Author: Garth Cartwright
View album and artist detailsArtist/band: |
Ghoraba2 |
Label: |
Best Foot Music |
Magazine Review Date: |
March/2022 |
Rap music is, at present, the world’s musical lingua franca – it is the medium youth across the globe choose to express themselves in. It is cheap and easy to record and allows for a remarkable amount of expressiveness and creativity, and with US rappers like Jay-Z having sampled Arabic recordings it’s appropriate that we in the West get to hear local talent.
This is remarkable album by a group of young Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese artists led by Lebanese multi-instrumentalist Youssef Sayouf. Several of them live in Lebanese refugee camps – Syrian and Palestinian youths have joined Lebanese rappers here via the Mishwar Project that aims to stimulate the arts in the camps. I don’t speak Arabic, but I have been listening to rap since the early 1980s and the recordings here are powerful and well produced. While I can’t enlighten you as to what gets rapped about, the thunderous beats and atmospheric production – with oud, Arabic percussion and wailing voices adding local flavour – means this release is, to my ears, far more listenable than many UK grime or US rap releases that I’ve heard of in recent years.
Start your journey and discover the very best music from around the world.
Subscribe