Belly

Rapper Belly gave us the 411 on a few topics of importance to him.

Ethnicity

I’m proud to be Canadian and a I’m also proud to be Palestinian. I always explain to people that I’m an Arab-Canadian and if they want to go further into that and find out exactly what that means then I’m proud to share it.

Misinformation about Arabs & The Middle East

Some of the misinformation people have is that everybody is an extremist. Or that everybody believes in extremism or takes religion to an extreme level. How I grew up we respected our religion and lived life to the fullest. We had fun even though there was a war going on around us. We still managed to make the best out of the situation. That’s how Arab people are all over the world. The same way Canada has allot of hospitality if you go to the Middle East and they know you are not from there they will treat you that much better just to prove to everybody that we are really good people.

The Middle East is beautiful people really gotta to see it. From the Mediterranean, Red Sea, the Dead Sea you have some many beautiful areas. You have Petra in Jordan, Egypt and the pyramids and all the history there. People just have to take the time to really learn something as there are allot of misconceptions about what really goes down.

History of Violence video

I did that song for myself. It was just allot of thoughts I had in my head and a strong feeling I had about the subject with me being Palestinian.  And me living in a war I understood allot of the things that were going on in the world at the time. When the war in Iraq was going on and the war in Lebanon was going on allot of things really pushed me to go in the studio and record this song really just to release some of the feelings I had.
Reactions have been 99 percent positive. I did an interview with CNN international because of the song and the viral effect of the video. I did an interview with Fox News , Aljazeera, Reuters, the Associated Press. The international reaction from all parts of the world was unbelievable.

Childhood

Growing up in the Middle East was tough. People have to live with less then most people here. But at the end of the day you see people’s outlook on life is always positive. Growing up for me although there was all that negativity going on outside. I was born in Jenin, Palestine which was home to a few massacres. Two years after I was born we jumped around the Middle East, Lebanon, Jordan Saudi Arabia until finally coming here (Canada).
As far as Palestine goes I was young when I left so my memories aren’t vivid. But I think what my parents did for me they tried to shelter my mind from everything. There were three kids and both my parents. Jumping around the Middle East was a result of trying to find a better life and obviously we did and so we came to Canada. My father made sure we had a better life.

Arriving In Canada & Racism

When I first got to Ottawa there weren’t allot of Arabs coming in. They were spread out across the whole city. So at the school I went to I was the only Arabic kid. That is where I learned allot of the derogatory terms people use towards Arabs. The things is that allot people didn’t understand who I was and where I was coming from. They didn’t understand the language I spoke.  I didn’t understand the language they spoke. So I was different, to them I was an alien. I think that pressure forced me to learn English in about a month and a half. I had to understand.
Like everything else I try to turn negatively into positivity. Even with racism you gotta look at it like even though it hurts these are people that don’t understand. Anybody that is racist is somebody that is ignorant. People who are ignorant are just people who couldn’t take the time to understand something.  You can’t let it get to you especially if you are someone who considers yourself an intelligent person. You gotta to let people like that remain in the viscous circle that they live in and you stay on the straight path that your on.

Violence

Now that I’m grown up I can be allot more calm about certain things. As a kid you’re more hot headed. Kids jump to do things faster then maybe somebody who is mature would. But at the end of the day my father went to jail and I had to live with that and it broke my back. I’ve had my brothers go to jail. Violence has always affected me in one way or another. Back home it was always about that and we came here it became about that.
 So at the end of the day it is always easy to fix a problem because you can always talk it out. And as cliché or corny as that sounds that really how I conduct my life. Even if somebody’s been talking about me saying certain things about me. When I see you them I’m going to address it. 99 percent of the time when I see people that may say certain things about me I address the situation. And we end of walking away from the situation because I handled it like a man. You have to remember fighting anywhere that’s not what’s cool. What’s cool is being chill being stylish and living life to the fullest.

The Flick Off Campaign

This is something I feel strongly about now because of is the environment. But when I was younger it was because we didn’t have enough money to keep the lights on. So it was just a habit for me from being a kid. If I leave my house I turn every light off. No matter how lazy I may feel. It is a good thing that everybody realizes where the environment is headed, and decides to start doing something. It is good to see people getting involved in initiative to preserve the earth.

Hip-Hop Positives and Negatives

What is Steven Spielberg’s responsibility? What’s Steven King’s responsibility? Does Steven King make movies about math or about people killing each other. Steven King might be every teacher’s favourite movie writer/novel writer and Steven Spielberg is properly their favourite director/producer. At the end of the day someone who doesn’t take the time to understand something is unfortunately ignorant and if people don’t understand how much hip-hop has helped. I don’t blame them I guess we just have to teach them better. You’ve got Jay-Z’s water initiatives in Africa, look at Diddy and Jay when Katrina happened it was like a million a piece they pulled. That’s hip-hop. That’s what hip-hop is about. It was built from struggle. Anybody who has a negative view I understand why they would. But you’ve got to take the negatives and the positives from everything. You can look at Nas and really compare his music. He may have songs where he is telling stories of things he saw growing up and that’s just the raw reality that we can’t try to shelter people from. That exists and that happens. The same way as the news tells it to you we are going to tell it to you. But then you look at Nas and he has a million songs that aren’t about that so why do you focus on just that. Why do you look at Snoop and say he is a gang banner, he’s a Crip and promotes that. Why can’t they talk about the football league that he has that has thousands of kids involved getting out of the streets and being involved in football and building athletes. They don’t talk about that. At the end of the day it really comes down to the media and what the media chooses to show us.

To me hip-hop has been properly the most positive change in my life, something that took me out of the streets and out of the vicious circle that I may have been involved in. Hip-hop is definitely a life saver.

Politics

Get out there and learn about who your politicians are and what they represent from an early age. Vote for the people that you think are going to represent you the best. We are fortunate enough to live in a democracy. I grew up in a situation where democracy is there but corruption is a lot stronger. So we live in a place where democracy lives very strongly so use that to your advantage. Get out their and learn about these politicians some of them are really bad people some of them are really good people. You’ve got to figure out who’s who and make sure you put in a vote because every vote counts. If you feel strongly about a certain issue and you find out that there is a politician that supports that issue then you really need to get behind that person. That is the way you are going to change the country you live in. Be involved this is our country. The country doesn’t belong to the government. We don’t work for the government the government works for us. Use it to your advantage.