Introduction

Before the trip, my thought cloud of Dubai was something like futuristic city, rich people, slavery, guaranteed imprisonment upon arrival at the airport. In 2006, the Dubai Airport arrest and four-year prison sentencing of music producer Dallas Austin made national news in the U.S. As a drum and bass DJ in his teens, I also paid attention to the 2007 arrest of BBC Radio 1's Groove Rider,. this time for a gram of marijuana mistakenly left in a shorts pocket. Things were quiet until 2014 when DJ Esgo, the DJ of rapper Future, was arrested for an accidentally packed bag of weed at the Dubai Airport. All three of these men were eventually released early, helped by prominent