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BEIRUT: “Battalion 5” might conjure up images of the next big computer game, but in Lebanon it’s a group of musicians who express the misery of life in Palestinian refugee camps through rap.
Inspired by the likes of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the five 20-something men scatter their lyrics with references to badly built houses, a lack of electricity and bad schools — all part of daily life in a Palestinian camp.
“As young Palestinians, we reach a point where we stop school and there’s nothing in front of you. No work. You reach a level where your mind is lost,” said 22-year-old Amro, who goes by the moniker “C4” (a type of explosive).
The men wear western clothes, some use gold chains, and a couple have Afro haircuts. They all use nicknames, like Yousri “Molotov” or Tarek Jazzar (Tarek the Butcher in Arabic) and Nader “Moscow”.
The sprawling Bourj al-Barajenah camp in southern Beirut is one of 12 overcrowded camps scattered across Lebanon that house over half of 400,000 registered Palestinian refugees.
Like many young Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, most of the men are not educated beyond middle school, and are poor and unemployed.
They went through school listening to famous hip hop artists and said they got interested in rap because the music was angry and tackled problems of discrimination and unemployment, so works well to reflect their feelings.
“This art is performed by people who are fed up, who are suffering. So we felt it was really similar to the lives that we are living,” Amro said.
Though the men speak little English, they occasionally incorporate English choruses in their songs.
Bobo Samir, half Lebanese and half Sierra Leonean, is the only non-Palestinian in the group. He said growing up with dark skin in Lebanon was difficult: this was partly how he came to relate to rap, music dominated by African-American artists.
“WELCOME TO THE CAMPS”: Amnesty International recently released a report urging the Lebanese government to do more to improve the lives of the refugees who they say are treated like second-class citizens.
That’s what the group sings about. They compiled a demo album last year called “Welcome to the camps” and were recently approached by a Lebanese production company to record their first main album.
“Young men are drowning in unemployment, no work, money, children without school, God thank you for UNRWA and the (Lebanese) presidency,” they sarcastically sing, referring to the UN agency that cares for Palestinian refugees.
“They solve our problems with a Panadol pill from the camp, welcome brother to the camp.”
RISING AGAINST THE FILTH: “We’re saying that the camps look ugly, we didn’t want to be in an ugly place, it was imposed on us to be in an ugly place,” says Tarek.
They have little patience with Arabic pop, the most mainstream form of music in the Middle East, with its declarations of love that are so far removed from the refugees’ lives.
“Do you think that the Palestinian situation is doing so well and I should sing about ‘you love me and I love you’ and everything’s great?” asks Amro.
“No we’re not doing well, and our situation is ugly, and we’re disgusted. And we want to tell people to rise and protest against this filth. I want their heads to explode with what I’m trying to tell them so they can rise up.”—Reuters
