A young rapper from Iceland, with family ties to Gaza, has organised a benefit concert and gotten the help from some heavy hitters from the country’s hiphop scene.
Photo provided by the artist.
Alexander was born and raised in Iceland and has never experienced life in a war zone. However, his father is from Gaza and now the young rapper’s plan is to raise enough funds so he can travel to the Egypt-Gaza border and help family members to safety, namely his grandmother and his uncle and family.
Alexander’s family members in Gaza are not immediate family and therefore he can not apply for asylum for them on grounds of family unification in Iceland. But after seeing on the news how three Icelandic activists travelled to Egypt to retrieve families out of Gaza, because of lack of effort by the Icelandic government, he thought maybe he could do the same.
For the benefit concert, Alexander got the support of some popular members of the contemporary Icelandic hiphop scene, such as Birnir, Flóni, Krabbamane and others, who are donating their performance to the cause.
If you find yourself in Iceland this Saturday, perhaps to admire the fresh lava, you could do a lot worse then stopping by this concert and helping the Abu-Samrah family get out of harm’s way.
When: Saturday 24 February 2024 Where: IÐNÓ, Reykjavík How much: 5,900 Icelandic kronas (42 USD, 39 EUR) Alternative ways to support: Icelandic ID number: 040991-2049 Account number: 0370-26-010964 IBAN: IS620370260109640409912049 SWIFT: ESJAISRE
Cover art by Gadzooks Bazooka for the song “A Suitable Beast”
Men cannot change if there are no blueprints for change. Men cannot love if they are not taught the art of loving. – bell hooks1
I held the idea of the song “A Suitable Beast” in my mind for years before I could connect it to my heart. I didn’t want to write an ode or a critique, but an investigation cloaked in curiosity. As I dove deeper I dove into Ernest Hemingway’s life, the song quickly became a mirror where I confronted my own self-inflicted rage, Whiteness, and patriarchy. As noted by Carole Pateman and Charles Mills, this dominator culture is intertwined: “race is gendered and gender is raced.”2 Many authors have critiqued Hemingway on his white supremacy, masculinity, and upholding of colonial thought.3 Toni Morrison notes in Playing in the Dark how Whiteness often hides behind the term “American”: “The act of enforcing racelessness in literary discourse is itself a racial act. Pouring rhetorical acid on the fingers of a black hand may indeed destroy the prints, but not the hand. Besides, what happens in that violent, self-serving act of erasure to the hands, the fingers, the fingerprints of the one who does the pouring? Do they remain acid-free? The literature itself suggests otherwise.”4
Reflecting on Judith Butler’s concept of gender being a performance I have a bar in the song, “It’s hard to live up to those lies that bloomed in you.”5 As a White male who grew up in a working-class setting, I learned to play the part of masculinity by holding in emotions, appearing stoic, and seeking to intimidate. The gift of art and hip-hop for me was encountering artists such as MC Lyte, Black Thought, Tupac, and Yasiin Bey, particularly Tupac’s song “Dear Mama,” which helped me unlock my emotions with the key of vulnerability. Tupac in “Dear Mama” rapped how he cried with his sister about their family being in poverty and how he made mistakes and opened up vulnerably about how he loved his mother. Along with vulnerability, Yasiin Bey’s song “Rock N Roll” showed my colonial mind a more honest history, exposing appropriation and exploitation of how many White musicians stole and profited from Black musicians. Revisiting Morrison’s extended metaphor, Tupac and Bey expose the crime scene of Whiteness and masculinity showing where and when the acid has been poured.
Masculinity’s Faustian bargain of domination for masking feelings, veiling emotions, and burying love is a deadly deal of disconnection. In A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway profoundly writes, “If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills.”6 Harkening back to A Farewell to Arms the last parts of my song say:
His dad shot himself with his father’s revolver The world breaks everyone the cycle revolves He was a big game hunter but the last beast was in his head He piled up the dead animals but could never bury his dread Did you hit the target or did the target hit you? You were the bull and the matador that paradox split you
Even though Hemingway became more progressive on race and gender later in his life and had the courage to create and wrote with vulnerability, he too battled with his avatar of masculinity intersecting with traumas and ghosts. Commenting on Hemingway and masculinity, Diane Herndi writes how “masculinity itself becomes a self-inflicted wound.”7 Art has the ability to communicate on multiple levels, convey massive amounts of information, and make us reflect, beautiful art is gauze for self-inflicted wounds. These paragraphs aren’t panaceas, but if cis men work to break down hierarchies and collaborate to destroy patriarchy by “being disloyal to the dominator model,” countless lives could be saved.8
Reflecting on the extended metaphor I used in the song–that the last beast he had to hunt was in his head–turned the topic into an autopsy on patriarchy. Unfortunately, patriarchy is alive and well in myself, people, culture, and society. My hope is that we can continue to support subcultures where boys, men, and people can continue to diagnose where patriarchy animates them and silences them into a rage so we can stop doing singular autopsies on people (mainly women) who died too soon from patriarchy, and we can one day do a universal autopsy on patriarchy and speak of it in terms of fossils and the past tense.
chris time steele is a writer, poet, and rapper, and part of the group Calm. with AwareNess. Time has worked with Common, Kool Keith, Xiu Xiu, Ron Miles, Mick Jenkins, Psalm One, Che Noir, Extra Kool, namebuddha, scott crow and more. Time is host of the Time Talks podcast. He has chapters with Noam Chomsky and Joy James, and in the books Building Power While the Lights Are Out and Trust Kids. He also has a forthcoming book with Dr. Gerald Horne titled Acknowledging Radical Histories.
1 bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men Masculinity and Love (New York: Washington Square Press, 2004), xvii. 2 Carole Pateman and Charles Mills, Contract and Domination (New York: Polity, 2007), 4 3 Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (New York: Vintage, 1993): Josep M. Armengol, “Performing Manhood through Animal Killings? Revisions of Hunting as a Performance of Masculinity in Ernest Hemingway’s Late Writings,” Men & Masculinities 23, no. 5 (December 2020): 833–51, doi:10.1177/1097184X20965454.: Margaret E. Wright-Cleveland, “Hemingway’s Dialectic with American Whiteness: Oak Park, Edward Said, and the Location of Authority.” Hemingway Review 39, no. 1 (Fall 2019): 40–61. doi:10.1353/hem.2019.0016. 4 Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992) 9, 46 5 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990) 6 Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1957) 7 Diane Price Herndl, “Invalid Masculinity: Silence, Hospitals, and Anesthesia in ‘A Farewell to Arms.’” Hemingway Review 21, no. 1 (Fall 2001): 38–52. doi:10.1353/hem.2001.0003. 8 bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men Masculinity and Love (New York: Washington Square Press, 2004), 59.
This article was originally published on 21 December 2023 on hemingwaysociety.org and written by chris time steele.
On June 25, Uzbek rapper Sharif Abdullaev, who goes by the pseudonym Konsta, created headlines by releasing a new song called “Xavo” (Air). In it, Konsta raises the issue of environmental degradation caused by deforestation, development projects, and air pollution in Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent. The rapper complains in the song that he is unable “to take a deep breath,” the city feels “like a cage,” and everything “white has turned grey.” Konsta notes that the root cause of these problems are humans, who behave like pests and have gotten used to cutting down trees, instead of planting them.
Here is a music video of the song “Xavo.”
“Xavo” is one of Konsta’s many songs produced in the genre of music he calls “conscious rap”. Konsta’s songs focus on Uzbek society, its problems, and the role of each individual in unfolding events. His source of inspiration is his personal experience of working at a bazaar in his hometown of Guliston in eastern Uzbekistan and being migrant labour in Russia.
Around two million Uzbek citizens work as migrant labour in Russia, where they are often subjected to discrimination and harassment by law enforcement bodies. Konsta’s songs are all in Uzbek, although he admits that he could have been more popular if he continued to write songs in Russian. “My life is incomprehensible to Russians. Our world is Uzbek,” said, Konsta explaining his decision to write songs in Uzbek in an interview with Gazeta.uz, one of the biggest media outlets in Uzbekistan.
Here is the full video of Konsta’s interview with Gazeta.uz.
In his most viewed song on YouTube “Odamlar nima deydi?” (What will people say?), Konsta tackles the country’s social issue where many feel the need to seek public approval for their personal life decisions. Konsta describes parents’ disapproval of their children’s unconventional professional choices and the pressure they exert on daughters to tolerate domestic violence and not to divorce, due to fear of social stigma.
Here is a music video of the song “Odamlar nima deydi”.
In another song related to social pressure titled “To’y” (Wedding), Konsta appears as an ordinary Uzbek man who spent all the money he saved while working as migrant labour in Russia and got into debt to organize an extravagant, large wedding. His next move is to return to Russia and continue working as migrant labour to pay off his debt. Through this song, Konsta brings light to the tradition of organizing lavish weddings most people in Uzbekistan cannot afford, forcing them to go into debt.
Here is a music video of the song “To’y”.
Konsta also reacts to political scandals in the country. On March 6, he released a song called “Sariq jiletka” (Yellow vest) in response to the news that the authorities were planning to force pedestrians, schoolchildren, and bikers to wear light-reflecting jackets at night to prevent car accidents. The Ministry of Interior rolled back its plans after a public backlash. In the song, Konsta appears as a corrupt official who came up with this idea, so he can make money on the sale of vests and go to the Maldives on vacation.
Here is a music video of the song “Sariq jiletka”.
Konsta stands out in the sea of Uzbek singers for his creativity and for tackling social and political issues. His conscious rap is a mirror where Uzbek society can see its struggles.
