BEIRUT, 6 March 2007 — Lebanese Rajab Abdel Rahman’s taxi was stolen. But that was good. He has since cruised on a different road, focusing on a rap career to vent his generation’s despair and fear of a return to war.
“You don’t need to explain war ...we are soldiers struggling ...for peace, for better days. Throw roses and hold hands,” sings RGB, the stage name of the hip-hop artist.
“Rebellion. It is forbidden to remain silent.”
Standing under a sole beam of light on the dark stage of Al-Madina Theater, RBG just holds a microphone before an awed audience still not very familiar with the underground musical genre.
With a breakneck rendition of rythmic lyrics, the 26-year-old warns that continued political and confessional divisions may throw back Lebanon into the harrowing chaos and violence of the years of civil war it endured between 1975 and 1990.
His songs express his generation’s urban angst stemming from deep social problems, poverty, emigration and confessionalism while longing for peace, freedom and rebellion from the constraints of a rigidly conservative region.
In an event dubbed “Sha’er bil Shareh,” or “poet on the street”, RGB led a hip-hip performance with local rappers — Moe, Joker and 6K — DJ Lethal Skillz and break dancers with up-to-date haircuts.
“We are people from all walks of life, from different regions and religions, Christians and Muslims. That is why our group is called Qitaa Beirut (district), which means we form a united Beirut, neither East nor West Beirut,” said RGB.
“We are joined by mutual respect. This is our message and the politicians should take this example,” said RGB who grew up in Beirut’s popular Sunni neighborhood of Basta which was one of the areas where street fights broke out in January.
“Instead of using weapons, we express our opinions with words, music and dance. This is what the new generation is about.” They may be rapping in a Lebanese Arabic dialect, but the performers are dressed in typical Western hip-hop accoutrement: Baseball caps switched sideways, oversized sweatshirts with hoods or overshirts nearly reaching down to their knees.
But unlike Western hip-hop, Lebanese rappers generally do not resort to insults or praise violence and drugs.
“We don’t want to scare off our audience. We are poets of the street,” said RGB who had to leave school at the age of 10 to help support his family with menial jobs.
RGB is completely raw talent. He never read poetry, or any book for that matter. He was not influenced by foreign artists — when he first started to rap he did not even speak English or French to understand what their songs were about.
“I used to practice freestyle improvisation rap while driving customers in my taxi, until it was stolen last year,” he said, showing a notebook on which he writes his rap songs with an astonishingly elegant Arabic calligraphic handwriting.
“They were much amused by my beat boxing,” or the vocal imitation of drums, turntable scratching and other sound effects using his voice and mouth.
Today, RGB is working on his first solo album, which is due to appear soon.
“I am also working on a new song with Palestinian rapper Moqataa who is in Ramallah. We have to work via the Internet, as none of us can travel to each other’s country. He sent me his parts of the song, and I will add my parts, using the computer,” he said.
“United we will remain, O Arabs look at us, and learn,” goes the song.
Speaking at breathtaking velocity, rapper Moe is the only performer at Al-Madina Theater who performs in English — actually in a fluent American accent he has picked up while growing up in Nigeria and from television.
Standing before a poster of a graffiti representing a tank towering over an installation representing Beirut’s skyline, Moe is mostly angry at Israel for military attacks on Lebanon.
“Can’t take away my dignity...these Israelis are getting rid of me...you still call it ethical?” cries Moe, whose real name is Mohamad Ali Kobeissi.
Moe also never formally learned music or played any instrument.
“My only instrument is a two-dollar microphone linked to a computer,” said the rapper who boasts to be an honor-list computer science student at the American University of Beirut.
Show co-producer Zeid Hamdan said “none of the hip-hop artists in Lebanon has probably studied music or played any instrument. It is all raw talent and that is why it is beautiful and very expressive.”
