A conversation with Mohammed Al-Farra of Palestinian Rapperz

M: Pretty much, it was amazing. People loved the movie. When people saw the movie, they were like, "Wow." Some people came after the screenings and they were like, "We really didn't know this, what's going on in Palestine." They saw we were trying to show, like, the reality in there, so people were really, really supportive. It was amazing. That's all what I can say.

HP: Really? Wow. Our ignorant regional beliefs are crumbling before our very eyes. So the second part: When the borders get closed over there, is that something that happens a lot over there, or is it just a really out-of-the-ordinary type thing?

M: Every day, every time, every minute. I mean, I used to struggle to go from my [Gaza Strip] city [of] Hanoun to Gaza [City] to meet the guys or to record in the studio. So I used to stay to wait for the border to be open for like about five hours, sometimes eight hours. So just going from Gaza to Hanoun, it used to take me like about eight hours usually. Without borders it would take like 20 minutes.

HP: So it's pretty much like Hurricane Rita traffic but every day? That sucks. So let us ask you this: There's all of this political strife and real actual wars going on daily where you live. And then here you are pushing CDs and the music; is it hard to get people to pay attention when you've got this mortal, life-and-death situation going on?

M: Let me tell you something. To be honest with you, you can't stand up in front of [a] tank and throw a CD at the tank, you know what I mean?

HP: That's some real shit right there, man.

M: Or you can't just fight a tank by throwing a rock. I believe that violence doesn't bring anything except violence. So that's why, with hip-hop, we are trying to get attention. I believe the music is the speech of the soul, so people love the music. And we can express ourselves with music, this kind of music. It's kind of hard to get attention, but we got really good attention. We can make people listen to us.

Actually, if you look around, the whole world is going down, seeing on the news people dying, people killing, Gaza is occupied, blah, blah, blah. People got sick of this, so they want to see something new. What is the new thing? It's something interesting. It's rap music. And we're using this music, using it to fight the ­occupation.