mp3: BOIKUTT & STORMTRAP qararat (feat. lethal skillz)
mp3: BOIKUTT sabe3 nomeh
mp3: ASWATT VS BOIKUTT dameer mustater 73
mp3: BOIKUTT feat THE UNPEOPLE, ILLAMAN, UNCLE WILL, ROXY & JHON subversive elements
the first palestinian post for fat planet – a visit that was long overdue. the ramallah underground collective was originally formed by artists boikutt and stormtrap many years back, and now houses a further eight members. once again, we see hip hop as the defacto protest genre* – although, ramallah are quick to assert their politcal position.
branding themselves “producers, mcs, photographers, visual artists and freedom fighters”, dj sotusura insists that they’re “not using the palestinian cause as a platform for our music”, although boikutt offers the key caveat: “90 per cent of what i rap is political because 80 per cent of life in palestine is political. if you live in palestine you breathe politics, you live politics… i don’t watch the news anymore. i just look out the window.”
ramallah sit in a broader arabic hip hop culture that includes mwr, dam and jenin-based producer rami – founder of online label, mmd. their recent e.p. “no borders” was a timely collaboration between european & arab producers & mcs – sixteen musicians represented across the eight tracks.
of the tunes available above, ‘qararat’ is the most recent – a minimal beat production rife with plucked strings and local instrumentation, overlaid with scratches from lethal skillz. boikutt’s solo production ‘sabe3 nomeh’ drafts outside of hip hop for a downtempo sample-based excursion that has a long tail in the idm camp. similarly, his collab with aswatt, ‘dameer mustater 73’, leaves the polemic far behind for a mid-tempo percussion workout. the selection rounds off back, squarely, in the hip hop camp, with the collective swapping war stories over a soundclash rub down.
more info at ramallahunderground.com.
(* the life-draining event that was the australian recording industry awards the other week saw one member of midnight oil – this year’s ‘hall of fame’ inductee – claim that australian protest music was dead. i humbly suggest that he pulls his head out of his rock’n’roll arse and takes a crash course in australian hip hop. local protest music is in fact alive and kicking – it just doesn’t play guitars.)