From the New York Times

The Mixtape of the Revolution

By SUJATHA FERNANDES

Published: January 29, 2012

A year later, a look back at 2 songs that inspired millions to action… and victory. Keep your eyes and ears open for the next reports from the Arab League (of Hip Hop, that is…)

From Reuters

RABAT (Reuters) – A Moroccan rapper who has become one of the monarchy’s boldest critics was freed on Thursday, activists said, after he served a four-month sentence for assault, a charge which his lawyers say was a ploy to muzzle the popular singer.

“El-Haqed walked out of prison a little while ago shouting ‘long live the people’,” said activist Omar Radi, near Casablanca’s main Oukacha prison.

Earlier on Thursday, a court in Casablanca sentenced 24-year-old Mouad Belrhouat, better known as El-Haqed (“The Sullen One”), to four months and three days in jail and fined him 500 dirhams, sources in the court said.

Belrhouat was arrested in September after a brawl with a monarchist. Bail requests by his lawyers were rejected and the trial was adjourned six times.

“It’s a bittersweet victory for us,” said activist Maria Karim.

El-Haqed has become the singing voice of the protest movement, inspired by Arab world uprisings, demanding a constitutional monarchy, an independent judiciary and a crackdown on corruption.

Morocco’s main human rights group, AMDH, considers him to have been a prisoner of conscience.

His lyrics telling Moroccans to “wise up” have angered many monarchists. In one song, he says the king spends so much time giving orders that he has little time to count his money in Switzerland.

Belrhouat has struck a chord with young Moroccans who are disenchanted with the lack of jobs and one song “Bite just as much as you can chew” has had more than 600,000 hits on Youtube.

From The New York Times

By LIAM STACK (Published: January 10, 2012)

TRIPOLI, Libya — A small crowd of boys huddled around the open door of a concrete shed turned recording studio to gawk at a trio of Libyan rappers in black baseball caps and oversize hoodies mixing tracks on a wide computer screen.

The men paid little attention to their wide-eyed audience and labored through take after take of their latest project: a public service announcement for a local television station urging trigger-happy rebel fighters to lay down their arms, something they still have not done four months after Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was driven from power.

“Don’t open fire into the air; our lives are more valuable than the cost of bullets,” said Siraj Kamal Jerafa, 28, locked inside an improvised sound booth whose walls were covered in worn sofa upholstery. At the end of the night, he emerged smiling to a roomful of high fives. With nothing more to see, the little boys outside wandered back to their homes.

Read more…

From The Guardian

Somali hip-hop band fighting al-Shabaab for hearts and minds

Waayaha Cusub remain defiant despite bearing the scars of the Islamist group, whose reach has extended to Nairobi

Clar Ni Chonghaile in Nairobi

Shine Ali doesn’t scare easily. If he did, he would not be with his band in a basement studio in Nairobi, rapping lyrics that challenge the Islamist rebels who control much of his homeland, Somalia – and whose reach extends deep into the Kenyan capital.

Ali is well aware of the risks he is running. Three years ago, members of the al-Shabaab group broke into his home in Nairobi’s Eastleigh neighbourhood and shot him.

“They said, ‘Your message is anti-jihad. You are telling the youth to give up jihad,’” the 29-year-old says in halting English. Ali edges down his baggy checked shorts, pulls up his hooded sweatshirt and shows a scar on his right hip. He has another one on his left arm.

“When they shot me, I knew that if I stopped the music, they would win but if I continued, my power would win.”

Read more…