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Saudi hip-hop group Dark2Men visit Dubai
Three rappers travelled from Saudi Arabia to discover the delights of performing in Dubai
- By Faiza Saleh Ambah, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
- Published: 00:48 March 13, 2008
- Dark2Men rappers: Tamer Farhan, Hani Zain and Maan Mansour.
- Image Credit: Washington Post Photo
Even before they stepped onstage at the MTV Arabia competition finale in Dubai, members of the Saudi hip-hop group Dark2Men knew they wouldn't win.
The contestants were to be judged on their lyrics, stage presence and performance, but Dark2Men had never performed in public because of religious codes in their native Saudi Arabia that ban nightclubs, concerts and theatres. The seven other finalists from Egypt, Lebanon and the UAE had rapped live for years.
Victory
But backstage before the show, one of the show's co-hosts told the contestants something that made Dark2Men's impending loss seem like victory.
Hani Zain, 27, who raps in Arabic for the group, said: "He said no matter what happened in the competition, we would go down in history when they wrote the book about Arab hip-hop.''
An Egyptian won the competition, which is being broadcast this month, but the three men of Dark2Men said their lives had been transformed by the experience in ways they had not imagined.
"It was an earthquake that shifted the world around us,'' said Tamer Farhan, 24, who raps in English. "It gave meaning to all the hardships we faced to get here.''
Online success
The Dark2Men members met on a rap website and compose their music using online programmes. They have posted several songs on YouTube and have a Facebook site.
But even as they rap in praise of Islam and their mothers, and against the war in Iraq and terrorism, their biggest hurdle has been convincing family, friends and Saudi society, that they are not simply trying to imitate a decadent Western lifestyle.
Since winning the MTV Arabia hip-hop audition in January, they have struggled with fiancées unhappy about the attention garnered by their television appearances broadcast across the Arab world, bosses angry about their extended leave from work and fathers worried that their sons will leave stable jobs and become entertainers.
Groovers
For a week last month in Dubai, they forgot those pressures as they danced until dawn at nightclubs and learned how to move on stage.
Farhan, who now spends an hour a day answering fan mail, sat with his laptop at a coffee shop during his lunch hour and sighed as he read a notice from a fellow contestant, Emirati rap group Desert Heat, announcing a performance at a nightclub in Oman, with tickets selling for $26 (Dh95).
"If I could make money rapping like these guys, I would have left my job,'' Farhan said.
But there's nowhere to perform in Saudi Arabia, and leaving his job would mean that Farhan and his family would be without health insurance, a risk he said he is not ready to take.
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