Authors:

The Last Poets began to compose their first poems in 1969, and have be lauded since then as the ‘godfathers’ of hip-hop. Generations of rappers have referred explicitly to the influence of the Last Poets. Accompanied by percussion, political themes always stand in the foreground of their poetic texts. They were among the first to have attemped to provide the Afro-American community with an identity and self-confidence of its own.

The rap formation MBS (Le micro brise le silence) were brought from Algeria to France by the major label Universal Music. They rap in Algerian and French, and with their virtuouso rhythm-language and incisive rhymes tell of everyday Algeria, which has been characterised by civil war, economic crises and injustice: Algerian rap has become the mouthpiece of the youth protest movement. Or, as the frontman Ourrad puts it: ‘The mike in my hand is not there to make you dance.’

Sha’anan David Streett is the MC of Hadag Nachash, one of the most well known Israeli hip-hop groups. As he was born and lives in Jerusalem, the 33 year-old has been continually confronted by the Israeli – Palistinian conflict: in Summer 2002 he released a compilation in the memory of a DJ who was killed in a terrorist attack.