- Title: Straight out of Syria: young girl raps about Eid in her battered hometown
- Date: 5th May 2022
- Summary: SALAMIYAH, SYRIA (RECENT - APRIL 17, 2022) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) 14-YEAR-OLD SYRIAN RAPPER, REAM BARAZI, SAYING: "I started singing, recording it then playing back my voice. This is how I sing."
- Embargoed: 19th May 2022 11:16
- Keywords: Eid Syria music rap religion
- Location: SALAMIYAH, SYRIA
- City: SALAMIYAH, SYRIA
- Country: Syria
- Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Middle East,Music
- Reuters ID: LVA003589405052022RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Penning rap verses about her hometown, playing pick-up soccer, and spending afternoons daydreaming with her friends, Ream Barazi fit the profile of an aspiring hip-hop star in Compton or Brooklyn.
But her lyrics gave her away: every song is an ode to her war-battered home country Syria.
"I'm here, I was born here - I can't be anywhere but here. Syria's in pain, wipe away her tears," rapped the slender 14-year-old in an original song she wrote to mark Eid al-Fitr, the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Barazi lives with her parents and younger siblings in Salamiyah, a town in the western province of Hama.
She spends her time at school, helping her parents take care of her younger siblings, kicking around a soccer ball, or learning to play the derbakeh drum – which isn't popular with her neighbors.
"Some people are happy when I play but other people scream 'stop Ream, turn the sound down!' she said.
Barazi has been listening to Arabic hip-hop for three years, memorizing songs by playing them on repeat on YouTube and sometimes swapping outlines with her own original lyrics.
Rampant power cuts – caused by fuel shortages and an electricity network wore down by a decade of war – often get in the way of her obsession, Barazi complained.
Rap songs maybe "for older people," but she isn't a fan of softer stuff. She doesn't like "these Barbie songs and other silly things," as she described them.
In Syria's broadly conservative society, many of her neighbours and relatives chastise her for her love of rap and basketball – and her tough personality.
"There are our neighbours here, I saw one yesterday, she keeps telling me 'Ream, you’re like a boy, you keep playing soccer like boys' while other people tell me 'Ream, continue because if don't do this in your life, you won't make it' and they encourage me to keep going and become stronger. They talk about me like that because I stand up for myself and for my personality. I’ve got a strong personality," she told Reuters.
Like any teenager, Barazi dreams of owning a car and escaping on beach holidays with friends.
But her lyrics reflect both a deep love of her homeland and pain embedded in the violence of Syria's long-running conflict.
"We're the next generation and God's listening to us," she rapped.
"We're saying: “We don't want to grow up without seeing the light. We don’t want to see pieces of flesh and graves. We don’t want to grow up in pain and hunger."
(Production: Yamam al Shaar, Hams Rabah, Maya Gebeily, Yara Abi Nader) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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