Palestinian Hip-Hop inspires resistance & hope

Political activists and hip-hop enthusiasts eagerly filled a midtown Atlanta club on April 16 to catch a dynamic performance by DAM, Palestine’s first hip-hop crew. A previously scheduled concert was thwarted in 2009 by the refusal of the U.S. State Department to grant visas for the internationally recognized group.

This long-awaited, high-energy, politically charged concert fulfilled everyone’s expectations. DAM’s three members skillfully captured the brutality and cruelty of occupation through exquisitely powerful lyrics, which were met by loud applause, cheers and chants of “Free Palestine!”

In 1998, inspired by U.S. rappers such as Tupac Shakur and Public Enemy who used hip-hop to describe conditions of poverty, racism, police violence, drug use, alienation and despair for youth living in ghettoes and barrios in the U.S., then-15-year-old Tamer Nafer began to pen his own lyrics and beats.

Born in the city of Lod or Al-Lyd, a suburb of Tel Aviv, Nafer’s family was one of those living within an area of Palestine that was partitioned off and became Israel in 1948. The Arab neighborhoods are overcrowded and suffer rundown schools and few public services. A wall separates them from the newly built sections where Jewish settlers live.

Legally an Israeli, everything else defined Nafer as a second-class citizen in a country seeking to destroy his cultural identity. It was through hip-hop that he could express his anger, frustration and hope. He was soon joined by his brother, Suhell Nafer, and then by Mahmud Jreri. DAM was born.

The name has multiple meanings. In Arabic, it means “to last forever; eternity.” In Hebrew, it means “blood.” To the group, it stands for “Palestinian forever.” The letters in DAM also abbreviate “da Arabian MCs.”

In September 2000, Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon, accompanied by hundreds of armed police, went to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites, to underscore Israel’s intention to control all of Jerusalem in defiance of international law. The Second Intifada broke out; youth with rocks and slingshots battled Israeli tanks and guns. Thousands of Palestinians were killed and many more injured and jailed during the following months. Yet the world’s attention only focused on Israeli deaths when suicide bombers struck inside Israel.

DAM’s song, “Meen Erhabe?” (“Who’s the Terrorist?”), released online in 2001, was downloaded more than 1 million times and became the anthem of resistance, not just in Palestine but in oppressed communities around the world. It exposed the nonstop oppression of occupation, and the daily humiliation and aggression committed by Israeli police and troops on Palestinian men, women and children. The song resonates with passionate determination to be free.

Performing in Arabic, Hebrew and English, DAM has collaborated with an array of Israeli filmmakers and musicians and is popular with Jewish youth who are refusing to serve in the occupation army. Their vision of a secular, egalitarian, democratic society appeals to young people tired of war and racism.

The ground-breaking film “Slingshot Hip Hop,” directed by Jackie Salloum, propelled DAM into greater international visibility. Although the documentary includes the development of other hip-hop artists in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank as well as the emergence of young women onto the scene, the movie traces the political growth of DAM’s music as an expression of the ongoing struggle for justice and equality, not only of Palestinians but globally. They reference Malcolm X and Che Guevara, women’s rights and the role of writers, poets and musicians like Edward Said, Mahmoud Darwish and Marcel Khalife.

The Atlanta concert was sponsored by the Movement to End Israeli Apartheid-Georgia, which was formed after the December 2008 Israeli attack on Gaza. Responding to the call by Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns to sever ties with Zionist Israel, MEIA-G has launched a campaign to end a program located at Georgia State University that facilitates the cross-training of Georgia and Israeli police forces.

DAM’s U.S. tour includes San Diego, Los Angeles, Denver, Baltimore and New York City. Visit www.dampalestine.com.