The first time I discovered hip-hop was in 86 at an Oakland flee market when I picked up three bootleg tapes: Beastie Boy’s “License to Ill”, the Fatboys and Run DMC’s Raising Hell. I’d only just started listening to my own music and these records blew my mind and were nothing like I was hearing from my parent’s stereos. The music inspired me and further influenced my life for the next dozen years.
For Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel, there aren’t many voices and outlets for reaching out to like minded kids. Slingshot Hip Hop is a movie first released at Sundance last year which braids together the lives of prominent emcees and the role hip-hop is grown in youth culture to break the barriers of racism, poverty, war and the strains of daily survival.
Several artists were featured in the film including DAM, Palestinian Rapperz (PR), Arapeyat, and “Palestine’s First Lady of R & B†Abeer. World Hip-hop Market give a good intro to the film and comments.
Without getting political, the movie focuses on the struggle to grow hip-hop music under the conditions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s a good flick if you’re a hip hop fan, or want a different perspective on the conditions of young arabs living in the region go through and expressed through their music.
Meen Erhabi-Whos The Terrorist – DAM
