In the film I Love Hip Hop in Morocco a filmmaker went to Morocco to film the areas predominant rap and hip-hop stars as well as to put on a concert with these artists. Morocco is a Kingdom with a high population of Muslims. In this documentary the filmmaker meets several hip-hop groups who all have different views on how rap and hip-hop formed their lives. In the lives of these particular people, hip-hop is used as an outlet for their feelings of free speech, womens rights and how to better Morocco for the people.
The first artist we were introduced to was DJ Key. DJ key is extraordinarily talented; he does exacty what he wants with life although he does not make mch money by doing so. In fact he made most of his money as a dance DJ, although he really loved to create his own songs. Another obstacle that he had to overcome was the fact that he was Muslim and how the religion forbids music because it leads to temptation. DJ key overcame this because he knows that he is a good practicing Muslim, he knows that his love of this artform will never interfere with his religious praactices. DJ Key was not the only hip-hop artist who had problems expressing what he loved.
In the Muslim world women expected to do certain things like get an education and to start a family, that’s good enough for some womenbut not Fati. Fati of the hip-hop group Mot de Passe is one of the only women rappers in the Middle East. She is regularly verbally abused fro dressing like a western rapper and for rapping in general. Even the men within the hip-hop community do not take her seriously. She knows these facts but she still does what she loves and her parents even support her dreams. Fati’s father and mother still make her focus on her studies, but because she does well in school and keeps her faith, her parents let her llive her dream. Another example of this type of parental support was from Brownfingaz father, this man supported his sons dream and message that he wanted to bring to the people.
During the three concert dates thousands of Moroccans were in attendance. The rappers in these shows all performed to their best abilities and won the crowd, these shows loved every single act, until Fati got on stage. When Fati first came on the stage, the entire crowd booed her, they said things such as “shame on you” and to get off the stage, and her only response to these attacks was” how are you tonight?” and “whatever you say is fine, it doesn’t hurt me.” Then she started to rap, the crowd was won over instantly. This is a great example of the change of an indexical cluster, at first everyone thought that Fati had no place being on stage, and then they changed their minds once she started rapping. Another group that got the people to think differently was H-kayne. They released a song calle Keep your hands off my country; this was a message to Osama Bin Laden after he bombed Casablanca saying, “return to Islam.” The people of the audience sang along to this song, this shows that these people would never join Bin Laden’s cause.
The United States spends trillions of dollars on the wars in the Middle East, and along with this massive spending comes death and violence of the militaries and civilians of the occupated areas. Basically we are a military force in the Middle East so that we can stop terrorist organizations from reaching the young people, and to also insight change of thought to these places. This one concert series reached thousands of Moroccans on a budget of only 10,000 dollars and still did what the military could not. I believe that there is no reason why the United States shouldn’t spend more money on arts in the Middle East with Middle Eastern musicians; this will connect America to the Middle East through a shared culture of music. Some people may nay say this plan because they believe that money should be pumped into the military. I believe that there needs to be more US funding in these concerts, because this will ultimately create peace amongst us without the need for military involvement.
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