e experience of music is an experience of identity. When we respond to a song we are drawn into an emotional alliance with the performer and the audience. Therefore, due to its abstractness, music by nature is an individualising as well as collective form. Music is all around us when we are submerged in a musical landscape, music helps to shape our desires, preferences and ideas. It shapes the way our self is in process and opens up possibilities of thinking in a certain way. According to Spoonie Gee and Milton Babbitt, musical appreciation is a process of musical identification and the aesthetic response is, an ethical agreement. Paul Gilroy states that identity is neither ‘simply a social and political category’ nor ‘a vague and utterly contingent construction’ but ‘remains the outcome of practical activity: language, gesture, bodily significations, desires’. Music is also a part of identity and is a manifestation of collective identity and part of the community that binds people together. Identities are inevitably shaped by narrative forms and during the Arab springs people used music to express and construct their identities and make sense of their local realities. They used music in particular amongst other art forms, as a language of critique as much as a language of hope.

The Arab Springs, also known as the “Arab Awakening” were a series of pro-democracy protests and demonstrations across the Middle East and North Africa commencing on December of 2010. The demonstrations and protests of dissatisfaction with the local government were met with violent tyranny and revolutionaries with superlative creativity. Music was used as a weapon of protest and resistance where artists played a substantial role in the unfolding of the Arab Springs. According to Victor Hugo, “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent”. Under the reign of the former Tunisian President Zine Al-Bidine Ben Ali, censorship was colossal and music artists and songs had to be approved by the government. Simple love songs or propaganda like songs were the only type of music that was mediatised and artists behind those songs were given the opportunity to make a living from their art such as Sonia M’barek. Music that was considered threatening to Ben Ali’s Regime found its home in the underground scene.

The most notable artist of the Tunisian and subsequent Arab uprisings was the underground Rapper El Général (born Hamada ben Amour) whose song “Rais Lebled” meaning Leader/President of the country spoke to the frustrations of an otherwise voiceless majority. He released a raw and simple video on his Facebook page on November 7 on the anniversary date of Ben Ali’s succession to power, which went viral and was on the lips of many as people went on to the streets to protest (Asen, 2011). In the video he is smoking a cigarette and his face is hiding in the shadows, however his identity is not completely concealed. This is despite warnings he received with which he responded, that he was “ready for the consequences”. This signifies his willingness to fight for what he believed in, which was the freedom of the Tunisian people.
Rap is best seen as a medium to articulate experiences, concerns and politics. Rap music established itself during the mid-1990s in the Arab world as a major force for expression and innovation among the Arab youth. With a brooding tempo, hip-hop beat and minor piano melody following a ‘gangster’ style Arabic rap,