Carrying Words Like Weapons: Hip-Hop and the Poetics of Palestinian Identities in Israel

Abstract

Seeking a means to express his anger and frustration at the dire situation in Lyd propelled Nafar into the world of transnational Hip-Hop, a field of artistic expression attuned to the racism and ethnic discrimination he feels as a Palestinian minority in Israel. In the process, Tamer Nafar and his rap group DAM have now come to dominate the burgeoning Hip-Hop movement taking hold among many of Israel’s disenfranchised and dispossessed Palestinian youth.  Through rap, communities of artists and performers like Tamer Nafar have sought to de-center stereotypical representations of Palestinians in the mainstream Israeli media, as well as to open new spaces for public discourse on Palestinian ethnic rights.  In stark contrast to the long history of nationalist music produced and consumed by Palestinians under occupation or in diaspora, this new form of Hip-Hop seeks to engage Israeli society from within, as a voice for equal rights and opportunity as Israeli citizens.  In this article, I investigate many of the dominant social and political issues facing these rappers as they negotiate the Palestinian condition in Israel.  In so doing, I seek to engage issues of national discourse, hegemony, and social protest, arguing for the utility of music and popular culture in resolving central questions of individual subjectivity and collective identity formation.