{"id":4534,"date":"2011-05-08T10:03:23","date_gmt":"2011-05-08T14:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/2011\/04\/28\/"},"modified":"2011-05-08T10:03:23","modified_gmt":"2011-05-08T14:03:23","slug":"hadi-thawra-rap-music-in-libya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=4534","title":{"rendered":"Hadi Thawra! Rap Music in Libya"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s no real secret that I\u2019m a fan of rap music. Not all rap music, and I\u2019m certainly not an expert, but I do know what I like. You\u2019ve seen it in \u201cPublic Enemy and the People Who Love Them<\/a>\u201d and \u201c Nas \u2013 Big Damn Hero<\/a>\u201d. You may also recall an article I wrote about how important it was that music had returned to Afghanistan in \u201c Music Matters<\/a>\u201d, and that it also gave mention to the struggle of heavy metal music in Iraq. But I\u2019ve always had the most fun discussing rap music in my sporadic but ongoing series of \u201cFreeze! It\u2019s the Vice Squad\u201d articles. Several countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia have \u201cVice Squads\u201d to police the morality of their citizens; be it showing a little denim pant leg or setting up turntables. Rap music in these environments was discussed back in 2007 in \u201c Freeze! It\u2019s the Vice Squad! Part 2: The Rap Edition<\/a>\u201d which dealt with Iran and in 2010 with \u201c Freeze! It\u2019s the Vice Squad! Part 6: Rap Music Strikes Again!<\/a>\u201d which was also Iran-o-centric.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always talked about how rap music can be the voice of rebellion, a means of expressing a life that many can\u2019t imagine, and essentially a catalyst to society as a whole. This is why I was not surprised to learn that there is a rap music movement in Libya that has been exploding since February 21, 2011. Twenty somethings in Libya had been making music in hiding, never sharing it for fear of repercussions that would include prison and possibly death. 23 year-old Mutaz el Obidy of the group Revolution Beat is quoted in a France 24 article<\/a> as saying, \u201cWe weren\u2019t allowed to talk about the system, we could not speak our thoughts. We were not allowed to perform in college or anywhere. I was afraid not about myself, but about my family. They would have been killed, I\u2019d have to watch my sister being raped. I never got in trouble because I wasn\u2019t stupid about it, we never published it.\u201d<\/p>\n

However now France 24 interviewed Revolution Beat because they started distributing copies of their song \u201cHadi Thawra\u201d to anti-Gaddafi demonstrators in Benghazi\u2019s central courthouse. I\u2019d say it\u2019s public now. Leela Jacinto reporting for France 24 says<\/a>, \u201cThis is revolution the way the Libyan youth see it. If every history-mending youth movement were to have its own Bob Dylan vocalizing the dissent and dreams of a generation, \u2018Hadi Thawra\u2019 is the \u2018Times They Are a-Changin\u2019 of the anti-Gaddafi hipster set.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Associated Press article<\/a> quotes Mutaz el Obidy of Revolution Beat as he explains that, \u201cRap is more popular than rock and country among the young people in Libya because it expresses anger and frustration.\u201d If it helps Mutaz, that\u2019s what Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were saying with \u201cThe Message\u201d, what Public Enemy was doing with \u201cBring the Noise\u201d, and certainly what N.W.A. were expressing in \u201cF*#k the Police\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rap grew in America when a segment of the population felt marginalized and set up by a system that didn\u2019t appear to care about them. It is the universality of that feeling of anger and frustration that causes rap music to ferment globally. When I reviewed the book \u201cSufi Rapper\u201d<\/a> I learned of the vibrant French rap community that comes from the \u201cdeprived Paris suburbs\u201d, aka the projects. I\u2019ve written about the rise of rap music in Iran. And now we\u2019re looking at Libya. Perhaps large segments of the population will never see or feel the way I do about the power of rap music, but the genre has withstood the test of time and has inspired people around the world. And I dare say, these rap communities in Iran or Libya are probably more true to origins of the music than we\u2019re seeing from many popular rap artists today. For these artists rap music is about the struggle. They realize how unlikely it is that they will ever have the lifestyles of their American counterparts, but they just don\u2019t stop. Maybe it\u2019s just another facet of their struggle. Maybe they\u2019ll write a song about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"