Thursday nights are a time for celebration in Jordan, as people across the country celebrate the end of the workweek. Their cars blare music, but the beats and lyrics largely sound the same, blending together into a sea of generic pop songs. The streets are devoid of art, instead littered with billboards and unadorned concrete. But the next generation of Jordanians is channeling their frustrations with a stagnant society and struggling economy into reshaping their culture and establishing a thriving art scene that defies the Middle East’s conservative traditions. Graffiti artists are shaking cans of spray paint, young Jordanians cheer on rappers at concerts, and the local beatboxing scene draws performers from around the world.
The HPR spoke with three young artists pioneering change in Jordan. Though they come from vastly different backgrounds and practice different crafts, their similarities speak volumes about shifts in thinking among young Jordanians, and serve as a signal of the dramatic social changes that may be on Jordan’s horizon.
KING OF THE BEAT
As he leans back in a booth at Cafe Rumi, smoking a cigarette and enjoying a cup of coffee, it is clear that Abood Aladham is in his element. The 25-year-old jokes with a waiter about his smoking habit, then gives half of the restaurant’s patrons high-fives as he walks to his table. He strikes a distinctive appearance, sporting designer clothing more typical of Brooklyn than Amman.
But it is not just his clothes that set him apart. Aladham is the founder of the Jordan International Beatboxing Championship, an annual competition that has started to put Jordan on the map for the Middle East’s most talented beatboxers.
Before his name became well known on the hip-hop scene, Aladham grew up in Hai Nazzal, a suburb of Jordan’s capital that struggles with poverty and violence. “It’s like Compton, just with no shooting,” he said. “There were a lot of problems with violence and small gangs there. People have no plans for their career or futures. No one is pushing you along.”
Five years ago, after falling in and out with several music groups, he went off on his own, convincing event organizers to let him on their stages. The charm and swagger apparent as he navigated the cafe worked to his advantage — he once talked himself onto a stage at the Amman Summer Festival, and performed in front of 20,000 people.
Soon, Aladham’s ambition expanded beyond his personal career, and in 2014 he raised 450 JD (635 USD) from local contacts to fund the inaugural Jordan International Beatboxing Championship, informally known as “The King of the Beat.”
Aladham selected the top 16 beatboxers in Jordan through elimination rounds, based on strict criteria: originality of beat, technicality, and flow. 250 people showed up to watch the finalists, a large crowd for the local beatboxing movement’s first big event. In recent years, that crowd has swelled to even larger numbers: In 2018, beatboxers from Saudi Arabia and Palestine performed, and two women debuted at the competition in front of an audience of over 400.
“It’s hard to be a hip-hop artist here,” Aladham said. “I hope I can make things a little easier. If I influence someone, they’ll influence someone else and the effect will just become bigger and bigger.”
A CONSERVATIVE CULTURE
Laith Al Huseini is the son that most Jordanian parents dream of. The 25-year-old just graduated from medical school at the Jordan University of Science and Technology, and is on track to become a practicing psychiatrist. But he lives a parallel life, in which he is able to share his true passion with the world. When he’s not wearing medical scrubs, Huseini dons a beanie or backward baseball cap and baggy jeans, becoming “Synaptik,” one of Jordan’s most popular rappers.
Like Aladham, Huseini’s love for hip-hop began in internet cafes. “When I was little, I would go to the network shop and all the PCs had a pre-installed playlist. It had Eminem, 50 Cent, some Tupac songs. That was the music we had at the time. I didn’t know what hip-hop was, but I started imitating it and memorizing songs,” he said.
After recording his first album at just 17 years old — when he was still in high school — Huseini’s career took off. In the past year, his YouTube videos have garnered hundreds of thousands of views, and he performed in Beirut, Palestine, Berlin, and Paris, among other locations, as part of a tour launching his first album. He dreams of being able to quit medicine and become a full-time artist. That dream still feels far-off, but it is closer for him than for most.
Huseini understands that being successful by Jordan’s more conventional standards gives him a leg up with his artistic career. “I think medicine has helped me communicate my message better, because when people hear a rapper, they immediately think ‘poor guy, he failed high school.’ But then I say, ‘I’m a doctor,’ and they have to respect me,” Huseini said.
Huseini’s lyrics are often provocative, evoking controversial topics like religion, feminism, and corruption. It is obvious from listening to his music that he is a native Jordanian — the passion with which he raps about these issues could only come from someone whose life is intertwined with the country’s. His primary motivation in making music is to connect with those who feel unheard in society.
“Communities here have a lot of stories to tell,” he said. “When middle class and lower-middle-class people in areas that are poor, like East Amman, hear music that tells their stories or stories that they relate to, I think they really appreciate that.”
But telling these stories can be challenging in Jordan’s conservative culture. “Sometimes it’s hard for people to put up with the shaming from this judging community, who won’t help us hip-hop artists, or artists in general,” Aladham said.
He described a scene five years ago which demonstrates the disconnect between relatively progressive artists and their community: During a street performance, Aladham used projection equipment to create light and shadow effects. An older gentleman passing by saw the effects and began shouting, “Haram!” a term which loosely translates to “sin.” Frustrating as these episodes are, the art community is less concerned with what people think of them than with the logistical obstacles preventing them from being able to perform and create art.
“Doing shows in Jordan is more difficult than other places… especially compared to Beirut or Palestine,” Huseini said. “The venue owners don’t accept hip-hop or the crowd of hip-hop, because they’re lower-middle class. They say, ‘It’s going to be all guys from East Amman, they’re going to be rough and troublemakers, we don’t want to do a show for them.’”
A DIPLOMATIC APPROACH
As much as Huseini and Aladham have struggled to establish themselves in Jordan’s cultural scene, women face even greater challenges. In recent decades, Jordan has developed a robust legal framework to protect the rights of women. But social stereotypes remain, and frequently prevent women from enjoying equal opportunities for employment, education, and marriage; there is little disagreement that Jordan remains a male-dominated society. Laila Ajawii is on a mission to change that. The 29-year old mother, born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp north of Amman, has developed a reputation as a thought-provoking street artist, known for her murals depicting powerful women and girls. She cuts a striking figure, humble but confident, working in a paint-splattered hijab covered by a respirator.
Though Ajawii’s passion for art dates back to her youth — she began drawing at five years old — her level of raw talent did not become apparent until her time in university, when she began writing, painting, and even producing short films. She won several awards for her work, and in 2014 completed her first mural as part of the Women on Walls program, a feminist art campaign in the Middle East. She learned quickly that diplomacy is key.
“I don’t make myself an enemy of the eye of the community,” said Ajawii. “Even if I have a good idea, but present it in a harsh way, it might be rejected if it doesn’t align with my community.”
The other artists have learned to become expert bridge-builders as well. Aladham is active in Jordan’s humanitarian sector, working with NGOs and charitable organizations to host hip-hop and beatboxing workshops in refugee camps around Jordan.“What will change the image of this craft is humanitarian events like this,” Aladham said. “People used to shout ‘haram’ at us. But things are getting more positive; now, many of them enjoy it.”
STRUCTURAL BARRIERS
Pioneering new art forms is difficult for any artist, but for Ajawii, the challenges have been particularly intense. While pregnant with her son, she was forced to quit painting to avoid inhaling potentially harmful oil paint fumes. Two years ago, she earned a prestigious internship for international artists at an art institute in San Francisco, but her husband’s visa was denied twice, and she decided to decline the opportunity.
“My husband didn’t stop me, but he was a little upset about me going so far away,” she said. “And I didn’t want to feel alone there. Being a mom, I don’t think it will stop me, but it might slow me down at some points. But I’m happy about that, because I feel like I’m giving my son what he needs.”
During the day, Ajawii, who has a degree in Biomedical Physics from the University of Yarmouk, works as a consultant for several NGOs; in the evenings, she paints and writes. She has come to appreciate life in Jordan, particularly as her community in Irbid has grown more accepting of her art.
“Whenever they see me making art, they start calling their friends, and many people offer me a drink and anything that will make you feel better. The more I engage with people around, the more I understand how they think, the more I can make a difference with them.”
While Ajawii began her art career without female role models, she and other female artists are working to ensure that the next generation of Jordanian girls have mentors to help them embrace their talents. Despite her initial worries about what others would think about her work, her community has come come to appreciate both her and her art. Her prescription for fixing things is simple: “The first thing is not telling women that you can’t … every child, boy or girl, has to follow their own path without confining themselves to the gender limits society tells them,” she said.
Aladham and Husseini agree, which is unusual in a culture where catcalling and crude comments about women are everyday occurrences, among well-educated people in powerful positions and lower-class Ammanians alike.
“If you mention feminism here, it’s hard for you,” Aladham said. “Women have to put up with a lot. The only solution is for men to be feminists. People in Jordan need to honor what the word means.”
Hard-fought progress has been won in recent years, both in Jordan’s alternative art scene and in society as a whole. Since 2014, 59 laws have been passed promoting gender equality and preventing gender-based violence. The workforce participation rate for females has increased to 13 percent, and more women now attend college than men.
Aladham and Huseini say they have noticed more women and young girls attending their shows after the men there made it clear they wouldn’t stand for harassment in any form during their performances. “We had Iftar at the end of Ramadan, and two foreign girls walked by in short, short skirts,” Aladham said. “I was standing with ten beatboxers, and not one of them harassed the girls or even looked at them. I was so happy about that, it’s a sign things are changing.”
Ajawii believes that street art is a particularly powerful way to encourage social change. “A picture is a thousand words. When you do art on the street, in front of others, you provoke ideas in others. They will talk about it, make changes because of it. People will start to have new ideas.”
AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
All of these artists tout their love for Jordan, but ultimately feel that their dreams are too ambitious to be constrained by the conservative country’s borders. All three know their time in Jordan is coming to an end. Aladham, worn down from years of trying to make it in an environment that is largely apathetic to his craft, is moving to Dublin to study either music production or audio engineering. Hussein hopes to quit his day job in medicine and become a full-time rapper. To make that happen, he is moving to Europe, where building a rapping career is easier and far more lucrative. He is less frustrated with the music scene than with Jordanian society as a whole. “It all pisses you off sometimes. All the stuff that’s not supposed to happen. The corruption, unemployment, feeling like there’s no hope and no chance to succeed,” he said. “Everyone is so fixated on getting out of here.”
Ajawii has dreams of living in San Francisco someday, but for now she is remaining in Jordan. As she spoke to the HPR, Ajawii was hard at work packing up her apartment; after being away for nearly a year, her husband was finally moving back to Jordan from Saudi Arabia. The couple was moving to a new apartment in Irbid the next day.
But even as individual artists struggle to create long-terms lives and careers in Jordan, their impact on their communities cannot be understated. As young Jordanians question their identity and the streets of Amman gradually fill with hip-hop and murals, the artistic explosion that these three artists signify is only beginning. “People my age feel like the older generation is very different from them,” Husseini said. “A lot of my generation feels like they’re not like their fathers or grandfathers, but they don’t know who they should be. That’s unknown, but they can relate to this music.”
Image Credit: Laila Ajawii