Ghoraba2

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.