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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2008, pages 52-53 Music & Arts Poetry of Peace Jam at USC
THE LEVANTINE Cultural Center of L.A. celebrated six years of progressive arts and peace outreach Nov. 17, the final day of the University of Southern California’s (USC) Middle East Awareness Week, with a “Poetry of Peace Middle East Hip-Hop and Culture Jam” at USC’s Bovard Auditorium. The star-studded program, arranged by Levantine Center’s Jordan Elgrably, featuring the Palestinian hip-hop group DAM from Israel, Arab-American rappers Ragtop and Omar Offendum, along with stand-up comedian Maysoon Zayid, Iranian actor Shaun Toub of “Crash” and “The Kite Runner,” actress Shiva Rose, and University of California at Irvine Professor Mark LeVine. While Arab hip-hop has been off the radar of mainstream media, its global popularity with youth is transforming it from an underground music genre into a political phenomenon. Offendum (a.k.a. architect Omar Chakaki) and Ragtop (a.k.a. film writer and former Washington Report staff member Nizar Wattad) brought down the house with their explosive rapping. The auditorium reverberated with screams and deafening music as DAM, the Palestinian rappers from Lod, Israel, appeared on stage. While a giant screen showed images of U.S.-made Israeli F-16s dropping missiles on Palestinian apartment buildings and blowing up Red Crescent ambulances, the hip-hop trio raised fists and gave a thumbs down to Zionism and racism. Recognized as the foremost Middle Eastern hip-hop group, DAM earned more than 2 million hits on YouTube for its hit single, “Who’s the Terrorist?” Brothers Tamer and Suhel Nafar and Mahmood Grira formed DAM—the Arabic word for eternity and the Hebrew word for blood—in 1999. Suhel told the Washington Report they identified with African-American rappers whom they watched perform on the Internet. “We live in a walled-off ghetto in Lod where drugs and crime are encouraged by the Israelis,” he explained. “We began to study about Malcolm X, we watched Tupac and we began to rap.” —Pat McDonnell Twair |
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