Egypt's women rappers fight for place in rising scene
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 In the gardens of this Cairo University, 21-year-old Doreen spits her bars.
00:07 Rap gives me a space to express myself freely. There's a sense of freedom in the lyrics of
00:21 rap. There's freedom overall.
00:29 The young rapper is a native of Alexandria, a city that's produced most of the country's
00:34 hip-hop stars. In her latest album, "Kawabes", Nightmares in Arabic, Doreen talks about the
00:41 ordeals she went through following break-ups. But she doesn't only rap about her personal
00:46 life, she also tackles gender issues, a real problem in the patriarchal Egyptian society.
00:54 I feel that maybe they don't take us seriously, perhaps assuming that as women we don't encounter
00:59 significant challenges. However, it's quite the opposite. Women often face twice the obstacles
01:05 that men do. If your problem as a guy is struggling to make ends meet, we girls are facing harassment
01:11 generally in life.
01:14 Fatih is also a rapper. She says the women trying to make it on the up-and-coming scene
01:19 get constant backlash from men.
01:23 We get criticized a lot. We get insulted. They make fun of us. I really hope that changes.
01:30 I'm not talking about myself, but a lot of girls get affected by that criticism. They
01:37 wonder why they're insulting and making fun of us.
01:41 Like many other sectors in Egypt, the rap scene is still very male-dominated. Doreen
01:47 and Fatih are some of the pioneers taking down the status quo and fighting for a piece
01:52 of the action.