What defines a political statement? Is it an act of peace, such as ‘Tank Man’, the nickname for the unidentified Chinese man who stood resolutely in front of a row of tanks leaving Tiananmen Square in Beijing on the day after the Chinese government’s violent crackdown on the Tiananmen protests in 1989?
Is it perhaps even more iconic? A violent act of peace, such as the Vietnamese Buddhist monk who burned himself to death on a busy Saigon road as a protest against the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government in 1963?
More recently we’ve had former NFL player Colin Kaepernick taking the knee during the singing of the American national anthem in 2017 as a protest against racism and police brutality – an act which has since become commonplace at sporting events the world over.
When one thinks of political statements in music, pop culture is rich in a history of songs and acts that speak to challenging the cultural zeitgeist of the time (think: John Lennon’s ‘bed-in’ for peace or Billie Holliday performing ‘Strange Fruit as the last song of her set).
But what about when your very existence defines you as a political statement? You cannot simply denounce what you were born as, nor can you easily renounce the circumstance that you were born into either.
Osprey V is a Palestinian rock band from the Gaza Strip which consists of self-taught musicians. By definition of nationality and circumstance, like it or not, their very being makes them a political statement. This is not something that they shy away from however – neither their heritage or their message – and they have a novel, ambitious way of sharing who they are with the world.
We spoke to Raji, lead singer and lyricist of Osprey V about his struggles in getting his message to the world…
Why not sing in Arabic?
We chose the harder road, singing in English, as it’s an international language full of diversity. The people in Gaza already know what is happening – so we chose English to let the world know what is happening. Our music is 100% humanitarian, focusing on a less prescriptive way of showing the world the struggle of Palestinians.
For example, our song Home specifically doesn’t show any faces. Home is what’s inside. It doesn’t matter the land that you’re living in, or the specific place. Others can bomb us, destroy the places we live. But you and I can make this home, to create a better future. Our broken hearts, dreams, and feelings are what make us really – this is our home. From here we can build a bridge to humanity. Instead of sending missiles, we send messages of love.
How importance is it for the world to hear your music?
It’s of vital importance that we get our message out of Gaza. We’re proud to be based here in Gaza, it helps us to feel the pain of the place we love so dearly. I’ve witnessed four destructive wars here in my 29 years of age, and the lyrics I write help process what I’ve experienced.
One of the scenes I remember – one of the massacres I witnessed – was of a father holding his kids while bullets riddled his body. So this is what I write about. We’ve also sung about love birds who were engaged but couldn’t find work or opportunity in Gaza. The story unfolds that the man left Gaza to find work, only to return after a war to find his fiancé’s dead body after a war. These are humanitarian issues that really happened that we cover in our songs.
As Palestinians, traveling outside of Gaza is like going through Guantanamo. You need to endure this hellish experience to see the light. It takes two months of planning and certificates. It’s normal to wait for four weeks in a hot queue with dust, being told to go here and then go there. The right to travel freely is a basic human right that we are being deprived of. So for now, we continue as best we can to upload our music to YouTube and social media platforms.
What Daily Challenges Do You Face?
We work with scarce resources and have no studio – so it remains a struggle for us to record. I’m a self-taught YouTube player, and so learning to play rock music has been a challenge. All the band members have day jobs, and we put whatever money we can back into recording. It’s been great connecting with organizations such as the Delia Arts Center who share our values in terms of wanting to raise awareness of music in Gaza. Having mutual goals with other musicians in Palestine gives us hope and makes us feel less alone.
Personally, my father owns an electronics store and over the years I’ve been able to lean on his experience and open the first known musical store in Gaza. A lot of the things that the Western world takes for granted – like picking up a guitar and learning how to play it – are luxuries that were never afforded to us as there simply isn’t equipment easily available. I had to learn to play electric guitar riffs on a classical guitar. I didn’t want people to endure the same hardships I have just to reach the starting point of being able to make music. Selling music equipment as my day job compliments my greater social ambitions for the people of Gaza who love music.
How far have Osprey V come?
We are Eastern musicians making Western music so we started from a long way back in terms of learning about rock music before learning how to play it. We have produced five songs so far, and the public feedback has been positive. In those five songs, we’ve attempted to show our diversity, from ‘hard rock’ sounds with heavy guitar riffs through to more instrumental tracks. We look up to bands like Staind, Evanenscence, Korn, Metallica, AC/DC – and do a lot of music research when exploring our sound. We are proud of what we’ve achieved, but we still have some ways to go still.
Future Plans?
Every day I look at a card my wife made me for my birthday last year. It includes the names of all the international artists such as Roger Waters and Linkin Park that I look up to and admire, alongside our band name. In one year I want to be performing with international artists such as this outside of Palestine. I know that it’s ambitious, and I do feel the pressure of all the things we need to do to get there, but it’s good to have a goal.
Hope for Palestine?
My wish for Palestine is that it has normal rights and opportunities like the rest of the world enjoy. A stable economy with a stable political situation. We need peace – that’s it. We’re sick of war, sick of death. I still have nightmares from the last war that we faced, and it’s hard to explain what I’ve experienced. The war was on our doorsteps, there were missiles on our streets. War like this is either going to scare the hell out of you or silence you for eternity. War is war and killing is killing. We choose another way: to write about our past in our songs and hope for a better future. We’re making music because Gaza people are willing to love and willing to give to the world.
Raji spontaneously picked up his guitar to play me an acoustic version of ‘Let’s Talk Evil’ at the end of our conversation via video chat. His original guitar riffs are catchy and bold. What was even more infectious though was his steely determination to be heard. I was struck by the sound of his diligence, the clamor of his musical capability. Fighting for an audience through the medium of rock music – both for the people of Gaza and him and his band, Osprey V. Sometimes just being yourself is a political statement all of its own.
