oki
05-11-2006, 06:13 PM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4755701.stm
"The people find this very funny," said the young man. "They say this isn't a song because this man isn't singing, he is talking."
From the car stereo came the sound of looped drums and a thudding bass-line topped by the machine-gun delivery of a man rapping in the style of America's gangsta rap stars.
To the delight of the young, Western dressed Kabulis in the car next to me, he was rapping in Dari.
"I like it very much," the man went on. "Lots of Afghan men like me who know English have heard foreign rap music. But now we have it in our own language."
While the arrival of rap music in Afghanistan is hugely popular with some young Afghans, it has also caused widespread bemusement and in some cases outright alarm.
"This is too much for Afghanistan," said Akhtar Mohammed, 31, a Kabul shopkeeper who described himself as not particularly conservative.
"This is a new music, which we cannot do like the Westerners, and it will destroy Afghanistan's traditional music."
"People like 50 Cent want to show their money and the 'pimping' side of rap music," he said.
"I want to write about my country and I want to write about love. I don't use swear words and I have even used texts from the Koran in my music."
Besho admits wistfully that one day he hopes to include some of what is called "shaking the booty" into his videos. It is this sort of erotic dance that has the religious establishment up in arms.
"The new generation are impressionable," Maulvi Mohammed Seddiq, former adviser on Sharia law to the Supreme Court says.
"When these dancers are shaking the backside and the front side, this excites the young people. We have less sex crimes in Islam because in Islam we have forbidden the temptations that cause these crimes."
While the conservatives and liberals are at loggerheads over what the future direction of Afghanistan should be, both sides agree that a major underlying fracture is taking place within Afghan society.
"These are revolutionary times in Afghanistan," says Saad Mohseni, the Australian-raised Afghan director of Tolo TV.
"Sixty percent of Afghans are under the age of 20 and they are adapting very fast to a new age. But there is real conflict within families and a definite rift between young and old."
"The people find this very funny," said the young man. "They say this isn't a song because this man isn't singing, he is talking."
From the car stereo came the sound of looped drums and a thudding bass-line topped by the machine-gun delivery of a man rapping in the style of America's gangsta rap stars.
To the delight of the young, Western dressed Kabulis in the car next to me, he was rapping in Dari.
"I like it very much," the man went on. "Lots of Afghan men like me who know English have heard foreign rap music. But now we have it in our own language."
While the arrival of rap music in Afghanistan is hugely popular with some young Afghans, it has also caused widespread bemusement and in some cases outright alarm.
"This is too much for Afghanistan," said Akhtar Mohammed, 31, a Kabul shopkeeper who described himself as not particularly conservative.
"This is a new music, which we cannot do like the Westerners, and it will destroy Afghanistan's traditional music."
"People like 50 Cent want to show their money and the 'pimping' side of rap music," he said.
"I want to write about my country and I want to write about love. I don't use swear words and I have even used texts from the Koran in my music."
Besho admits wistfully that one day he hopes to include some of what is called "shaking the booty" into his videos. It is this sort of erotic dance that has the religious establishment up in arms.
"The new generation are impressionable," Maulvi Mohammed Seddiq, former adviser on Sharia law to the Supreme Court says.
"When these dancers are shaking the backside and the front side, this excites the young people. We have less sex crimes in Islam because in Islam we have forbidden the temptations that cause these crimes."
While the conservatives and liberals are at loggerheads over what the future direction of Afghanistan should be, both sides agree that a major underlying fracture is taking place within Afghan society.
"These are revolutionary times in Afghanistan," says Saad Mohseni, the Australian-raised Afghan director of Tolo TV.
"Sixty percent of Afghans are under the age of 20 and they are adapting very fast to a new age. But there is real conflict within families and a definite rift between young and old."