Angela Williams, "Hip Hop Harem: Women, Rap and Representation in the Middle East" (Peter Lang, 2020)

Although hip hop culture has widely been acknowledged as a global phenomenon that has spread far beyond its roots in American African-Caribbean-Latinx cultures, there are few studies that have examined the participation of women in global hip hop, and even fewer that examine the reception of female artists by other women.  Angela Williams's book Hip Hop Harem: Women, Rap and Representation in the Middle East (Peter Lang, 2020) explores the social reception of seven prominent female rappers from the region: Shadia Mansour (Palestine), Malikah (Lebanon), Soultana (Morocco), Soska (Egypt), Myam Mahmoud (Egypt), Amani (Yemen), and Justina (Iran), who use their music and personal styles to give voice to themes of self-determination and liberation within their own lives.

Easily accessibly by undergraduates, Hip Hop Harem is an important work that allows Middle Eastern Muslim women to participate in knowledge creation about themselves in the western academic tradition, rooted in Third Wave Feminism and post-colonial theory.  

Christopher S Rose is a social historian of medicine focusing on Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean in the 19th and 20th century. He currently teaches History at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas.

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