Hip Hop & Diaspora: Connecting the Arab Spring by Lara Dotson-Renta
Every evolution has a certain style of music connected to it. The recent and still on-going pro-democracy movements now popularly known as the “Arab Spring’ has been accompanied by a very strong musical components, and it has been hip-hop that has become the most iconic and widespread soundtrack of the Arab Spring and, interestingly, it is having the double effect of helping to mobilize activists in the countries directly impacted by the pro-democracy movements while also solidifying links between Arab diasporic communities in the West with those still residing in the ‘homeland.’ The article also examined the now infamous song Rais Lebled by Tunisian rapper El Général in detail.