Ayzee and his co-conspirators Ahmad "Balla Skillz" Al-Saggaf, Hani "Black Drama" Zain and Mohammed Hamid (known simply as M.H.) make up the local hip-hop crew Jeddah F.A.M; the initials stand for both "Family" and "Fabulous Ambitious Members."

These young, opinionated, urban players explain why they have taken the "indie" route by composing, producing and marketing themselves: They don't want to be, in the words of Ayzee, "slaves to the mind-controlled music industry." The band's most well-known track is "Jeddah Love," a modest hit on YouTube. It's a tribute to the city and the Jeddawi way of life.

Juggling between their day jobs, rehearsal and recording at their studio, the band showed up an hour late (forgiven!) to discuss why they do what they do.

"Making music makes us happy," said Black Drama before he sat down for the interview:
 

We met at a music event in 2008. There were artists from Jeddah and Riyadh, from R&B singers to rappers. We then got together, became good friends and decided we would be more effective together than as individual performers. Since then we have enjoyed collaborating with local and international artists, including from South America, Canada and Australia. We are more than just a band. We are a family, and all the artists we work with become an extended part of our family.
 

It’s a blend of R&B, rap and hip-hop. It's what some people might call underground/commercial music. The vocals are in both Arabic and English. Each one of us has something different to offer. Hamza and Mohammed do R&B, Ahmad raps in English and Hani in Arabic. It was a conscious decision be bilingual. We wanted to retain our roots yet reach out to a wider audience by giving expression to our music in English. Today hip-hop artists need to be educated. There’s a connection that a musician needs to have with his listeners. We chose hip-hop as a medium to share our message with people because we grew up listening to hip-hop. It's all about the community. It could be about family, fatherhood, love, friends and celebrations. People have a lot of misconceptions about hip-hop music. It's not all drugs, guns and women as hip-hop is negatively portrayed on television. It's about the struggles you go through. We’re not "gangstas." We've never even seen a gun in real life. The media has twisted the entire concept of hip-hop and we want to change that.
 

Music videos! Right now, we are in the process of putting our collection together and compiling our tracks onto an album after which we want to focus on marketing and distribution. We have our own private recording studio and we are using online media, such as YouTube, to showcase our music. The response has being encouraging. We are looking forward to working with visual directors who really understand hip-hop culture, because hip-hop music videos are very different and not many can do justice in expressing the dynamics of its form. It’s important that our music touches people’s hearts. That is why we are taking this long to put the entire album together. We hope to create music that will last many generations. We want it to live forever.
 

People here have a hard time accepting hip-hop and rapping as legitimate. Not many people can keep an open mind when it comes to music, especially the older generation. Youngsters will listen to anything with a beat in it, but we also want the older listeners to accept us. We’re responsible musicians and do not want to ape those Western hip-hop artists that rap is murder, drugs and bling. We are here to sing about an ordinary life with all its struggles. Our family has been supportive so far. As musicians, the biggest obstacles we face is having concerts. If we were performers outside of Saudi Arabia, we could have shows every month, maybe even twice a month. But it’s difficult here. We could move if we wished, but this is the birthplace of our music; this is where we came from and this is where we will continue doing all that we do. It’s all a matter of how well we can use the different forms of media to share our music.
 

We know what we say influences our listeners. Young people these days just want to listen to either angry music or sad music. We need to analyze the community around us to understand what they really feel. Most commercial bands are controlled by their music labels and are obliged to express things they may not really believe in. They’re doing it for the money. Their music reflects an embarrassing culture. We want to sing about the common issues that affect you and me and our community, and people respect us for that.
 

We launched our website (http://jeddahfam.com) for the new year. We have a Facebook following, but the website will offer us the chance to really connect with our fans and know how they feel. We want to hear what they think, and give us ideas for music. It's going to be very interactive. Another interesting project in the pipeline is CONCEPT TV, which will basically focus on lifestyles. Our website will also offer free content for interested music producers. We plan to host talks with different musicians. Many artists these days want to outdo each other, but we think it’s important to bring talented performers under one roof to create a united front. Because we believe collectively, we create music to the people, for the people.