The story of a Gazan rapper in Cairo

Mohammad Antar, a rapper from Gaza city arrived in Egypt in 2013, following problems with Gazan internal security forces.

Three years later, after being harassed and forced out of various apartments, he lives in an area on the outskirts of Cairo.

"I'm illegal in Egypt. I don’t have a visa, don’t have papers, and I can’t go back to Gaza", he said.

His current predicament follows years of problems with security in his homeland of Gaza, where he was involved in performance arts since he was young.

"I used to write poems in my spare time from a young age, my mum sent me to learn theatre", Antar said, a hobby that soon lead into rapping.  

"At first, I just liked the Hiphop, it wasn’t about Palestine, it was about the music, I wasn’t aware there was a lot of Arab hip hop...".  However, after problems between Hamas and Fatah erupted in Gaza in 2007, Antar became more concerned about the politics of his country.

"Me and my friend started to make political music, we were the first interview of Palestinian rappers on Palestine TV."

After attempting to study a number of courses in university he decided to concentrate on rapping, forming a hiphop group in 2008 that won a tournament, competing with the likes of well-known British-Palestinian rapper, Shadia Munsour.

The group consequently released a song "23 days" about the 2008 war in Gaza and the video clip became widely shared.

A video clip in the bombed ruins of Gaza brought "DARG team" more attention

"We were popular among Gaza youth....but we also became popular among security...we were known as 'immoral', or 'badasses'...we really liked it at first!" Antar says. 

After a couple years of failed attempts to tour Europe due to the closure of borders in Gaza, the group finally made it to Europe in 2010, going on tour to Geneva and Denmark. 

After the band split, other members of the group decided to stay in Europe and claim asylum, a decision that Antar disagreed with at the time, and criticized in many of his songs, reflecting sensitive debates on emigration from Palestine.

"It was 2011, and there were revolutions in the Arab world...I didn’t want to leave", he said, although he would come to change his mind following a tumultuous next few years.  

Ending the division

That year, a group of young Gazans decided they did not want to be "left out of the Arab Spring", and created the "March 15th" movement, which aimed to bring and end to the long standing division between the Palestinian political parties of Hamas and Fatah, who respectively control Gaza and the West Bank.  Many feel that the parties' long-standing mutual hatred cements the divide between Gaza and the West Bank and impede the struggle for Palestinian liberation. 

"March 15th was Gaza youth trying to make our revolution...we asked people to be in the street for reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas," Antar said. 

The movement culminated in a protest in Gaza that was quickly cleared by police.

"Hamas police ended everything and sent us back home injured...we got scared and didn’t go back."

This short-lived movement in Gaza futher encouraged

Here I am wanted by security, there I am a security escort My enemy's enemy is Palestinians here and there... The shadow of a government should not speak in my name The shadow of a government is a delusion I speak in the name of the government

Antar's politicism in his lyrics.  For example"huna hunak", or "here and there", describes the division of Palestinian between two corrupt political parties.

His problems with internal security in Gaza escalated after this episode, and his views evolved from wanting reconcilliation, to desiring an end to Hamas rule in Gaza altogether.      

"I’m against Hamas, I’m not against the division!"  He says.  "I have a problem with their ideology...I don’t need an Islamic way of life."

However, he doesn’t hold much sympathy for their rivals in Fatah either.

"They have a big problem with corruption" he said.

"But there is more freedom of speech in West Bank...for artists anyway...and in some places like Ramallah", he said, citing its more liberal culture. 

In contrast, in Gaza a combination of his rap lyrics and political activities attracted the attention Hamas authorities, until he decided to leave the blockaded coastal strip.

"They froze all my activities," he said. "I couldn’t make music, I couldn’t record, they stopped me going to the studio...Hamas took my passport, but contacts helped me get a new one from Ramallah and I crossed the border."  

Arrival in Cairo

When Antar first arrived in Cairo during Morsi's tenure, he was happy with his new home.

"It was the golden year of democracy and freedom of speech - the security and police didn’t care about anything.  I loved it so much," he said.

Despite Antar’s hostility towards Hamas in Gaza, he enjoyed life under the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, and saw differences between the two branches, citing the lack of Morsi's hold of security and non-interference in every day life as a possible reason.

Therefore, after a tour in Brazil during which Morsi was ousted to be replaced by the military, he decided that he wanted to return to Egypt.

However, his problems started upon his return when he was held for five days on his way back in Turkey, as he was prevented from boarding a flight back to Cairo.  

When he eventually managed to arrive in Egypt, he found a changed country.  

Echoing the stories of some other liberal-minded Gazans

I am the camp, the project, the city, the state You are the border fence I am the newborn, the young man, The parent, the sheikh, the missing person You are the clerk writing figures I am the people I am the people I am the people You are the government

who had felt stifled by Hamas and the conservative culture of Gaza and went to Cairo hoping for a more open attitudes, Antar found himself discriminated against for being  Gazan.

"Sisi's system is one of dictatorship, police think they are better than citizens...it is a hierarchy: the military, the police than the citizens at the bottom."

Like many Arab immigrants and refugees in Egypt, Antar has been detained and questioned multiple times, most recently in March which lead to his eviction from his home.

"Police caught me in the street in downtown and put me in jail for a week," he said. "They did a security check, but because they found I was against Hamas, they let me go.

"But then the policeman told my landlord they don’t want me in the downtown area.  I moved out and I don’t go there anymore..."

However, he doesn’t miss Downtown Cairo, surrounding Tahrir square, known as the hub of alternative culture, music and activism in Cairo.

"There are no more activities, security has closed coffee shops for no reason, no arts, no fun, police everywhere," he says.

Although Hiphop is often described as a global movement, Antar soon found there were cultural differences.

"I don’t like a lot of Egyptian hip hop...the rappers are not intelligent, polite or cultured, its like shaabi music [popular egyptian music often known as crude]...and they are all upper class people...I couldn’t relate to them."

He also found it difficult to compete with Egyptian popular acts - Antar says he was withrawn from "Kawkab" festival at a few days notice to be replaced with shaabi act, "Sadat and 50".

"They don’t understand me or care, and they don’t understand my language...they tell me to speak Arabic," he said.

"Recently, some of these rappers wanted to beat me up because I had a rainbow on my face" he said, referring to the facebook app that supports gay marriage.  "They shared my picture and said that I’m khowel [gay]."

Antar also faces a lack of "free speech" in the country. 

"In Egypt they don’t allow Palestinians to say what they want, especially in politics", he says. 

"El Sawey culture wheel [a popular arts venue in Cairo] asked me for my lyrics and they told me they could not let me say say this,” he said.  "It was about about Palestine, asking Arabs to support our case."

Antar also feels that solidarity towards Palestine could be stronger in Egypt.  

"For example the BDS groups are so weak....no one really cares about Palestine and they don’t like it when you say this." he said.

"The hardest days were during the last war in Gaza...people just cared about Eid and Ramadan and football," saying it was difficult to talk about the situation. "For many Egyptian people if you are from Gaza you are Hamas."

"In Morsi’s time they finished the [2012] war in seven days...this time people tried to go to gaza to help but the military tried to stop them...that was so bad," he said referring to a group of activists being stopped on their way to Gaza.

“I recorded a song at the time, I wanted to say something”, and recorded "yasqot hasharhom". 

However, Antar finds it difficult to produce new songs in Egypt's environment. 

My dear people of Gaza we are prisoners This is the heart of the Zionists' security  Every occupier has left, my ​dear, and you are free Their siege will fall before this moment

"I was going to sign a deal to make a new album, but I couldn’t because I feel like they won’t let me say what I want to say in Egypt...I’m just depressed, and I feel like I don’t want to make noise here, and I want to hide from security." he said.

"I want to leave Cairo, all I want to do is leave Cairo," Antar says. 

"I miss my family and the beach, but I wouldn’t go back to Gaza...I’m worried about problems with security, but there is nothing there for me, and under siege."

As many members of the 2011 15th March movement, including youth groups and artists, have since left Gaza, they have now been replaced by other Palestinians in their early twenties who have similar aims to change the social, cultural and political life of Gaza.

"I don’t know if they could make any real changes, but that’s good for them," Antar says. "As guys who have energy and need to live a better life, they need to have experiences like these...it could be helpful for them later who knows."

This includes young rappers, including Antar’s younger brother and cousins, although he feels that the new music - and social movements - are more cautious than those in the years before. 

"People in Gaza now make music about hope, not about politics," Antar says.

Antar is generally reluctant to talk about current political issues in his homeland. "I’m outside Gaza and feel like I don’t have a right to represent it, I’m not in the same situation and I feel so sad for them.

"All of us Arabs failed in making a revolution...we need better education."

"Music about hope" - A new group of rappers in Gaza