Filling the Head: Listening to Rap in Arabic

Based on ethnographic research in Ramallah, Amman, and Beirut, Rayya El Zein explores making and listening to music as an active navigation of shifting geopolitical landscapes. In Filling the Head, ordinary motion and emotion are treated as political when spectacular political movements feel far away. Threading reflections from fans, rappers, DJs, producers, and venue owners with descriptions of live concerts, El Zein offers insights into what it means to be moved by music. The book challenges existing narratives that equate rap with popular political resistance, instead attending to a music that is political in the relief it offers from cynicism and disgust with contemporary politics and society.