The Arab Rap Family

We are sitting at a local downtown teahouse on a hot summer night in Cairo when Nader Gad of the Arab Rap Family tells me that the only influence he has musically is life and the streets. Looking around, we are immersed in the regular hum of the human traffic of Cairo. People are either hawking their wares and services or luxuriating in the evening breeze with a shisha and friends whilst the resident felines go about their business. He continues that Egypt is the Hollywood of the Middle East and that it was this centrality of Egypt and indeed Cairo in the media and music industry that led him back to the streets and propelled him to promote his first solo hip hop album. He hoped the album, which was recorded in Arabic and more about the reality of life as an ethnic minority in the States than gangster bling, would speak to the people of Egypt.

One person the album resonated with was Monadil Anter; a local dancer, choreographer and hip hop artist. The two met by chance in 2005 and discovered that they shared a passion for real rhymes over fast beats. Believing hip-hop to be the music of the future, they collaborated and The Arab Rap Family was formed. It grew quickly to include Yameen Anter, who is Monadil’s sister, and also a classically trained Opera singer with an ethereal voice, and five other musicians with occasional floating percussionists, flautists and guest rappers. The first track they collaborated on was entitled “Ana Araby” (“I’m Arab”) and talks about the reality of being an Arab in the current political climate. ‘I talk about things I know and am sure of,” says Nader. One of their songs, “ Soldier behind the Mic,” talks about “the situation in Iraq for example, what happened in Lebanon last year, or what’s happening in Somalia, Sudan and Afghanistan.” Lyrically they have the courage to question social injustices and musically to re-contextualize and re-define hip-hop away from its roots in the States and in a Middle Eastern context.
Yameen, with her shock of dark curls and clear, bright voice brings a soaring freshness to the group. Coming from a seven year background of professional music, she is undaunted by her role as a female vocalist in a predominantly male genre. “I’m here and I will do it as good as they do,” she says and continues that hip-hop is a challenge here as it is still growing in popularity and therefore needs a lot of energy. Drawing on her classical background, she believes hip-hop to be a versatile medium, which is flexible enough to include influences from many genres such as her own classical roots, reggae, rock and R & B.

The original voices of hip-hop boomed out from the ghettos of America in the late 70’s and spoke of the social and political disparities inherent in the culture. Here in Cairo hip-hop is nourished by the local environment and a different set of circumstances, producing a wholly new sound. Nader and Monadil respond to the cultural setting by aspiring to satisfy what they see as young people’s thirst for new musical styles and experiences which relate to their personal and daily struggles as Caireans and as Egyptians. Monadil, who is all about ‘keeping it real,’ describes their rap as positive and adds definitively, “I am not a teacher, I am a friend. I talk about myself, what I feel and what I deal with in the streets,” which he continues is where rap was born and where it belongs. For him inspiration for keeping it real comes from 2Pac and Eminem as they talk openly about their personal problems without too much flossing. He adds, “We have to talk about something serious.”

In addition to themes of political conflict and life on the streets, Egyptian flavors also inspire their music producing a rich and entirely unique sound. Nader tells me that most Egyptians over thirty have had their musical palate corrupted by a narrow diet of Sha’biy (folkloric) music and that the majority of people who listen to jazz, reggae and rock are educated. Perhaps this has something to do with why The Arab Rap Family hasn’t had a CD released. Nader believes this is due to ambivalence felt by record companies about their genre as it is still relatively new in Egypt. He says they need someone brave and willing to take a chance. At their next concert they plan to give out complimentary sample albums with directions to their web sites on You Tube and My Space (www.myspace.com/arabrapfamily).

Sitting beneath these downtown trees at the shisha café, I ask Monadil why he raps in Arabic. He muses, “We have a message and if you want to go international you have to look deeply to your roots. Here in Egypt we are in between the African world and the Arab world. We are not Arabian, though we belong to the Arab world through Islam. We are Egyptians and we have the source of the Mother Language.” And it is this ancient Mother Language that will carry the message of its young artists out from the land of the Nile to beyond the edges of the musical map.