality, insofar as this is possible given censorship. The hip hop of Palestine in particular has generated much interest in this respect and the music is considered a means of opposition. For example, the song "Meen Erhabe" by DAM aligns itself with opposition to the Israeli occupation, and was referred to critically as a "theme song for Hamas".
“ | 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 represent 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. | ” |
—Greta Anderson Finn, Political Art: "Arab American Hip-Hop" |
Arabic Hip-hop has been both an active player in and directly influence by the changing political and social conditions of the region over the past two years. The Arab Spring, in particular, as a revolutionary movement affecting numerous states, including Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, elicited musical responses from emergent or formerly repressed hip-hop artists. Issues such as poverty, rising unemployment, hunger, and oppressive authoritarian regimes were all part of the politicized messages of hip-hop music. Hip-hop served as a mode of resistance in dissenting against authoritarian states, as well as a tool for mobilization in mass demonstrations. As such, the conventions of the hip-hop genre within the Arab context, provided a voice for marginalized citizens within these revolutionary and subsequently transitional states. Arabic hip-hop is most typically directed towards and most relevant to youth populations, who made up a substantial number of political actors in the Arab Spring.
Hip-hop music that emerged from the Arab Spring movements, though directly influenced by particular social and political realities, transcended borders and resonated throughout the region. This was largely achieved through social media, as artists and activists share their music via Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Additionally, Arab hip-hop music utilized varying languages, including multiple Arabic dialects, French, and English. The multilingual nature of the music enabled artists to inform those outside of the country about the revolutions and also allowed others within the Middle East and North Africa region to be influenced by the music as well.
Outside of the Arab World, artists focus on many of the same types of issues, but there is a stronger focus on issues associated with immigration and living as ethnic minorities. In France, for example, much of the "socially critical" music focuses on "migration related problems such as discrimination, xenophobia, and the problematic identities of young people of foreign descent." Furthermore, these artists deal with the government enforced impetus for assimilation "coupled with the age-old stereotypes rooted in colonial references and the stigma of the marginalized banlieue."
Arabic hip hop artists in the west, particularly Great Britain and North America, who also deal with racism and marginalization in their content, specifically mention an experience of "doubleness" – internal conflict between traditional and modern culture. For some rap and spoken word artists, hip hop is seen as being true to both, due both to the rich Arabic poetic history and to the utility of hip hop as a form of expression for marginalized or demonized communities. The poet Lawrence Joseph addresses the conflict explicitly in his poem "Sand Nigger".
The view of mainstream America towards the Arab population, domestically and worldwide, and military intervention in the MENA region factor prominently in Arab-American hip hop and other western forms. Certain artists from the Arab world approach the western viewpoint similarly, such as the Emirati group Desert Heat who rap in English specifically for the purpose of "educating" westerners on a realistic view of Arabic culture and history.
On the other extreme, Mohammed Kamel Mostafa, whose father Abu Hamza al-Masri is in prison on terrorism charges, uses hip-hop to express solidarity with groups such as Hizbollah and Hamas, as well as to glorify violent Jihad. His message is different from other opposition rappers who have gained popularity in the genre insofar as he explicitly establishes his credentials by referencing his military skill and ability to cause violence.
Read more about this topic: Arabic Hip Hop
Famous quotes containing the words political and, political, social and/or influence:
“Currently, U.S. society has been encouraged by its political and subsidized mass-media intelligentsia to view U.S. life as a continual morning in America paradise, where the only social problems occur in the inner cities. Psychologists call this denial.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“The man possessed of a dollar, feels himself to be not merely one hundred cents richer, but also one hundred cents better, than the man who is penniless; so on through all the gradations of earthly possessionsthe estimate of our own moral and political importance swelling always in a ratio exactly proportionate to the growth of our purse.”
—Frances Wright (17951852)
“After school days are over, the girls ... find no natural connection between their school life and the new one on which they enter, and are apt to be aimless, if not listless, needing external stimulus, and finding it only prepared for them, it may be, in some form of social excitement. ...girls after leaving school need intellectual interests, well regulated and not encroaching on home duties.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (18421911)
“I became the Incredible Shrinking Mother the year they started junior high. If our relationship today depended on physical clout, I would have about the same influence with them that the republic of Liechtenstein has on world politics.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)