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'We out to show the world that we not a bunch of terrorists'

;A voice from the hip-hop wilderness is emerging to define a new musical sound in Lebanon. Menassat.com profiles the Lebanese hip-hop scene through the eyes of its most celebrated DJ/producer, DJ Lethal Skillz.
By Jackson Allers

DJ Lethal Skillz, Lebanon’s hip-hop ambassador, regional judge for the World DMC DJ Championships, and the heart of the '961 Underground' hip-hop movement.

Discussing hip-hop with Lethal Skillz, or LS, is like going on a ride through history, and he’s all too aware that the majority of that history does not include Arab hip-hop.

In fact, it’s fair to say that there are no pan-Arab hip-hop albums, no musical signposts, to mark the development of Arabic hip-hop in the Middle-East & North Africa region - at least not to the uninitiated.

There is no pan-Arab equivalent to (rap group) Boogie Down Productions’ album ‘Criminal Minded’ (1987), with its unflinching treatment of the urban realities of the South Bronx. Nothing like the Los Angeles-based group NWA’s controversial track “Fuck tha Police” (1988), that branded rap music 'cultural enemy number one' in the halls of the U.S. Congress, and certainly nothing like the New York City-based Public Enemy’s 'Fight the Power' (1989), that activated an entire generation into some form of political awareness.

That doesn’t imply that Arab hip-hop doesn’t have its share of movers and shakers. Moroccan rapper/producer Cilvaringz was the first non-U.S.-based Arab M.C. to sign with a major U.S. record label in 1999. Ramallah-born Producer Fred Wreck has recorded with many Los Angeles-based rap talents (among them Snoop Dogg and Nate Dogg of the Dogg Pound), and these days Wreck is hosting MTV Arabia’s My Hip Hop. There are also a whole slew of French rappers from Algerian and North African descent. Still, no one has really put Arab hip-hop on the map.

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