Hip-Hop & Rap Responses

So the readings that I chose to do were the Channels of Rage: Dissecting the Inner Conflict (on the Islamic Middle East blog), Israeli Hip-Hop - all flow, no edge? on Haaretz, and ‘honour killings’ and DAM article via unwomen.

It was interesting reading about the movie Channels of Rage, and the story following the two rappers. Are we watching this as a class? Because we totally should. I thought it was different that the ending wasn’t a happy one (or at least it didn’t sound like it would be considering it was how the two friends drifted apart). The whole relationship with rap and the conflict is really cool; I’m not a big rap fan in general, but I’m really into Shadia Mansour’s rap and I’m going to check out Tamer and Subliminal’s music tonight. From the sounds of the article it seemed like Tamer and Subliminal mostly rap about the conflict and the struggles of either side, so it would be really interesting to see it from a musical perspective!

The Israeli Rap – all flow, no edge? article brought up the question of whether ‘authentic’ rappers are meant to be from the ghetto or not. I don’t think that’s really necessary, as long as it talks about the difficulties they face in life. It just so happens that people who live in a ghetto tend to have it harder than people who live in suburbia. And while Israelis have it easier than Palestinians, being the Occupier and not the Occupied, they still do have to live with difficulties and so why wouldn’t that make their rap ‘authentic’? I did find the whole correlation between ‘blackness’ and rap/hip hop to be a bit funny considering the recent crackdown on African immigrants in Israel and sending them back to Sudan.

I read about the honour killings last of all, and I do have to say the whole idea makes me uncomfortable. I don’t know/haven’t heard of any families that would ever practice this in the Levant region, but it came up sometimes when I lived in Saudi and I just can’t imagine living through this and being afraid of your own family. I know culture can be strict and it does dictate parts of your life, but small things – like don’t wear tank tops or shorts in public or you’ll have creeps following you along the street and you’ll have your grandfather lecture you forever on your immodesty – small things, not ‘fear for your life’ things. I thought it was really cool that they put such a controversial topic into a music video. It won’t reach the likes of Saudi Arabia or anything – they’re quite excellent at screening what people see on the internet there – but it might reach families in the levant area and maybe (hopefully) make a difference!