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Hip Hop Uknification: Rap Trio Arabian Knightz Debut Album Fights Censorship While Empowering Listeners

Repression has a way of stalling epiphanies, but to extinguish them is a nearly impossible feat. Such has been the case for Arabian Knightz, one of Egypt’s foremost and most talked about hip hop groups, and one of Aslan Media’s “Five Arab Music Artists to Watch in 2012.” After years of fighting censorship under both the Mubarak regime and Egypt’s current government, the group finally released its debut CD Uknighted State of Arabia on August 21, albeit underground, after the album was rejected for official distribution by Ministry authorities because of the tracks’ political material and social commentary.

Also featured on the album are collaborations with a host of Arab rap superstars, including MC Amin (Egypt), DAM (Palestine), The Narcicyst (Iraq/Canada), Don Bigg (Morocco), Shadia Mansour (Palestine/Britain), Omar Offendum (Syria/United States) and Outlandish’s Isam Bachiri (Morocco/Denmark).

The group, made up of members Sphinx, Rush and E Money, has been actively performing in Cairo’s underground music scene for years, but rarely are they heard over state-supported air waves. Like many Arab music artists today, they erupted into the international spotlight shortly after protests broke out in Tahrir Square with the internet release of their single “Prisoner,” the first song to come out of Egypt since the uprisings began on January 25. Featured on the track were Palestinian-English hip hop artist Shadia Mansour and live guitar parts by Platinum West Coast producer Fred Wreck. “Rebel” followed closely behind, and despite Mubarak’s week-long nationwide internet shutdown, both videos went viral over YouTube.

Immediately dubbed “Egypt’s Revolution Song,” and set against real-life footage of Cairo’s uprisings, “Prisoner” came out as both a criticism of Mubarak’s corrupt government as well as a wake-up call to other Arab musicians to begin expressing artistic freedom in the face of failing censorship. The fact that the track was actually written four years before protests erupted speaks to the fact that Egypt’s revolt did not happen overnight, but instead fully realized itself after long-term and epidemic civil unrest.

“Certain indie artists have already released songs against the oppression and those songs were used on video campaigns, called the ‘Day of Anger,’” Rush wrote on his Facebook page shortly before Egypt’s internet shutdown. “Some of us went down to the streets to take part on the 25th. And some of us are now in the studios doing tracks about it to make sure peoples’ fire of revolution doesn’t get put out by fear.”

Angry, yet mobilizing, the group’s lyrics are straightforward and cut-throat: “Mr. Politician, I got a little question,” Sphinx spews in “Prisoner,” “How come you be eatin’ and all your people’s isn’t?” Their tracks, recorded in both Arabic and English, “call for Arab unity and proclaim their Muslim identity while demanding understanding among regions and religions of the world.” Their music, like Egypt today, is a blend of past legacy and present times, fusing old-school Arabic music with new-school hip hop. Piercing through the duplicity of government fraud and negligence with the movement motto “Arabs Stand Up,” Arabian Knightz, more than shaking foundations, is making its mark with a feat far more savvy and ingenuous: using music to unify and mobilize an entire generation of disenchanted youth committed to ensuring that Arab democratic reform is an action held accountable by the people, not a placating catchphrase used to pacify corrupt and unilateral power.

“The truth is my ammunition,” Sphinx declares in “Rebel.” No doubt in these tracks, truth is also the group’s strongest weapon, the only thing they have to lose, and the constant theme that dominates each track’s political and social message.

To give you a taste of the Uknighted State of Arabia, here are five music videos taken from tracks featured on the album:

Al Donia Mooled, featuring Mahmoud El Leithy

Watch the video here

Sisters, featuring Isam Bachiri and Shadia Mansour

Watch the video here

Ya Allah

Watch the video here

Prisoner, featuring Shadia Mansour

Watch the video here

Street teams are available all over Cairo to sell copies of Uknighted State of Arabia. For those outside Egypt, you can purchase the album in its entirety through iTunes and Amazon. The official album release party, open for all ages, is scheduled for Thursday, August 30 at the Swiss Club in Cairo.

*Photo credits: Hussein Shaaban and M. Mohsen. Photos courtesy of Arabian Knightz.

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