Cultures of Resistance

Palestinian MC Shadia Mansour and Iraqi rapper Lowkey have been at the forefront of the international movement calling for Palestinians' right to self-determination. Cultures of Resistance’s short film A Day with Lowkey & Shadia Mansour follows these two dynamic musicians in New York City as they make radio appearances, hit the studio with Public Enemy producer Johnny Juice, and perform together at CoR-ally Norman Finkelstein’s book tour event.

Artist Profiles: Shadia Mansour and Lowkey

The meeting of music and politics is a natural one for Shadia Mansour. Growing up listening to American rappers like KRS-One, she easily related the stories of injustice and oppression voiced in American hip-hop with her experiences as a Palestinian girl. She sates, "I thought, we’re suffering the same issues – we've got police brutality going on right here in Palestine." During her trip to New York she had the opportunity to work with one of her first influences, producer Johnny Juice, who describes Mansour's presence on the rap scene as an act of resistance itself. He says, "In this country the women have to be quiet, you know we would rather see you than hear you. To hear Shadia come in here with a forceful voice and a message, especially coming from the Arab community because there are a lot of places where Arab women aren’t allowed to really express their voices."

Mansour's musical comrade, award-winning rapper Lowkey, sees himself as a voice for those who have been silenced by oppression and injustice. He says that his music is "a form of standing up and saying 'I am here and I demand to be recognized'". Lowkey first began rapping at the age of 12, initially trying to copy American rappers. Soon he began incorporating his own experiences as a British-Iraqi in to his lyrics. He says that his inspiration has since then been "just equality of human beings." Criticizing the hypocrisies of recent American foreign policy in his newest single "Obama Nation," he asks "are you the puppeteer or the puppet on the string?"

CoR director Iara Lee wrote a piece for her Huffington Post blog about the resurgence of political hip-hop, paying particular attention to some of the artists she encountered while filming in the Middle East:

...I encountered a hip-hop reborn through artists like the Ramallah Underground and Shadia Mansour, both Palestinian, as well as London-based Iraqi rapper Lowkey (who are all part of a larger collective known as the Arab League of Hip Hop). Their flows cut deep against the tyranny of Israeli and US occupation of their lands as they call for equality for all people, and reaffirm their Arab identity despite brutal attempts at cultural erasure. The goal, Shadia said, was to tell the world that "Palestine is on the map," and always will remain so.

Click here to read the whole article.

As hip-hop comes full-circle, Mansour and Lowkey are inspiring a new generation of artists while simultaneously educating their fans about the issues on which Cultures of Resistance focuses much of its energy and resources. Johnny Juice states that in working with both Shadia and Lowkey he can "bring to light a lot of issues people in America don’t know about" and be "the bridge between these people that don't know or don't care and these people that are in the thick of it."

Lowkey and Shadia both contribute to Existence is Resistance, an educational initiative that teaches Palestinian children how to express themselves through hip-hop, graffiti, and other urban arts, and which Cultures of Resistance supports. Click here to read more about this project.