British singer Loki: Defending Palestine is a medal of honor, Chomsky and Ruffalo in solidarity with me

British rapper Loki said his defense of the Palestinian cause was a badge of honour on his chest, noting that he was subjected to a war by the Zionist lobby in Britain, which he considers a "threat."

In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, the artist of Iraqi origin revealed that he faced death threats and assault because of his support for Palestine, pointing out that the American philosopher Noam Chomsky and his compatriot actor Mark Ruffalo in solidarity with him after the "Zionist lobby" tried to delete his work from the platform "Spotify".

• How to introduce yourself to an Arab audience?

My name is "Lowkey" and it means "the person who is obscured", and I see in art an attempt to bridge the gap between the impossible and reality, if politics is the art of the possible, art is the way to achieve the impossible through music and songs. Because the Arab people in general are constrained by many things, which makes their voices inaudible, music is the means to communicate this voice and make it heard by leaders, officials and other peoples as well.

I grew up in London, a city with a mosaic of nationalities and ethnicities, so you find all races and ethnicities, and it is a melting pot in which all these types of people merge. I was personally influenced and learned by all these people, and it is natural for those who know me to find shadows of these cultures, but in the end I found that music is the best way I can convey my message to people, and most of my songs are in English, not only because it is my first language, but also because it is the most widespread in the world.

• She started singing at the age of 12, a relatively young age. When did you develop political awareness of the injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people? How did you decide to use rap to advocate for the causes of the world's marginalized?

When I started the music career, I used to offer a lot of trivialities, and what I was presenting had nothing to do with politics, and I had no purpose in the first place. But after a while, I realized that I had to use music for a more lofty, noble and powerful purpose. At that time, I was preoccupied with the tyranny of American culture over British society, and I saw hip-hop as a means of self-expression, especially in adolescence, and I tried to express my feelings through rap, but over time I also saw that it was suitable as a tool of political action.

In 2016, I worked for an organization that facilitated the movement of refugees from Calais, France, to Britain, and my task with them was translation, and I felt the enormous crisis that refugees suffer overseas, so I made a song entitled "Ahmed".

The deepest inspiration came from the Palestinian cause and the heroes who fought for freedom and the future, and I saw many in common between Palestinians and peoples who fought for liberation from colonialism, and Palestinian suffering manifested before me as a mirror of the suffering of all humanity from injustice.

We, Arabs and Britons, were fully aware of the strength of the Zionist lobby in Britain, which confirmed my conviction of the importance of using my voice to access through the obstacles that this lobby puts in place to prevent our voices from arriving. At that time, I was influenced by Ahmed Kaabour's song "I call you... I feel I had to communicate with them and tighten their hands.

• Born to a British father and an Iraqi mother, how did this awareness form, when you grew up in a half-British family?

My father was a rebellious revolutionary man, a visionary against wars, colonialism and racism, who was arrested in the seventies of the last century.

But the societal difficulties I faced are the most prominent, I used to feel that I am part of this society, but when I go out of the house I notice question marks in the eyes of others about my identity, Westerners saw me as an Arab, and Arabs saw me as Western, but I knew myself well, and in the end, I decided that this was okay, because I am no exception, so the most important thing for me was what I could offer to others, inherited identity is only a myth, because there is really no difference between human beings.

• How did you manage to reconcile musical elements with themes of such depth and philosophical dimension, both personally and politically?

The Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish said, "As you free yourself with metaphors, think of others. those who have lost their right to speak." I always feel that thinking about those who have lost their right to speak is the motivation, even when I try to express pain, it goes beyond talking about what political injustice does to people, but I try to express the manifestations of this injustice in people's lives.

For me, my older brother Saeed passed away in 2004, and his death was shocking and sad for all of us, family and friends. I felt the meaning of sadness and pain of loss, to the point that I could not express it in ordinary speech. Five days after he left, I wrote a song for him and after I prepared and heard it, I felt that the sadness became less, and that the song gave him another presence in my life, so the pain was less severe after that.

• How do you see the impact of your singing on Arab and British audiences?

I do concert tours in Britain, I move from one city to another, I see the reactions of the audience, how many of them memorize the words, and I feel happy.

I remember that I was in a small town where there is no Arab community, and I was surprised by a British person who memorized the lyrics of my song "Long Live Palestine", and I felt accomplished, because the song contributed to the "humanization" of the Palestinians who are always portrayed by the occupation and its media in an inhumane manner, and although I am against waiting for the enemy to recognize our humanity, the ability of an Englishman from a place far from the capital to see the truth through the song is a great success.

Once, I visited Nablus and met a person there named Said – a name that is very dear to me because it is the name of my late brother – and Said told me that he hears my musical works, that they affect him a lot, and that I was very happy.

• How do you face the attack of the Zionist lobby in London and its attempts to remove your songs from Spotify and YouTube?

A fierce campaign was launched against me starting in 2009, where I was targeted and distorted by cutting them out of context, with the aim of portraying me as anti-Semitic, which is fundamentally illogical because I am an Arab and Arabs are Semites.

There is a gradual escalation, for example, I was interrogated, interrogated and detained at airports, but the most difficult is their attempts to silence me in the same way they use in Palestine, and they succeeded in canceling about 10 concerts for me last year just because of complaints from the Zionist lobby, and this scares others, and sometimes causes me disappointment.

I deleted one of my songs, "Terrorist", and its idea was based on exposing the double standards of the international community, a question whose goal is to determine who is a terrorist, is it that soldier who kills unarmed citizens? Or the citizen who is trying to defend his land against the occupation?

The fiercest Zionist lobby organization I face here is We Believe in Israel, which has campaigned fiercely against me on Spotify for my song Long Live Palestine. Confronted with them, we collected more than 40,<> signatures to demand that the song be kept, including American philosopher Noam Chomsky and Hollywood actor Mark Ravalois.

• You're an activist too. So how do you exercise your role?

At Palestine Action, we focus on legitimate goals and in legal ways. Here in London, we have campaigned peacefully to occupy the offices of Israeli arms manufacturers in three years, and we have been able to permanently close two Israeli weapons factories and an office of one company.

Our campaigns were civil disobedience, where we would enter the office or company and occupy the place without violence. The strategy that I believe in is to exploit the weaknesses of the Zionist lobby, which is companies and factories, and we do this in legal ways, and not only Arab participants, but also Britons and foreigners of other nationalities.

• Israeli attacks on Gaza have been frequent in recent years, but global sympathy for this war has grown dramatically in popularity. How can this be justified?

It is a very great thing that sympathy for our people in Gaza increases, but – so far – we have not found a reaction to this change on the political systems, because the gap between the peoples and the rulers is very large, but in general it is an opportunity that we should seize to sow that change and work to continue and maximize it for future generations.

Let me tell you that conveying the truth to the peoples of the world is no less important than the legendary steadfastness of the people of Gaza, especially since the Zionist idea is based on displacing the people of Palestine and expelling them from it, and therefore their stay there is fighting and keeping the cause alive.

• I demanded retribution after the assassination of Shirin Abu Akleh, and now the number of journalists killed in Gaza has reached more than 48. How do you see it?

When they killed Shireen Abu Akleh, we were fully aware that this was only the tip of the iceberg, they were killed by Ghassan Kanafani and Naji al-Ali, and they did not carry weapons, but they revealed the truth and clung to their Palestinian identity and culture.

In the last war, we see this targeting clearly, and what happened with Wael Dahdouh was a model of racism and targeting journalists and their families, but regardless of his tragic losses, we saw him working and continuing to expose the crimes of the enemy, we saw an inspiring hero and a role model in every sense of the word for all humanity.

• Don't you think about singing in Arabic?

I have a number of poems, but (in a laughing tone) what is the fault of the Arab listener? I did indeed perform the song "Wain Al-Ghali" with singer Hamza Namira, but when I find the opportunity, I will definitely sing immediately in Arabic.