Women, Hip Hop, and Cultural Resistance in Dubai

Abstract

This article uses an ethnographic methodology grounded in a transversal understanding of both black feminism and hip hop politics. Using ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews with eight black identified “third culture” women in Dubai, UAE, and featuring three of those interviews, I argue that hip hop provides an important point of encounter to negotiate local to local connections in ways that undermine the national boundaries erected by states and reinforced through racializing practices that are often expressed through the cultural logics of capitalist heteropatriarchy. These reciprocal interviews offer insights into commonalities and differences among black women in very different parts of the world, whose identities are shaped, in part, by their involvement in hip hop culture.

Keywords:

• Arab women hip hop artists
• cultural resistance
• Dubai UAE
• global hip hop
• transversal politics

Notes

Scholar-blogger Moya Bailey of the Crunk Feminist Collective has referred to anti-black misogyny in American culture as misogynoir. Misogynoir relies almost exclusively upon nihilist forms of representational violence that portrays black women as abject, unworthy, and sexually expendable with inter- and intra-modes of popular cultural expression. Lil Wayne has been broadly critiqued by black feminist bloggers for egregious instances of misogynoir in his lyrics.

I extend a note of gratitute to a series of scholars who have closely read and provided insightful feedback upon this article, thereby exponentially increasing its relevance to the fields of black and Middle Eastern studies. These include: Barbara Ransby, Mark Anthony Neal, Rana Raddawi, Dayo Gore, Moya Bailey, Nikol Alexander-Floyd, and Julia Jordan-Zachery. I would also like to thank the Imagine Fund of the University of Minnesota for its generous support of the broader umbrella project that this research is based on, called, Unheard Voices at the Bottom of Empire: Translocal Sites of Black Feminist Resistance.

“Reem Osman” and “Sara Naser” are pseudonyms that have been used to protect the anonymity of the women interviewed.

See also an extended interview with Abeer Al Zinati (a.k.a. “Sabrina da Witch) in the documentary film Slingshot Hip Hop (2008) produced by Jackie Reem Salloum.

Alternatively, the “youth wing” of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) repeatedly touted the concert ban as a victory on Twitter.

A gele is a colorful, artfully stacked headwrap sported by many Muslim and non-Muslim women in West Africa. Especially popular in the late 1960s, and then again in the 1990s, black women in the United States and the Caribbean embraced the wearing of the gele as a sign of black racial pride and cultural resistance to dominant white culture.

I was invited take part in a larger documentary film project on Women and Hip Hip in the Middle-East being produced by Thabiti Willis, an Assistant Professor of African History at Carleton College. I was invited because of my own expertise in hip hop feminism as an educator and activist in the United States. Dr. Willis also moderated a highly successful panel on Global Hip Hop at the Vices to Verses: a New Era and Hip Hop and Action in April of 2010 that myself and students from my Sex, Politics and Global Hip Hop classes co-convened at the University of Minnesota in the United States. Several incredibly insightful dialogues emerged from this panel, including a dynamic presentation by Palestinian hip hop artist, Abeer Alzinati, also known as “Sabrina da Witch”; we decided to continue working to increase the visibility of Middle Eastern women involved in hip hop culture and politics.

In “Keep it Desert,” a spin off of the hip hop idiom “Keep it real,” brother Ilmiyah and Arableak soundly chastise other Arab hip artists for uncritically appropriating and mimicing the commodified version of gangsta rap without attending to the specific geopolitical circumstances that shaped the experiences of Arab youths.

It is important to note that Desert Heat was banned from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for reasons that are not entirely clear.

Our conversations were unscripted, spontaneous, and had a collaborative quality. We learned from each other. All of us were between 25 and 35 years old, with the exception of Reem's mother (age 65) whom she insisted that we interview with her. All of the artists were college educated and either employed or seeking employment in their chosen field. We were a part of what Bakari Kitwana has called the “hip hop generation,” young people who came of age during the maturation of neoliberalism. Born between 1965 and 1985, the hip hop generation has had to deal with the roll-back of the welfare state under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the widening gaps between have and have-nots, the decades-long vilification of young black and Arab men as “criminals” and “terrorists,” respectively.

I write as a feminist, transdisciplinary scholar. I seek to transcend the false demarcations produced by disciplinary territorialism. Instead, taking the lead from M. Jacqui Alexander (2005), I am more concerned with the “imperative of making the world in which we live intelligible to ourselves—in other words teaching ourselves” (6) rather than teaching white dominated, and historically racist and racializing academic disciplines about black women's culture and politics. Toward this aim, I both center and contribute to the intellectual-activist itineraries of feminists who have advocated for the decolonization of the academy, the de-territorialization of disciplines, and the inclusion of voices from the global margins (see for instance Pryse 2000; Nagar 2013; Alexander 2005; Mohanty 2003; Boyce Davies 2003).

In The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam, Hunwick and Powell (2002) write: “Even to this day, the words for Africans in many Arab dialects is abid, or slaves.”

It was clearly explained to all informants that Thabiti and I were “researchers.” This means that we had to get informed consent to do the interviews, even though we did not use any formal interview scripts. Thabiti and I sometimes met to discuss what we wanted to talk about and which conversations that each of us would prompt. John Thabiti Willis is Assistant Professor of African History at Carleton College. Having visited Dubai on several occasions he was interested in studying what he called, “Afro-Arab women and hip hop.” Thabiti and I worked together to organize the From Vices to Verses Conference, and we thought it would be great to continue this collaboration to study women and hip hop in the Arab world, to make uses of our diverse areas of expertise. Thabiti and I, and one of the artists we interviewed (“Malikah”) presented a preliminary version of this project at the Gender and Women's Studies in the Arab World conference at American University of Sharjah in the UAE.

Initially, Zenaib was very reluctant to show photos of herself during that time. As she was then covered (i.e., wore a veil to cover her head), she did not find it appropriate to revel in photos of herself uncovered. However, after so many laughs and tears, several cups of tea, dates, and fresh fruits, she decided it was okay.

It should be noted that during this particular discussion there were other women present including Sarah and other women who were “interviewed” but are not featured in this article.

The translated lyrics of “Ya Imra'a” can be found on Malikah's website: www.malikah-961.com.

An abaya is a long black robe that is commonly worn by women in Muslim countries in the Persian Gulf. Many women, especially Emirate women, wear a (usually black) veil that covers the head, forehead, and shoulders. Abaya in Dubai are often adorned with black or colored sequins around the wrists, shoulders, and down the shoulders and legs. Many Emirate women demonstrate their wealth, standing with very expensive designer shoes and purses and eye makeup. In Dubai it is a mistake to assume that because women wear an abaya that they are especially pious or oppressed; rather, in many cases abaya represents Arab citizenship, which, for the most part, grants financial stability through the family and extended family unit.