Lebanese hip-hop pioneer rapping for free speech

BEIRUT: Im not here to entertain you, says Rayess Bek. Neither am I going to start a revolution Im just fighting for freedom of speech.

Formerly one-half the hip- hop duo Aksser, known to his mum as Wael Kodeih, Rayess Bek raps in Lebanese Arabic and French and is regarded to be an Arabic hip-hop trailblazer.

A Paris resident these days, the trailblazer was back in Beirut where he performed a number of shows around last weeks Laique Pride protestations. This four-day-long series of shows was also the occasion for the launch of his newest CD. Khartech 3a Zamann/ lHomme de gauche (Scribbling out the Past and The Leftist) is a collection of songs divided into two parts one in French and one in Arabic.

He may be living in Paris, but Rayess Beks roots are in Lebanon. Like many who have studied and worked overseas, the rapper says his constant state of transition sometimes makes him feel a little schizophrenic.

His lyrics are expressive of Lebanons politics, wars, confusion and identity. Local audiences sometimes consider these lyrics harsh and theyve long felt the weight of the censor.

The tunes are aimed the younger generation, one that, in Rayess Beks view, often finds itself drowned by disillusionment, blinded by consumerism and searching for some clarity.

Rayess Bek says that his aim is not to change peoples views but simply to express the frustrations that people would like to express, but which, more often than not, they are unable or unwilling to voice. I dont write about fiction, he continues. I write about boundaries.

He means political boundaries not just physical barriers like walls and borders, but moral, social and cultural ones.

These are the boundaries that remain engrained in our minds, like the Green Line, like the line between the occidental and oriental, he said. These, he continues, are the ones that affect the social spaces that we inevitably have to share.

Im more of a journalist than an artist, the rapper adds, but not in the objective sense. That doesnt exist.

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Lebanese hip-hop pioneer rapping for free speech