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El Haqed, #Morocco's #hip_hop revolutionary

By dragging the rapper to court for his incendiary lyrics, the state isn’t silencing him, it is drawing attention to his work

Since the initial popularity of Moroccan rapper El Haqed’s incendiary lyrics calling out police corruption and the oppression of the monarchy, he and his music have become one of the dominant public voices of the Moroccan protest movement.

Morocco’s revolutionary story has been granted a lot less media focus internationally than some of its north African neighbours, partly because of how crafty the regime has been in creating the veneer of democratic reform while maintaining an oppressive political and economic hold, trying to deftly spin its way out of a full-on #Tahrir situation. El Haqed, best translated as “the indignant”, has, through both his songs and his arrests, managed to highlight the real nature of the Moroccan regime.

►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/17/el-haqed-morocco-hip-hop-revolutionary?CMP=twt_gu