Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in the southern Levant region of West Asia. It encompasses two disconnected territories — the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, collectively known as the Palestinian territories — within the larger region of Palestine. The country shares its borders with Israel to north, west and south, Jordan to the east and Egypt to the southwest. It has a combined land area of 6,020 square kilometres (2,320 sq mi) while its population exceeds five million people. Its proclaimed capital is Jerusalem while Ramallah serves as its administrative center and Gaza City was its largest city until massive population movements began in 2023 due to the Israeli invasion of the Gaza strip. Arabic is the official language. The majority of Palestinians practice Islam while Christianity also has a significant presence.
The music of Palestine is one of many regional subgenres of Arabic music. While it shares much in common with Arabic music, both structurally and instrumentally, there are musical forms and subject matter that are distinctively Palestinian.
Tamer Nafar is a Palestinian rapper, actor, screenwriter and social activist of Israeli citizenship. He is the leader and a founding member of DAM, the first Palestinian hip hop group.
Kareem Dennis, better known by his stage name Lowkey, is a British rapper and activist from London. He first became known through a series of mixtapes he released before he was 18, before taking a hiatus from the music business. He would return in 2008, with appearances on BBC Radio and at various festivals and concerts including the BBC Electric Proms, Glastonbury, T In The Park and Oxegen in the buildup to his first solo album Dear Listener, as well as collaborating with other British musicians to form the supergroup Mongrel. He released his second solo album, Soundtrack to the Struggle, independently on in 2011.
Arabic hip-hop is a segment of hip hop music performed in the Arabic-speaking world. Due to variety of dialects and local genres which exist in the localities, Arabic hip-hop music may appear very diverse depending on the country of the song. Like most artists of the genre, the hip-hop artists from the Arabic-speaking world are highly influenced by American hip-hop.
DAM is a Palestinian hip-hop group founded in 1999 by brothers Tamer and Suhell Nafar and their friend Mahmoud Jreri from the mixed city of Lod. The group's songs are themed on protest, inequality, Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and self-criticism of Arab-Israeli society, including the violence and drug dealing within Israel's mixed cities. DAM is the best-known and most famous Palestinian hip hop group; it is also often called the "quintessential Palestinian resistance band".
Cinema of Palestine is relatively young in comparison to Arab cinema as a whole. Palestinian films are not exclusively produced in Arabic and some are even produced in English and French. Elia Suleiman has emerged as one of the most notable working Palestinian directors.
Palestinian hip hop reportedly started in 1998 with Tamer Nafar's group DAM. These Palestinian youth forged the new Palestinian musical subgenre, which blends Arabic melodies and hip hop beats. Lyrics are often sung in Arabic, Hebrew, English, and sometimes French. Since then, the new Palestinian musical subgenre has grown to include artists in Palestine, Israel, Great Britain, the United States and Canada.
Ahmad Balshe, known professionally as Belly, is a Palestinian-Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born in Jenin, Balshe was raised in Ottawa. His debut mixtape, Death Before Dishonor: Vol. 1 (2005) was followed eight additional projects until the release of his debut studio album, The Revolution (2007). After an eight-year hiatus in favor of songwriting for fellow Canadian singer the Weeknd, Balshe signed with his record label, XO, as a recording artist in 2015.
Ramallah Underground, based in Ramallah, Palestine, is a musical collective born in 2002, from the desire to give voice to a generation of Palestinians and Arabs, in a situation of great economic, artistic, and political difficulty. The collective was founded by artists Stormtrap and Boikutt, later joined by Aswatt, who aim to rejuvenate Arabic culture by creating "music that Arabic youth can relate to," in the words of Boikutt. They rap in Arabic, and are credited as some of the founders of Palestinian hip-hop. Their music combines hip-hop, trip hop, and downtempo, besides more traditional Middle-Eastern music, with a commitment to their local culture and an awareness of the imposing presence of Palestine in their lives.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the State of Palestine:
The Palestinian National Authority requires their residents register their motor vehicles and display vehicle registration plates. There are two different registration systems in use: one for West Bank and one in the Gaza Strip.
Benjamin Hammond Haggerty, better known by his stage name Macklemore, is an American rapper. A native of Seattle, Washington, he started his career in 2000 as an independent artist releasing: Open Your Eyes (2000), The Language of My World (2005), and The Unplanned Mixtape (2009). He rose to international success collaborating with producer Ryan Lewis as the duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (2009–2016).
Kehlani Ashley Parrish, known mononymously as Kehlani, is an American singer and songwriter. They are originally from Oakland, California, and achieved initial fame as a member of the teen pop group Poplyfe in 2011.
See You Next Wednesday is the third studio album by Palestinian-Canadian rapper Belly. It was released on 27 August 2021, through Roc Nation and XO. The album features guest appearances from The Weeknd, Young Thug, Moneybagg Yo, Gunna, PnB Rock, Nas, Nav, Lil Uzi Vert, Big Sean, and Benny the Butcher. Production was handled by Belly, the Weeknd, and Nav themselves, alongside DannyBoyStyles, Zaytoven, Infamous, Ben Billions, DaHeala, and Skinny, among others.
Abdel-Rahman Al-Shantti known professionally as MC Abdul or MCA Abdul is a Palestinian rapper from Gaza, Palestine. He gained popularity when he sang a rap about freedom in front of his school in Gaza which garnered hundreds of thousands of views on social media. As of December 2023, his videos for "Shouting At The Wall" and "Palestine" have received more then 2.1 million views and 1.5 million views, respectively, on YouTube.
Marwan Abdelhamid, known as Saint Levant, is a Jerusalem-born Palestinian rapper. He is a multilingual rapper, known for his song "Very Few Friends". He is also Dior's first fragrance ambassador in the Middle East.
"Hind's Hall" is a protest song by American rapper Macklemore, released as a single on May 6, 2024. Written and produced by Macklemore, it expresses support for the pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses that call for divestment from Israel and a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war.
