Despite censorship and boycotts, the veteran rap group have never shied away from the political. But the situation in Gaza has made them question whether there’s really any power in art
t’s just after 10.30pm on a Friday night when, fresh from their packed-out sundowner set, Tamer Nafar, Mahmoud Jreri and Maysa Daw – AKA the Palestinian hip-hop collective DAM – squeeze into a cramped backstage cabin at Womad, the global music festival in Wiltshire. Theirs is, quite clearly, a confused and contradictory mood: adrenaline-filled, but downbeat and sombre.
Nafar chimes in: “Even the ‘Free Palestine’ chants, and flag-waving we just had in the crowd; people cheering us simply for being Palestinian? It’s complicated.” For 20 years, the band fought to be recognised as artists first and foremost, not defined by their nationality. “But right now, I’d give it all up – all the art, all the music – to save one child being slaughtered 35 minutes from my home. His bandmates nod. “So fuck my art. Fuck my lyrics. Honestly.
They’re in the middle of a short, intense festival tour: France and Portugal these last two days, ahead of their Womad booking. “Tomorrow we go back to France,” Nafar says, “then a Belgium show. It’s an adjustment. No Palestinian art shows are happening at home, for two reasons. The party people aren’t putting on events because we are sad. People are dying while we talk. And the resistance aren’t getting approvals from the authorities, or are getting arrested.
DAM started out shortly after the Oslo accords, the interim agreements in the 1990s between Israeli and Palestinian leaders that marked the beginning of a hoped-for peace process. “We started to make music in English, then Hebrew. There was an Israeli hip-hop scene then. We played in Tel Aviv clubs, performing in Hebrew. And, to be honest, we were much better than most of the Israeli MCs.
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