Q&A: ‘The war in Gaza is about displacing Palestinians’: Hip-hopper Lowkey

Earlier this month, TRT World spoke in person with UK hip-hop artist, journalist, and activist Lowkey about Israel’s war on Gaza and what he feels about it.

The following is an excerpt from a longer interview, recorded in London, where the discussion took place. It will soon be debuting on TRT World’s digital platforms.

Unflinching in his observations and analysis, Lowkey is arguably the perfect embodiment of the “artivist”, someone who through art and other creative means attempts to bring significant social or political change.

Lowkey does so through pointed lyricism – mobilising audiences globally – on the Palestinian struggle for justice, liberation from oppressive Israeli rule and the complicity of Western governments in Israeli violence.

The interview has been edited for clarity.

How did you first come to combine hip-hop with pro-Palestinian activism?

Lowkey: Well, I think to answer that you have to look at the community that I come from in Ladbroke Grove, West London. It’s a place where you have a strong affinity felt by many young people, including a distinct Moroccan community, with Palestinians.

It’s also a place where Palestine’s mistreatment has always represented the contradictions of our age. On the one hand, we live in a society which says that the Magna Carta is a quintessentially British guarantee: the right to be judged by a jury of your peers, the right to have access to evidence against you, the right of democratic expression. And what we see in the case of Palestine is all of those rights are taken away.

I don’t think it’s coincidental. Britain has had a historic role in supporting the Israeli-led Zionist movement in Palestine and a present role in upholding what is essentially a supremacist rule in Palestine.

Living in Ladbroke Grove is kind of like being an internal outsider. Many of us were politicised by seeing the state administer so many aspects of our lives, adopt an almost hostile posture towards those of us within the community – as does Israel vis-a-vis Palestinians.

I was also fortunate to be raised with music in my home, which I eventually came to see as the art of the impossible. Through it, I could achieve things which were not readily available within the confines of the narrow political system that we live in. I was able to speak to people who I wasn't otherwise able to. And also for people who it’s quite difficult to speak for in this society.

In that regard, I saw music as more than artistic expression. I saw it as the ultimate equalizer whereby the voiceless could finally have a voice, maybe not on par with that of the powerful but loud enough that could contest the injustices they’re responsible for. I saw several hip-hop artists exemplify this in how they made music. This inspired me, particularly with respect to Palestine.

That inspiration has intensified lately, as we are in what you might call a state of paralysis: so many voices, not all of whom are being heard, are making resounding demands on governments that Palestine have justice, respect for the sanctity of Palestinians as human beings, but those governments are not acting. They are ignoring these voices.

Metaphorically speaking I can return to music to create songs that change, disrupt that paralysis, before going back into the world where those songs are released. Likewise, music has always been a refuge for me.

Is there anything distinctive about hip-hop itself, as opposed to other forms of art, that makes it particularly effective as a means of political protest?

Lowkey: It allows very direct communication, much in the same way the poets of Arabic-speaking societies used their work to confront political actors and criticise them while, in the process, creating slogans that would become popular among the public.

I see hip-hop as a way of doing that too, especially through sharp lyricism. You can apply political pressure that way. I’m reminded here of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish who beautifully wrote: “As you liberate yourself in metaphor, think of others, those who have lost the right to speak”.

That is something I am keenly aware of with my music. And it’s with others that my final solidarity lies. I think that that has both empowered and limited what I've been able to do within the music industry, traditionally speaking. If you feel a sensitivity to the suffering of the voiceless, you allow yourself a level of intimacy with people that support your activist message, which is quite hard to obtain.

At the same time though you cut off the potential for you to rise to certain echelons of the music industry, since ultimately the music industry is an extension of the political and economic system; the very same power dynamics that exist within society also exist within the music industry. So somebody who likes to feel that they can advocate for the rights of the most downtrodden is not likely to be welcomed into the halls of power and success.

You are both a journalist and a hip-hop artist. How do you know when an idea you have is better to explore in either capacity?

Lowkey: I think some pieces of information lend themselves to more journalistic coverage and I usually have a sense for that right away. For example, if I intend on presenting data which has been procured by examining the tax filings of a particular organization that funds illegal Israeli settlements or political lobbying associated with that, immediately – perhaps by intuition – I know that to translate that into a song, repeated by others, is not the best way to go. That kind of presentation doesn’t encapsulate enough feeling.

You’re likelier to achieve that through music. It’s more within the emotional sphere of things and so it allows you to appeal to a person's sense of humanity.

With journalism though you are appealing to a person's sense of logic. You are conveying information, for example, that might lead a reader to draw a specific conclusion. That has been an interesting development, apart from my creative side, in what I've been able to do since some things require digging into the facts and presenting them in writing. But whether it’s hip-hop or journalism, I’m still trying to reach as many people as possible, to expose what’s typically marginalised. Social media has gone a long way in facilitating that, thankfully.

More and more people are criticising Israel on social media. How will Tel Aviv respond to that?

We’re now entering a stage where Israel cannot have it both ways. So on one hand the Israeli political, military and intelligence elite is seeking to achieve the push for the Greater Israel Project. That now entails Israel taking all of Gaza, pushing over 2 million Palestinians into the Sinai Desert. It's not easily achievable. It is an idealistic ambition.

Still, as it pursues this end Israel is losing public prestige, damaging its own PR though – as we’re seeing – that’s hardly deterred it. And, by the way, it's important that we understand the roots of what’s happening. This is essentially another Nakba. We're witnessing apocalyptic violence in Gaza at the hands of Israel and which is also connected to Al Aqsa Mosque.

For instance, the Temple Institute, which has been funded for years by the Israeli Ministry of Culture and the Israeli Ministry of Education, explicitly calls for the destruction of Al Aqsa and replacing it with what it believes existed thousands of years ago.

Thus this war in Gaza, yes, is about displacing a large amount of Palestinian people and settling scores with Israelis, despite the fact that there were only ever 8,000 Israeli settlers in Gaza. But it's also about undermining Palestinians’ ability to deter any attempt to destroy Al Aqsa, including its cherished markets.

Consider 2021. It demonstrated that Palestinians in Gaza had a deterrent force that could push back this attempt to take over and destroy Al Aqsa. We also have to remember that this organisation, the Temple Institute, is so deeply integrated with the Israeli government that according to an Israeli army investigation in 2013, the Israeli government offered joining it as an alternative to conscription. Women who did not want to enter the army could instead become a part of the organisation.

Historically there was an antagonism between the Israeli military and this movement calling for the destruction of Al Aqsa. But as of the last 10 to 15 years that has changed. The military and groups like the Temple Institute are acting in unison to – as part of a larger genocidal campaign – push all Palestinians out of Gaza.

In what seems like ages, Palestinians have been calling on the international community to intervene, so as to stop Israel from continually harming them – whether through police brutality and torture in prisons to demolishing their homes and bombing them, indiscriminately, in previous military offensives. How much of the present moment do you believe could have been predicted or anticipated?

Lowkey: Those of us who have read history and followed the Palestinian story see that it reflects what Zionist leaders had long ago envisioned for Israel, including expelling Palestinians. It’s actually evident in startling detail in the statements of the earliest Zionist leaders from David Ben-Gurion to Chaim Weizmann to Theodor Herzl – widely regarded as the founder of Zionism.

In his book The Jewish State, he says we, referring to Israelis, will seek to “spirit the penniless population across the border”. What’s happening in Gaza is what spiriting the penniless population across the border looks like. And unfortunately, over the years and while this continues, Israel has been able to insinuate itself not only within particular government institutions but also in particular sectors of cultural life. It’s thus not only Gaza it seeks to control.

I'm not saying that in any flippant way. For instance, in the music industry, you have a lobby group known as the Creative Community for Peace (CCFP).

Now, this organisation was founded by Dave Lorenzo who came out of Universal Music Group. CCFP explicitly defines itself as an anti-BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] organisation. It was founded as the same organisation, the same legal entity as another lobby group – StandWithUs – funded directly by the Israeli Prime Minister's Office.

CCFP also coordinates directly with the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles. And more importantly than that, when you look at the figures who are involved in CCFP you really do have the upper echelons of not only the music industry but the film industry there.

We could even go even further and look at the recently installed director of Universal Music Group: Haim Saban. He’s the largest fundraiser for FIDF [Friends of the Israel Defense Forces] charity in the history of the organisation. He's been credited by Mondoweiss as writing the script for Joe Biden's Israel policy. This is a very clear former Israeli military figure and Israeli lobbyist who, at present, occupies an influential position in the largest and most important music company in the world.

You can also look at somebody like Lucian Grainge, well-enmeshed within the British establishment. He's a close friend of Rishi Sunak, somebody that has been photographed at a fundraiser for the FIDF. He is the CEO of Universal Music. His wife funds the British Conservative Party, the Henry Jackson Society, the Zionist Federation and is part of a board affiliated with Israel's largest hotel company.

So I guess I'm making this point to show that you have people that are not shy about advocating for Israel within important cultural institutions, even as it wreaks havoc against innocent lives in Gaza. This is really the situation we are in.