Arabic Rap and the Re-Creation of Hip Hop's Founding Myth

FOCUS 85 Intro Hip means to know, Keepin’ It Real: Arabic Rap and the It's a form of intelligence, Re-Creation of Hip Hop’s Founding To be hip is to be update and relevant. Hop is a form of movement. Myth You can't just observe a hop, You gotta hop up and do it. KRS One ft. Marley Marl, "Hip Hop Lives (I Come Back)" 2007 In the course of the uprisings and revolutions of 2011, Arabic rap became more aware of its social and political potential. The events and discourses of the so called Arab Spring were conducive to, on the one hand, the freedom to produce cultural products and commodities in an environment freed from direct censorship and, on the other hand, the possibility for Igor Johannsen rappers to relate to a revolutionary setting and contribute to the accompanying dis- In the context of the so called Arab Spring, nomic marginality for these respective courses. The cultural production of the the role and function of “popular culture” cultural practices. This article explores a Arab hip hop-community today is vast. generally, and hip hop specifically, have selection of decisive features of the Thousands of MCs are disseminating their been scrutinized by a row of scholars and founding myth of hip hop that are actual- voice to local, regional and global audi- journalists. Connecting the respective cul- ized through their representation in the ences. By way of its founding myth and tural practices and products with the Middle East and North Africa. narrative, hip hop-culture provides signifi- founding myth of hip hop as it material- cant tools to artists and local hip hop-com- ized in the USA, Arabic rap is not only able Keywords: Hip Hop; Cultural Heritage; munities in respective societies through to authenticate its products and perfor- Popular Culture; Arab Spring; Cultural the structure of its practices and its ability mances, but it additionally sustains the Practice to equip would-be revolutionaries with relevance of social, political, and eco- signs, symbols and codes. This is the frame Middle East – Topics & Arguments #07–2017 FOCUS 86 for the discussion attempted in this article practices is, congruously, a deeply social Africa after 2011. The first part of this paper about the performance and re-creation of and cultural endeavor with no claims to is concerned with the political legacy of the narrative and myth of hip hop-culture’s objectivity or factual, measurable truth. hip hop and with its potential revolution- founding era in an Arabic and Middle Instead of questioning claims of objectiv- ary quality and rebellious posture. In the Eastern context. ity or authenticity, I will thus present second part, the prominence of “the local” Thus, I explore the founding myth of hip ex amples of conscious identity construc- in hip hop-culture will be assessed as a hop-culture and the preservation of tions that are able to tap into a widely dif- crucial aspect for authenticating and, by decisive features of its cultural heritage— fused and believed myth of the ability of that measure, validating cultural practices. understood as intangible and consisting hip hop to “speak truth to power.” Hip hop-culture is conventionally under- of social norms, aesthetic beliefs, tradi- In what way and to what effect, then, is the stood as being comprised of four ele- tions and the oral history of hip hop—in the myth and narrative of the hip hop-gener- ments: DJing, MCing or rapping, graffiti Middle East and North Africa. In this ation1 connected to the struggles of con- and breakdance. To these four some add endeavor, “myth” is not understood as a temporary Arabic societies, whose hip a fifth, knowledge or “overstanding,”2 as fictitious tale, rather, it is understood as hop-communities are now at the forefront the one element that holds the other “lived reality” creating a normative thrust, of representing one of the more recent together and that is crucial for being per- whose authenticity is created through examples of the global spread of hip hop- ceived as “authentic.” Here, I will concen- repetitive performance (Klein and Fried- practices and aesthetics? What artistic trate specifically on the cultural practice of rich 62). Concomitantly, I understand the content is being produced, and how does rapping. The rapper epitomizes the orator, “heritage” of hip hop as a constructed nar- the “cultural heritage” of hip hop manifest lyricist and historicist of hip hop-commun- rative that is realized through a concentra- itself in and through these cultural prod- ities across the globe. In understanding tion on specific aspects of the structure of ucts? In answering these questions, I will, the Arabic-speaking hip hop-community the culture and a selected historiography on the one hand, compare the significa- as one tribe of the Global Hip Hop Nation of its recorded lyrical material. Claiming to tion of socio-economic, political and soci- (GHHN), I will not include in my discussion represent “real” hip hop and being true to etal factors that are deemed constitutive any other linguistic identifications. I am, its credentials involves the “authentic” perfor the hip hop-generation of the USA with however, aware of their existence in the formance of the practices of the culture. those of the Arabic hip hop-community. respective societies. Additionally, my treat- “Real” and “authentic,” however, must be On the other hand, lyrical and aesthetic ment of the issues presented is in no way understood as floating signifiers, who aspects of hip hop-practices in the Arabic exhaustive; rather, by presenting select adjust their meaning to coincide with context shall serve as examples for the examples, my aim is to highlight transre- altered spatiality—both socially as well as re ification of hip hop as a means for pro- gional modes of re-creation of cultural geographical—and changed temporality. viding a voice to the voiceless, spreading practices along with a set of presumed, or The reification of a specific intangible cul- knowledge and for preserving the revolu- performed, normative implications. tural heritage through the use of cultural tionary zeal in the Middle East and North Middle East – Topics & Arguments #07–2017 FOCUS 87 Revolution and Rebellion in Hip Hop the African American population in the communal life-worlds (Mikos 66-67). They My people wake up, why you sleepin? USA was still confronted with rampant fostered artistic creativity and were able Don’t give up, not that easy! ra cism and the labeling of the “Black male” to create a form of competitiveness on the Not for Morsy, not for Sisi, as the archetypal criminal. After the end of basis of lyrical, musical, or artistic skills None of them really cares if you’re segregation, incarceration had become instead of physical or material power. eatin. the new model for the subjugation of Afri- Competing with one another by way of can Americans. The inner city, where crime these practices has been delineated since MC Amin feat. Sphinx, “Batel” (“Decep- and drug abuse had fused with everyday their genesis according to their perceived tion”) 20133 violence, came to be seen as an arena for authenticity, the ability to perform a viable harsh containment policies by state secur- representation of social, political, and/or In several societies experiencing upris- ity institutions. The setting was character- religious/spiritual experiences or life- ings, revolutions and civil unrest in the so ized by an immense and expanding pro- worlds relevant to the respective hip hop- called Arab Spring, practitioners used the portion of young African Americans who community. Being a recurrent term in hip cultural practices of hip hop to formulate were governed by comparatively old, hop-culture, I understand “[r]epresenta- critique, describe the socio-economic white people (Chang 387). The socio-eco- tion [a]s the production of meaning of the hardships that led to the widely felt dis- nomic situation was dire, with poor hous- concepts in our minds through language” content and add their voice to the dis- ing and infrastructure, economic depriva- (Hall 17). The practice of rapping is, under- courses concerned with the reasons for tion, and scarcity of job opportunities. In stood in this way, a quest for meaning, for and the events around the uprisings and the words of hip hop-historian Jeff Chang: overstanding. This pertains especially to revolutions. In doing so, the hip hop-com- “If blues culture had developed under the local—the “hood” or ”street” and its munities in the Middle East and North conditions of oppressive, forced labor, hip people—but also to the wider political or Africa were able to connect their activities hop-culture would arise from the condi- religious perspective and the connections to the founding myth and narrative of tions of no work” (13). between the local and the global as well global hip hop-culture. From its begin- According to its founding myth, hip hop as between the particular and the univer- ning in the urban ghettos of the USA, hip provided means to confront these harsh sal. Accordingly, the rapper functions as a hop provided artistic means to engage in conditions of life in the postindustrial city conjunction between the world—or his/ public deliberation about the social, polit- as an ethnic minority, excluded from eco- her representation of it—and his/her com- ical and economic situation of its practi- nomic growth and ignored by state insti- munity, epitomizing a form of “organic tioners, which initially consisted of mostly tutions and services (Taylor 116-18). The intellectual” (Abrams). African American youth of New York in the cultural practices contained in hip hop- Accordingly, and as with all culture, the 1970s (Rose 2).

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