36. Dam - It's Dam (2006)

In April 2007, I became aware of a joint Israeli-Palestinian hip-hop concert, taking place in Sakhnin, an Arab town in the Galilee. I was very excited to see a scene that involves both Jews and Arabs, so I made my way up north, to take part and bare witness to it. When I arrived at Sakhnin, I found out that I was over-optimistic: the show was organized by a Dutch TV network, which apparently came with an anti-Zionist approach, and did not publicize it in the Jewish media. Apart from some anarchists, which I had no interest in mingling with, I was practically the only Jew there. There were also about two dozen Dutch, and several hundred locals. When I entered the venue, I realized it was a wedding hall, and the crowd (which included many women and children) was seated in rows to watch the show - it was obvious they had no idea what hip-hop was. The concert began with a few local rappers, which came on to do their thing and were actually pretty good, but no one (except for me and the Dutch) danced - they just clapped to the rhythm. Then came Sagol 59, a Jewish band from Jerusalem, and the audience received them courteously, but remained seated. Next up was Ali B, a Moroccan-Dutch rapper, and he did his best to wake up the crowd, and even got them to stand up. By that time, the women and children went home, and a few dozen youngsters crowded near the stage. At the end of his performance, Ali B got them all to chant "we want Dam! We want Dam!", which made me chuckle, and I wondered if he knew the meaning of what he was asking for. And then, Dam took the stage.

Dam (supposedly an acronym for Da Arab MCs, but "dam", in both Hebrew and Arabic, means blood) is a band I already knew of. Three guys from the city of Lod, fifteen minute drive from my home, who provide a militant rap of Palestinian pride. I knew they recently recorded their debut album, but I couldn't find it in the music stores of my enlightened country. So I didn't really know what to expect, and watching them perform was a mind-blowing experience. Three rappers who attack you like machine-guns, accompanied by a funky beat and samples of Arabic music, drove the crowd into ecstasy. I don't speak Arabic and I didn't understand what they were singing, but I could tell the crowd understood, on the deepest level possible. During the encore, when they sang a song blaming Israel for being the real terrorist, I decided it was a good time to get lost, so I elegantly slipped out, but not before I bought their CD that was sold on location. On the way home, I knew I just took part in the realest pop experience I was ever witness to. I had a lot of strong memories from the event, but most of all, there was a chant that was stuck in my mind, banging like a tarbouka in my brain for several days: "da dam, da dada dam, da dam, da dada dam, da dam, da dada dam, da dam, da dada dam..."

The development of Palestinian hip-hop is, to me, the best news to come out of the Middle East in recent years. In Israel it gets almost no airplay, but Israeli democracy does allow it to grow. In Gaza, the Hamas regime is trying to repress it, but without success. It thrives in the West Bank as well, and rappers from the three separated areas transcend the walls to connect to one another and develop a new Palestinian consciousness, more enlightened and complex than the disastrous Palestinian politics. Dam are the best example. Just as their music successfully combines Arab and Western samples, so do their lyrics express Palestinian pride and lash strongly against Israel and the West, but also speak in the name of Western values and use them to criticize Arab culture. Their album, which many Jews participated in creating, is anti-Zionist, but also a manifestation of Israeli democracy at its best.

'Da Dam' (it's Dam) is kind of the band's anthem, and also one of its best records. We want Dam!