Dubai (AFP)
On a piece of music with powerful bass, Saud Waled Ibrahim, alias "SG", sings in his small studio a rap that mixes English and Arabic, one of the hallmarks of a hip-hop scene in search of identity in the United Arab Emirates.
Imposing size, wide glasses with thin edges and helmet screwed on the ears, the 24-year-old Emirati rapper records a new title.
"Today, we are still seen as intruders but there is not a single country in the world without rappers," says "SG" to AFP, from his studio in Ajman, one of the seven emirates that make up the country.
Cradled since adolescence by the flow of 2Pac and Eminem, he confides to have taken up rap for "freedom of expression".
Over time, he becomes aware of the restrictions of the country in which he grew up: "We live in a society with principles and we cannot transgress them", he explains.
Born in the 1970s in the United States, hip-hop has conquered the whole world, generally giving a voice to young people from disadvantaged or marginalized backgrounds.
Before arriving in the Gulf, hip-hop developed in the Maghreb and the Middle East, where rappers sometimes defy censorship and repression to address political and social issues.
In the opulent and ultra-political universe of the Emirates, a rich Gulf country that has invested heavily in culture, a handful of names emerge, such as Freek and Adamillion, from Somalia.
But the hip-hop community, like the entire cultural scene, is still looking for itself in a conservative country where around 80% of the population is foreign.
"Until now, we do not have our own sound, unlike the United States, France, the Maghreb or Egypt", regrets "SG".
- No protest -
With his bandana, his graying beard and his American biker style, Hassane "Big Hass" Dennaoui is an essential figure for rap fans in the Gulf.
A Saudi blogger based in Dubai, he hosts a hip-hop radio show and founded The Beat DXB project, which organizes events to promote young talent in the region.
"The identity of hip-hop in the Emirates is not yet known but if there was one, it would be diversity," he told AFP between two live videos on Instagram in the precinct of an independent cinema, the Mecca of the intellectual and trendy Dubai.
With rappers from all over the world, the country is rich in languages and cultures, according to "Big Hass", but rappers are still content to express, often in English, general feelings in a region particularly closed to speeches. protesters.
"When I talk to a Palestinian rapper, he says to me: + how I could sing I loved you, you loved me +, while there is a tank above my house", says "Big Hass".
"In the Gulf, we may live in a comfortable place, but that doesn't mean there are people who have a hard life. As a rapper, you owe it to yourself to tell the truth," he adds. -he.
- Eminem and Fairouz -
Its truth, Suhaib S. Alises, Palestinian born in Jordan and having lived almost all his life in the Emirates, found it in "poetry", in the cause of his country and in the great voices of the Arab song like Fairouz.
It is on an excerpt from one of the hits of the Lebanese diva that he launches into a verse, between rap and slam, on a small stage open to young rappers in a cafe in a district of Dubai intended for creators .
In a fitted blazer, the slender young man of 26 refuses to ape the "gangsta rap" which marked his adolescence. For him, the important thing is to spread "a message" and to "reach as many people as possible", writing in Arabic and English.
"Rap has become presentable and adapts to the place in which the rapper lives. In the end, it's a melody and poetry," he summed up to AFP.
© 2020 AFP