Holy Land Hip Hop

From the University of Chicago's newspaper Chicago Maroon

The Middle Eastern Studies Students’ Association hosted University graduate student Rami Nashashibi in a talk on the emergence of hip-hop as a vehicle for political expression in the Palestinian territories. The talk, moderated by Professor Martin Stokes, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the U of C, was held Wednesday in Pick 016.

The presentation highlighted Nashashibi’s research in the Palestinian territories and in the South Side of Chicago. Nashashibi studied the influence of African-American hip-hop on Arab–Israeli musicians.

Central to Nashashibi’s work is the concept of “ghetto cosmopolitanism,” the process by which segregated communities circumvent marginalization by forging nontraditional global networks. The concept attempts to explain the recent emergence of several Arab-Israeli hip-hop groups and their rise to global popularity.