Tag Archives: conscious hip-hop

Essay, Spotlight

Tunisia’s rap revolution: 5 women who are redefining hip-hop

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A female rapper performing outdoors at night, wearing a purple top and camouflage pants, with urban scenery in the background.
Snapshot from Medusa’s music video for the song ‘Harissa‘.

Jyhene Kebsi, Macquarie University

Women rappers were not really a feature of Tunisia’s typically masculine and chauvinist hip-hop scene until the revolution that overthrew Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.

Now there are several politically conscious female voices rising in the rap scene. Gender studies scholar Jyhene Kebsi has published a research paper on how their lyrics highlight the multiple inequalities that women in Tunisia – and the world – must overcome.

How have male Tunisian rappers generally treated women in their songs and videos?

The gender politics of Tunisian men’s rap is complex, but we can talk about one of its tendencies. Although there are men who’ve supported their female colleagues and collaborated with them on songs, their portrayals tend to lump women into one of two groups: virtuous or promiscuous; madonnas or whores.

This is clear in their use of obscene words that aim to degrade the “fallen” women they rap about. Their sexual references can be seen as a way to debase the “easy girls and immoral women” who challenge patriarchal norms.

This is in sharp contrast to the love and indebtedness they express towards their mothers and sisters. In contrast to western rap, the mother figure is central in Tunisian rap.

The sacredness of the mother in Tunisian Muslim culture is seen in songs full of gratitude towards those who brought them into the world.

Their reliance on this male-centred division between “respectable” and “unrespectable” women spreads a toxic masculinity that supports harmful gender stereotypes.

This strengthens men’s social dominance and their policing of women’s bodies. Having said that, it is very important to highlight that sexism is not limited to the Arab rap scene. As I explain in my paper, many western male rappers objectify, humiliate and degrade women in their songs too.

Who are the four female rappers you discuss?

The four Tunisian women rappers I analyse are Sabrina, Medusa, Queen Nesrine and Tuny Girl.

There’s a common perception that Medusa was Tunisia’s first female rapper. In reality, Sabrina began performing rap in 2007 and Tunisia’s other female artists joined the rap scene after the 2011 revolution.

Medusa is Tunisia’s most famous female rapper in the west – her migration to France boosted her international profile. Although Tuny Girl and Queen Nesrine have not gained the fame of Medusa or Sabrina, they’ve released powerful feminist songs that criticise the status quo in post-revolutionary Tunisia.

These artists have mainly relied on digital media to share their songs with the public through social platforms like YouTube and Facebook. Unfortunately, all four of them have faced opposition because they’re women.

Rap is considered a masculine musical genre. Tunisian women’s initial entry into this male-dominated world was not easily accepted. Attitudes towards female rappers have evolved thanks to women’s gradual success in attracting a larger fan base.

But these four artists share a strong resistance to sexism. Most importantly, while being aware of patriarchal pressures, they’re conscious of the many different forms of oppression that intersect to keep women less equal than men.

This is evident in their songs, which reflect a strong awareness of intersectionality.

What is intersesectionality?

The black US feminist Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989 to describe the double discrimination of sexism and racism faced by black women. So, she used the term to discuss the multiple forms of inequality that compound themselves and create interlocking obstacles that shape black women’s experiences of discrimination.

Intersectionality highlights the experiences of multiple forms of discrimination when these categories of social identity interact with and shape one another.

We see an understanding of intersectionality in a song like Hold On, where Medusa raps about illiteracy, political struggle and motherhood:

I am watching the floating misery / Illiteracy has spread and made us go from one extreme to the other / Where is the freedom for which activists struggled? / I am the free Tunisian who exposed their chest to bullets / I am the mother, the mother of the martyr who has not gotten his revenge.

Or, in her song Arahdli, Sabrina raps about a range of social ills:

Leave me alone / The police catch you and harm you / Don’t believe the corrupt state / Unemployment and poverty will not make you happy.

I found that what Medusa, Sabrina, Queen Nesrine and Tuny Girl have in common is their rejection of, as Crenshaw puts it, the “single-axis framework”. The one-sided narrative that reduces women’s problems solely to men and patriarchy.

Instead, these artists highlight the damaging impact – for women – of the intersection of gender inequality, political corruption, unjust laws, ineffective local policies, the collapse of Tunisia’s economy and the country’s weak position in the global geopolitical landscape.

Their songs are united in their recognition that Tunisian women’s lives are shaped by all these overlapping power structures, exposing them to marginalisation and discrimination.

So, their songs identify hidden, interrelated structural barriers to their freedom. Misogyny is just one element that needs to be considered alongside other local and global issues when we discuss gender politics in Tunisia.

What other new trends are female rappers ushering in?

Women are at the forefront of innovation in Tunisian rap. Take Lully Snake. She’s a Tunisian-Algerian rapper based in Tunisia. This 24-year-old artist was previously a breakdancer. Her passion for hip-hop culture and her love for US artists like Tupac, Kool G Rap, Queen Latifah and Foxy Brown led her to start rapping.

Like all Tunisian women rappers, she considers her entry into rap to have been a long and difficult journey. Starting in 2019, her first song was only released in 2024.

Lully Snake first uploaded her debut song Zabatna Kida on Instagram. Its uniqueness lies in its combination of rap and mahraganat, an Egyptian street music that emerged in Cairo’s ghettos. Its success encouraged her to carry on rapping in both Tunisian and Egyptian, alongside other western languages and Maghrebi dialects.

Lully Snake’s experimentation proves that female rappers are innovating while spreading messages that empower women. This has ultimately enriched Tunisian rap.

Jyhene Kebsi, Director of Learning & Teaching (Gender Studies), Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Essay, News

Kneecap’s stance on Gaza extends a long history of the Irish supporting other oppressed peoples

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Ciara Smart, University of Tasmania

Two male performers on stage, delivering a rap performance with microphones in hand against a vibrant green backdrop.
Kneecap at Wide Awake Festival – Brockwell Park – Friday 23rd May 2025. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Love them or hate them, there’s no doubt Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap are having a moment.

Their music – delivered in a powerful fusion of English and Irish – is known for its gritty lyrics about party drugs and working-class life in post-Troubles Ireland. More recently, the group has made headlines for its outspoken support for the Palestinian people.

British police have charged member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh (known by his stage name Mo Chara) with a terrorism offence. Ó hAnnaidh was charged in May, after being accused of displaying a Hezbollah flag at a London concert in November.

But this isn’t the first time an Irish republican group has courted controversy for backing other oppressed peoples. This has been happening for almost two centuries.

Unsanitised and vocal support

Ireland is composed of 32 counties. Twenty-six are in the Republic of Ireland, while six are part of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland. When the British government withdrew from most of Ireland in 1921, the Irish Free State was largely Catholic, while Northern Ireland was more heavily Protestant. But these divisions are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

While Ireland is still split across two nations, public support for Irish unity remains strong, particularly among citizens of the Republic.

Kneecap’s members are from Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. They are also fierce republicans, which means they want to see Ireland united as one nation. One of their most popular songs, Get Your Brits Out, calls for the British state’s withdrawal from Northern Ireland.

The group has experienced a meteoric rise in recent years, helped by a semi-autobiographical film released last year.

They have reclaimed the term “Fenian”, often used as an anti-Irish slur. Their decision to rap in Irish is also a cultural milestone, as the language was suppressed in Northern Ireland for most of the 20th century, only achieving official language status in 2022.

Despite being undeniable provocateurs, they claim they aren’t interested in reigniting Catholic-Protestant conflict. They celebrate the similarities between both groups, rather than highlight their differences.

Ó hAnnaidh’s alleged terrorism offence came after he waved a Hezbollah flag at a London gig and chanted “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah”. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are considered terrorist groups in Britain. He will face court on August 20.

Irish-Māori solidarity

Kneecap is carrying on a long tradition of Irish groups who faced controversy for denouncing the oppressive acts of powerful states.

In the 19th century, several Irish nationalist groups expressed solidarity with other colonised peoples, especially Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand. Groups such as the Irish Republican Brotherhood (whose members were called Fenians) arguably saw Māori and Irish as co-victims of a tyrannical state.

Irish nationalist newspapers often wrote sympathetically about the colonisation of New Zealand, and tried to inspire Ireland to resist British subjugation, like Māori seemed to be doing.

A historical depiction of a violent skirmish in a dense forest, showing soldiers in conflict with Māori warriors. The scene captures intense action, with soldiers producing weapons and Māori fighters in a defensive stance amidst foliage.
This painting by Kennett Watkins, The Death of Von Tempsky at Te Ngutu o Te Manu (circa 1893), portrays conflict in 1868 between armed constabulary and Māori forces. Wikimedia

In July 1864, the Fenian newspaper The Irish People stressed British hypocrisy. It wrote, “savages we call [Māori], using the arrogant language of civilisation, but, honestly, they deserve to be characterised by a much better word”.

It also scoffed at the “unconquerable propensity of the Anglo-Saxon to plunder the lands of other people – a propensity which manifests itself most strikingly alike in Ireland and New Zealand”.

Similarly, in December 1868, the nationalist newspaper The Nation contrasted “valiant” Māori with “terrified” British. It sarcastically described Māori as “rebels (men fighting for their own rights on their own soil)” and mocked the British forces as “valiant men who could bully a priest”.

The article finished on a sombre note: “Mere valour will in the end go down before the force of numbers and the cunning of diplomacy”.

Rumours of a secret rebellion

Other Irish leaders, such as the nationalist Michael Davitt, saw inspirational parallels between the nonviolent campaign of Charles Stewart Parnell, the 19th century leader of the Irish Home Rule movement, and Māori leader Te Whiti-o-Rongomai.

In Ireland, Parnell encouraged poor tenant farmers to pause rent payments to their British landlords. In New Zealand, Te Whiti encouraged Māori to dismantle colonially-constructed fences and plough the land for themselves. Both were arrested in 1881 within three weeks of each other.

A historical poster advocating for tenant farmers to refuse rent payments during the Land War in Ireland, emphasizing solidarity and resistance against landlords.
The ‘No Rent Manifesto’ was issued on 18 October 1881, by Parnell and others of the Irish National Land League while in Kilmainham Jail. National Library of Ireland

So strong was the sense of kinship between Irish and Māori that, in the 1860s, there were persistent rumours of a joint Irish-Māori rebellion reported in the media and even New Zealand’s parliament.

In March, 1869, the conservative New Zealand newspaper Daily Southern Cross reported a large number of Māori “have decided on joining the Fenian Brotherhood, and have adopted the green flag as their national emblem”.

Later that year, the paper reported the supposed Fenians told a Māori resistance group that, “like the Maori, they hate the British rule, and are prepared to make common cause […] to overthrow that rule in New Zealand”.

However, these rumours were probably no more than a conspiracy fuelled by racist anti-Irish paranoia.

Actions and outcomes

Any tangible results of cross-cultural sympathy from 19th century Irish nationalists were mixed, at best. My ongoing research shows solidarity with Māori was partly motivated by humanitarian motives, but was also often used to make a point about Ireland.

Identifying with another oppressed peoples within the context of a corrupt empire was a powerful way to argue for improved political recognition within Ireland. Irish nationalists generally didn’t do much other than declare their sympathy.

Kneecap, on the other hand, seems willing to bear the legal and financial consequences of being vocal about human rights abuses in Gaza. Some of their shows have been cancelled, and funding providers have withdrawn.

While curated rebellion can be lucrative in show-business, Kneecap says the controversy following them is a distraction. They insist the world should focus squarely on Gaza instead.

Ciara Smart, PhD Graduand in History, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Exclusive, News

Exclusive Premiere: We Gonna Raise the Roof by Dereos Roads & Jumbled

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Text overlay for the music video 'We Gonna Raise the Roof' by Dereos Roads and Jumbled on a retro-styled neighborhood street.

The fourth of July is coming up in the US, and the country is as divided as ever. Protest musicians in the US, and elsewhere, are not on any sort of hiatus, far from it, and music is being released daily in protest of the oppressive government currently in charge. One of these artists, veteran rapper Dereos Roads, is about to drop a music video made for one of the singles off of his collaborative album with Jumbled, ‘Saw the Landmark, Missed the Turn’. We caught up with Roads and asked him to tell us a bit more about the music video for ‘We Gonna Raise the Roof’ which we’re thrilled to be premiering exclusively here on the Shouts website.

“Well, for one, the guitar and bass have a blues rock vibe, so I wanted to, – in part, honor that retro aspect. The film is a bit of a Leave it to Beaver/Sin City color grade. I didn’t exactly want to spell out everything I say with an image to support it, but in songs like these I love drawing back to the past and connecting to the present, so there’s images of American child labor, the Civil Rights Movement, America’s numerous misadventures in Viet Nam and Iraq, Trump with the Saudis, and pro Palestinian protests.

I want people to recognize that this is a bi-partisan issue: income inequality, endless wars, crumbling schools and infrastructure. They’re all a product of the system run by the ruling class. I have friends with whom I disagree politically, but fundamentally, they see the problems with government as the sole product of an elitist governing class, and not the money in politics that has corrupted our institutions, controls the levers of power, and manufactured consent.“

The imagery of the video refers to more than simply an anti-war message; Roads includes shots of the neighborhood he lives in, which has been, according to him, going through a revitalization. Roads believes that his fellow citizens are renewing their faith in local goods and the power of community. The video expresses his hope for the future, that his people can get back to the economic fairness of the 50s and 60s, but with the added civil rights achievements and progress that has been made since then.

Also read: Dereos Roads and Jumbled release a new album addressing migrant rights, love and the current state of affairs in America

Roads struggles with the idea that a protest song is in itself a form of activism, but rather, he believes that it is an ingredient and a sign of solidarity with those on the ground, doing the important work of activism. The power of the protest song, according to Roads, is that it has “the potential to help grow a political movement,” which is why this type of music has successfully been kept off of the airwaves. Roads told me via email that in his opinion, that battle has been long lost; protest music is not on the radio much like anti-war voices are not heard on cable news. So, alternatively, for Roads, and other artists like him, the battle has shifted, and his focus now is on trying to get more ears to this kind of music. There are so many ways for people to discover music these days, and Road’s hope is for people to be more deliberate about what they choose to listen to, and not only consume what the algorithm provides.

“On the one hand, it’s like any other song: I want it to resonate with people. I want it to mean something to whomever is listening. On the other hand, I hope to wake people up to the real struggle at play: top vs bottom. Left vs right is a manufactured distraction. I think we can have our differences while having common ground on the core issue: the relationship between labor and capital, or the rich vs. the rest of us.

I think the mistake of many right now is believing that you simply just have to get the “right” set of billionaires in your corner. Look at this Cabinet. The richest in American history. They’re not there because they care about your bottom line and well being. They care about their own interests and that of their class. Unfortunately, I think some have forgotten the words of George Carlin that they used to believe in: ‘It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.‘”

Check out the exclusive premiere of We’re Gonna Raise the Roof below and further visit Roads’ website and follow him on social media (FB – IG – Bluesky) for updates.