Political Hip-Hop: From the United States to the Middle East

What do you think about hip-hop?

I love hip-hop. When I say that, it’s usually met with a scoff and people respond by asking why. Being a hip-hop fan is a hard stance to defend, mainly because of the negative connotations associated with hip-hop. The state of hip-hop right now is leaning more towards the commercial side. People are questioning the genre itself because of what they hear in the mainstream. Young Thug is one of my favorite newer artists out right now, but he got some backlash recently for his remarks. Hip-hop, in the mainstream world, is misogynistic, violent, and damaging. While I can’t deny that hip-hop struggles to connect to a larger audience due to these issues, I can passionately defend it. The thing about hip-hop is that it has so many flavors and a rich catalog of “underground” artists, meaning those who don’t enjoy the commercial success that others do. One such flavor is known as political rap.

I talked to Jason Flores about what he thinks of hip-hop in its current iteration.

Messages conveyed through art can be calculated and precise or emotional and spontaneous. Music, one of the largest entertainment industries, has many goals in its creation. For example, some music is made to be commercially successful. Some artists may want to send a critical message for their listeners to engage with, while others make music for the sake of having fun and sharing that with their audience. One genre that balances artists of all three types mentioned above is hip-hop. It started out as “party music” when block parties were popular in New York City in the 1970’s. However, in the following decade, hip-hop expanded out to include many different subgenres under its umbrella, one of which was political rap, a form of conscious hip-hop that contrasted the party music it was previously known to be. Groups such as Public Enemy and, more famously, N.W.A. gained a following for pushing forward music that challenged their audience’s worldview and, in certain instances, called for a unification of the people against some threat. The story of N.W.A. presented in the movie Straight Outta Compton portrayed how the music the group made engaged with the socioeconomic, racial, and political tension at the time. N.W.A. made music to challenge the police and judicial system that targeted their community.

Since then, politically motivated hip-hop has not broken into mainstream popularity as much. Take a look at the top charts and it’ll usually be filled with artists like Drake, J. Cole, and Kanye. However, in 2015, Kendrick Lamar, a rapper from Compton, released his anticipated album To Pimp A Butterfly. Lamar enjoyed critical acclaim from his previous album good kid m.a.a.d city, which told the story of his life as a child growing up on the streets of Compton while trying to avoid getting into trouble. Both albums are considered conscious hip-hop, but To Pimp A Butterfly strikes a specifically political tone and tackles the underlying racial tensions in the United States from an African American perspective.

To my surprise, Kendrick Lamar has become a rallying figure for the fight towards racial equality and justice. I didn’t anticipate how wildly popular Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly would be since I expected it to be swept under the rug. The message throughout the album was so strong that there are videos of people chanting the hook from his song “Alright” in protests.

Having hip-hop be such a rallying cry is an enormous change of pace from the hip-hop music that is usually played on the radio. There’s such a vibrant contrast between the two in terms of message and power. This is what enables me to defend hip-hop so adamantly. It’s a misunderstood genre that is being exploited for commercial success, admittedly by people who should be doing better to preserve the genre. Hip-hop started out as a way for the impoverished and struggling, those living in the parts of cities that you can’t walk alone in once the sun goes down, to broadcast to the world what was going on in their corner of the world. Don’t get me wrong, I love all hip-hop, so I don’t harbor a superiority complex from one subgenre to the next, but seeing hip-hop flourish, especially politically, makes me want to see how far art can go. The music they play on the radio or what reaches the top of the publicity charts is still music I love, but I hope political hip-hop doesn’t die out anytime soon. That is, I want hip-hop to maintain both artistic and commercial success.

I’ve talked about hip-hop as an American phenomenon, so let’s look at it in a global perspective. To do this, I talked to a friend from Korea to see what his and Korea’s take on hip-hop is.

I read this article recently that publicized how the Middle East was using hip-hop effectively as a tool for the struggling. It slandered American hip-hop for being stuck in place and not fighting for the progressive values it was once. I agree that American hip-hop isn’t doing that as much anymore in the mainstream, but it certainly still has many underground artists who are still going strong. I digress, let’s get back to the Middle East. Hip-hop in the Middle East is in its prime time as far as political rap is concerned. The region has been experiencing political and social turbulence long before I was even born. From the effects of colonialism to militaristic regimes rising to power to the frequent bombings that occur, the Middle East is definitely a breeding ground for political and social commentary to be expressed through hip-hop. Let’s take a look at some artists.

One of the bigger names that pops up is El Général whose most popular song is "Rais Lebled" (lyrics).

This song has such an unapologetic tone in admonishing the state of affairs in Tunisia at the time. Drawing a parallel to American hip-hop, we can see that El Général is projecting his concerns and unrest through hip-hop. This politically charged and scathing social commentary about how the government of Tunisia has let things slip to the point where people are going hungry is exactly how political hip-hop thrives in being a catalyst for change.

Another trio of artists known as Arabian Knightz were very outspoken about bringing a revolution to Egypt. Amidst the stirrings of the Egyptian revolution in January 2011, they released a track called “Rebel” to call for an uprising against Hosni Mubarak. Interestingly, the government of Egypt had regulated any inflammatory messages towards the Mubarak regime. In addition, it was released quickly following the restoration of the internet after Mubarak had restricted its access.

The list goes on and on. You can listen to El Rass rap about Beirut. How about some gender diversity? Shadia Mansour, a female Lebanese rapper, raps about the keffiyeh, a Middle Eastern headdress, and its cultural significance in "Al Kufiyyeh 3arabeyyeh."

If you’d like to hear about social issues more than political, there are female rappers that want to expose double standards and advocate for women’s right. You can listen to Soultana from Morocco.

Bringing it back to America, there is a lot of support within the hip-hop community for the political turmoil in the Middle East. Most notably, The Narcycist and Omar Offendum come to mind as people who invest heavily in their lyrics.

There’s too many artists and songs to cover. The point I’m trying to make here is that hip-hop is an extremely valuable genre. It gives a voice to the streets and its people. Hip-hop is not just music that is made in a professional setting. It is a bottom-up genre that allows anyone to share their voice. Furthermore, the hip-hop that is heard commonly in America is not representative of the whole genre. I’m critical of what people think about hip-hop because I don’t know what they have listened to. It’s easy to have an opinion, but it needs to be an informed opinion, which definitely takes more work to form. It’s unfair to the genre if people form an opinion just by listening to “bling” rappers or “gangsta” rappers or whatever surfaces to the top of the charts. The Middle East is a great place to have political hip-hop thrive as it goes through the political and social rockiness. I can only hope that, moving forward, all facets and styles of hip-hop can be preserved, but more importantly contextualized and appreciated.

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About the author

Nitant Patel (Section 2)

E-mail: patel.nitant.bca@gmail.com

I'm a sophomore planning on majoring in mathematics and computer science that loves music, especially hip-hop.