WELCOME TO ASLAN MEDIA MUSIC!

Five Arab Music Artist Worth Watching in 2012

2011 not only brought unprecedented social and political changes to the Middle East, it also created a wellspring of creative expression in the region. As censorship fears began to dissolve along with the governments that enforced them, new voices began to emerge in the arts.

These are not overnight artists; years, even decades, of repression forced them underground. But in the wake of last year’s historic changes, unknown names became instant celebrities, and unlike dictatorships, which put words into peoples' mouths, these artists and songwriters used the power of Arabic poetry to bring the outside world in, to invite the rest of us to hear their struggles, their triumphs, their dreams, and their unity.

To call the artistic reverberations of the Arab world a renaissance may be a bit of a misnomer, because the cultural movement is not powered by enlightenment, but by affirmation. Many of these artists show no signs of stopping. While certainly not all inclusive, here is a list of six artists worth paying attention to in 2012:

Arabian Knightz, Egypt

Watch the video here

In 2006, Cairo-based emcees Rush, Sphinx, and Money formed what is now called Arabian Knightz, one of the hottest and most talked about Hip Hop groups in Egypt. Despite their viral following, their collaborations with Snoop Doff and Steele of Smif-n-Wessun, and their hit singles “Fokkak,” “New Day,” “Knightmarez,” and “Desert Queen,” Arabian Knightz struggled for years under Hosni Mubarak’s censorship. Their four-year-old song “Not Your Prisoner” stayed under wraps until this year, when its online release hit the Internet and became the first song to come out of Egypt after the January 25 revolution. “Rebel,” which features samples of Lauryn Hill, followed closely behind. Soon after the songs’ releases, Mubarak’s regime shut down Egypt’s Internet for a week. In the end, Mubarak stepped down and the Arabian Knightz kept going strong. Their debut album, Uknighted State of Arabia, is scheduled to come out later on this month.

Da Arab MC's (DAM), Palestine

Watch the video here

Based in Lyd, Israel, some 15 minutes from Tel Aviv, DAM was founded in 1999 by brothers Tamar and Suheil Nafar and their friend Mahmoud Jereri. The trio is not only the first Hip Hop group to come out of Palestine, it’s one of the first to come out of the region. They rap mostly in Arabic, but incorporate English and Hebrew lyrics as well. While the name DAM is an acronym for Da Arab MC’s, it also comes from the word dam, meaning “to last forever” in Arabic and “blood” in Hebrew. French newspaper Le Monde called the trio “the spokemen of a new generation” because their songs address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and poverty from a youth perspective, mixing their political lyrics with Arabic percussion rhythms, Middle Eastern melodies, and urban Hip Hop. Their 2001 online release “Min Irhabi” (“Who’s the Terrorist”) was downloaded over a million times shortly after hitting the Internet, and in 2006 they put out their debut album IHDA (Dedication). Since then the group has been featured in Vibe, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Q, Basement, Reuters, New York Times, MTV, CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera. While their music videos promote peace and intercultural dialogue, there are some, including writers here at Aslan Media, who feel that their live performances are anti-Semetic and contradictory to the messages they put out in their music. Yet their following spans the entire Arab region, and it continues to grow, which is why they’re worth watching in 2012, especially as politics continue to unfold between Palestine and Israel. DAM is expected to put out a new album soon, tentatively titled Street Poetry, but due to funding issues, its release date is still yet to be determined.

Emel Mathlouthi, Tunisia

Watch the video here

Tunis-born Emel Mathlouthi - a singer, songwriter, composer and guitarist - has a unique style that is everything and nothing at the same time. A self-taught musician, she began singing at the age of eight on the stage of a small amphitheatre in the suburbs of Tunis. Seven years later, she decided to pursue her music career and released her first album in 2010. Her compositions represent the blended artist she has become, mixing traditional Middle Eastern melodies with Western infusions of flamenco, Celtic, Gnawa and Ragga, even influences from Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. As an expatriate in France, her songs, written mostly in Tunisian dialect, express the complex emotions of diaspora: anger, love, patriotism, nostalgia and disillusionment. This month, she’ll take the stage during the Tunisian Film Festival in Hollywood. Her new album Kelmti Horra (My Word is Free) is scheduled for release in late January.

Ramy Essam, Egypt

Watch the video here

If you’ve paid any attention to media coverage of 2011 demonstrations in Tahrir Square, there is no doubt you’ve heard Ramy Essam, a 24-year-old architecture student who struggled in the Egyptian music industry for eight years, then catapulted from nobody to “Singer of the Revolution” during the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Originally from Mansoura, northeast of Cairo, Essam began his music career in 2003; he began writing political songs in 2009, two years before the Egyptian Revolution. He took part in protests in Mansoura during the early part of demonstrations, then traveled down to Cairo to take part in the occupation in Tahrir Square. There he heard the chants of other protesters, strung them together, and “Irhal” became a YouTube hit and the anthem of the Egyptian Revolution. Essam barely got a taste of his celebrity status before Egyptian military forces arrested, beat, and tortured him along with over one hundred other demonstrators on March 9, just after he played a concert in Cairo. When the army finally released him, he was beaten to the point of barely being able to walk. Today, he refuses to condemn the army and instead sings more passionately against tyranny and government corruption. The world continues to listen. He is a recent recipient of the Freemuse Award for “personif[ying] the powerful role that music played in the Arab Spring.” Essam is currently at work on a new album of Tahrir Square songs called Al Midan, due for release sometime this year.

Shadia Mansour, Palestine

Watch the video here

British-born Shadia Mansour is not just arguably the first lady of Arabic Hip Hop, she is also one of its few successful women. Often compared to Lauryn Hill, she began singing at the age of five, then moved to Hip Hop in her teens, rapping in Arabic even though English is her first language. At 18, she wrote and produced her own album, Incomplete, but her break-out release came with the single “El Kofeyye 3arabeyye” (“The Keffiyeh is Arab”), written about her rage toward an American clothing company that began manufacturing blue-and-white versions of the Arabic scarf with stars of David on it. Her work is almost entirely political, and, until she began collaborating with Palestinian Hip Hop group DAM, it was very one-sided. Since learning more about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from the Israel-based DAM, her work has softened a bit. But she hasn’t lost her edge. Her lyrics are strong, direct, and many times accompanied with images of the Middle East conflict in her videos: non-violent resistance, but with words that strike with the same blunt force. “It’s a musical intifada, a musical uprising,” Mansour told the BBC in 2010. She was recently featured in last year’s The Ballot or the Bullet, a documentary that followed Hip Hop group A-Likes during the three months leading up to the 2008 presidential election. She is currently in the works of releasing a new album sometime during 2012.

*Photo Credit: lilianwagdy

• < Prev
• Next >