Using music to counter anti-Israel propaganda, media misinfo

Article content

OTTAWA — As the world deals with unprecedented levels of media misinformation concerning Israel’s self-defence against Palestinian terrorism, one rapper is fighting back.

Article content

New York-based, Israeli-American rapper Rami Even-Esh, better known as Kosha Dillz, told the Toronto Sun he penned his latest song Al-Jewzeera about a year ago, based on a persistent anti-Israel bias present in the news and popular culture — a problem that’s become markedly worse in the span between recording the song and releasing its recently-produced music video.

Article content

“Candace Owens and Joe Rogan said significantly offensive and dumb statements at the same time, and I wanted to explore how dumb things are said a year apart,” he said. 

The video, shot in Tel Aviv, deliberately used missile-struck apartment blocks as a backdrop.

“Dark humour navigates the Israeli life,” he said.

“Most of my friends lived in them or near them, I wanted to shoot a video to show people what happened there.”

Article content

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Play Video

The video and song, largely a diss track against Qatari-run al-Jazeera news network, Hamas-linked Gaza “journalists” and anti-Israel celebrities such as Gaza flotilla alum Greta Thunberg — and features a wide variety of Israeli talent in the video.

“The cast is diverse — Arabic speaking Israelis, Egyptian, Azerbaijani, Yemenite and Ethiopian Israeli Jews, and Indian as well as Russian,” he said.

“It shows the diversity of the world here, a.k.a. the ‘white colonizer’ myth.”

Recommended video

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Play Video

The video, he said, aims to show off Israeli’s diversity, and prove wrong accusations that Israel is an “apartheid state.”

“We want to show the diversity of Israel because it’s the norm,” he said.

“People around the world don’t know that we consistently get ballistic missiles shot at us — imagine if this were New York City or Toronto? There aren’t many artists making pro-Israel political art, and diversity and strength is an ill concept in hip hop, to me at least.”

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume

Share this article in your social network