Rap Shar3: A mirror to Arab streets

In every episode of Rap Shar3, BlackB emerges masked, microphone in hand. He stands surrounded by musicians whose roots run deep in the streets of Tripoli, Cairo, Khartoum, Riyadh, and his hometown of Alexandria, anticipating their turn to sing. He usually says a few words to announce the episode’s location, marking a new stop in his platform – or البرنامج (the programme), as he calls it – that is dedicated to documenting Arab hip-hop and rap culture. What follows his introduction is a performance amplifying the voices that shape and are shaped by the street’s struggles and joys. Here, emerging artists are not excluded to the margins. Instead, they take centre stage, applauding and supporting their peers as they get hold of the microphone in BlackB’s hand.

“I gravitated towards rap because it allows me to write and describe whatever conditions I am living and experiencing with utter freedom,” says BlackB. “Through rap, my voice transcends and resonates with different generations.” The artist obsessively listened to rap tracks across geographies over the past seven years, taking a specific interest in Morocco’s rap scene. What pulled him wasn’t exclusively its sonic qualities but how established artists tended to emerging ones, supporting them along their journeys.

This was a missing piece in Alexandria, where he grew up and wrote his first rap song, “Felenkat”. It became clear to him that lack of talent wasn’t the issue. If anything, it was abundant in the streets of his city. BlackB saw and heard it in every corner, but what stood between them and honing their skills were material conditions and a failing infrastructure that prioritised wealth and social capital over pure talent. “There was always someone rapping in my friend groups and circles, but the voices in Alexandria were imprisoned,” he recalls. “There were very few studios, and artists barely had enough money to live by – and neither did I – let alone money to record, shoot, and market their craft.”

That, in 2021, was the turning point. Born of necessity with the help of BlackB and co-founder Khaled Shaker, Rap Shar3 has been fuelled by the talents that could never realise their full potential and were frustrated by an industry that never supported them until they made it into the mainstream. The decentralised platform is the latest of grassroots initiatives like Palestinian record label BLTNM, which are rapidly transforming how talent is identified and championed in the music industry. Rather than relying on already established networks that essentially exist behind closed doors and high towers, they branch out to where talent lives and thrives: the street. Unlike traditional streaming platforms, no single authority here controls how and what artists sing about, and how much or how soon they’ll be compensated for their work.

In this sense, Rap Shar3 diminishes barriers to entry rooted in classism, inviting musicians to perform and utilise it as an entry point into an industry historically shaped by controlled access through connections, wealth, and follower counts. For BlackB, the platform is larger than any one person or contribution—himself included. Although he is a musician himself,BlackB only has one song released, Mala3een. He released this song only right at the beginning of his journey with Rap Shar3 with its co-founder, Khaled Shaker. Yethe has put his career as a rapper on hold for one succinct reason: “As we say in Egypt, صاحب بالين كدّاب. The one who has two minds is a liar; you can’t commit to two things at once. I could either pour my skills into my career or dedicate them to uplifting the street’s talent. I chose the latter.”

This sacrifice surfaces again in his decision to conceal his identity. The mask is not simply a gesture of anonymity. It functions as a deliberate act of decentring himself from Rap Shar3 and the talents that the platform seeks to break into the industry. By removing his face from the brand, he resists the appeal of individual recognition that defines cultural platforms and creative scenes alike. And in this sense, invisibility becomes an ego death of sorts. The project refuses to be affiliated with a single personality or public figure (or BlackB in this case). The rapper constantly mentions that this platform wouldn’t have come this far if it weren’t for all the support he received.

Instead, Rap Shar3 is constructed as a communal space that could only thrive thanks to the participation, creativity, and skillsets of the artists who inhabit it. This stands as further proof of the platform’s exclusive commitment to emerging talents. By stepping back, BlackB reinforces that Rap Shar3 isn’t about him, which acts as a reminder of its central premise: the spotlight belongs to the performers themselves. What matters is not image, persona, or aesthetic spectacle (again, all indicators and signals of wealth and desirability) but the quality of craft and honesty of passion. In doing so, it reorients attention towards the art of hip-hop itself, demonstrating the magic that emerges when a community gathers, each member offering their skill to shape this evolving microcosm.

“I didn’t want people to focus on my image. I want the talent of the featured musicians to be the sole focus here,” says BlackB. “This anonymity releases not only me, but also other artists from the shackles of  expectations imposed on them—people expect artists to know how to dress, speak well, and market themselves, forgetting what truly matters, their songs. That’s why I truly respect artists like TUL8TE or Snor because they tell people to leave their lives alone and just focus on their voices.

Since that moment, he has dedicated his energy, resources, and platform solely to artists who were struggling to make it, artists relentlessly working just to get a cheque that would be spent on a recording session at a studio. And he started in a place that he knows best: Alexandria. Rap Shar3 sparked there as a kickback, with musicians gathering in a circle, freestyling or rapping bars from their discography. BlackB would then record them to later post their collective performance as a singular episode on social media.

The circles slowly expanded from 20 to 50 artists in a short amount of time. The traction and passion it has attained, now reaching hundreds of thousands of followers on major platforms, pushed it to then tour Giza and Cairo before filming a competition between Alexandria and Cairo. Each episode would be titled after the cities they were recorded in—an homage to its roots. Three years later, in 2024, it was time to take Rap Shar3 outside Egypt, a moment that BlackB had dreamt of. First stop? Riyadh.

At the time, he was having conversations with Mohamed Eledrisi, who composed the management aspect of Rap Shar3 alongside Suhaila Hanno. Eledrisi introduced him to Mahmoud Moawia (known as Mojnd), a Sudanese producer who was his guide to discovering Riyadh’s rap scene and talents. “It was a risk taking that step,” he admits. “I knew I could sacrifice everything we owned for this leap of faith to expand Rap Shar3, but I still decided to take a chance. Right before I had landed in Saudi, accompanied by our sound engineer Omar Mado, I actually found out all the money I’d poured into this project was stolen.”

Taking on the challenge nonetheless, they recorded the episode as planned. “It was all worth it; we got it back tenfold,” he reveals. The episode reached 16 million viewers on YouTube alone, making it the programme’s most popular episode. It also connected featured emerging artists, such as DJ Mubarak, with both commercial and musical partnerships that financed his practice, such as a deal with Saudia airline.

What was once a risk that could’ve cost him the entirety of Rap Shar3 actually solidified the audience’s appetite for hidden talent overlooked by streaming platforms, both in rap and other genres. “What matters to me most is the quality of the track, not the number of followers or the aesthetics of the artists,” he says. It was also a catalyst that turned it into a touring programme across the region, celebrating their voices but more importantly providing them the material support needed to break into the industry in and outside Arab countries. Take artist Faraml, for example. Before hopping on the Mahrgan Vs Rap series on Rap Shar3, his song “Mujrim Ana Ana”reached 50Klisteners. Soon after the episode dropped, that figure soared to one million, with the top 1% of them, interestingly enough, based in India.

As a “talent hunter”, BlackB spends hours listening to tracks that he discovers online or on the street. Alongside Rap Shar3’s team, which now stands at six members across management and creative direction, he selects which track to feature on each episode, curating a list of predetermined artists to star in each one. While it has a streamlined process of scouting and featuring talent, RapShar3 remains honest to its mission—in every spot they tour, the team meets up with members of the communities they serve to better understand their needs and ecosystems, expanding their lists with names they might’ve missed otherwise.

“When we planned to expand beyond Alexandria, we knew we wanted to stick to the organic nature of the programme,” shares BlackB. “Before we went to Dubai and Kuwait, we had an idea of who would be featured in the episode, but when we got there, we expanded beyond our network by visiting studios and surveying gathering spots and other cultural hubs to bond with emerging artists and meet them where they are at.”

This network of care and collaboration forms the backbone of how Rap Shar3 operates, both within and outside Egypt. Identifying talent is not an isolated process that can rely solely on the expertise of the platform’s core team. It actually requires an intentional form of engagement with the visited scene and building relationships with the people who sustain it. Rappers are only one part of this ecosystem—photographers, videographers, directors, writers, and other cultural workers all contribute to shaping it, too.

Without this kind of collaboration, Rap Shar3 would be reproducing the very systems it seeks to dismantle, the exact ones that pit artists against one another and trap them in a sense of scarcity. In such environments, opportunities are limited and artists compete for visibility. Creative communities inevitably become fragmented rather than supported. By approaching each city humanely, the platform treats local scenes as communities to be honoured and celebrated, not extracted and exploited. Knowledge here is shared and grown, slowly but surely. And the result of that growth can still be seen after the cameras leave.

With a fully realised concept and a team working tirelessly to spotlight emerging talent, Rap Shar3 continues to evolve and echo the street in its various contradictions, colours, and corners. After all, it is merely a reflection of it. It is not here to force a preconceived image of it, disguised as a saviour complex. This is reflected both visually and metaphorically in how BlackB stands in every circle and episode, passing the microphone to each musician, as if he’s saying: the microphone has always belonged to you.

Acting as a mirror through Rap Shar3, BlackB doesn’t limit the programme to the individual musicians’ talents and capabilities. He extends it to what causes these musicians to protest and what struggles they resist. And unlike other episodes where he simply states the location, he pauses to say more about the importance of raising one’s voice as an artist, especially when those outspoken are censored and shadowbanned. To BlackB, rap is as much a tool of resistance as an art form. “Rap is also the tale of the land and its people,” he asserts. “You can see the hardships they are resisting through their lyrics.”

This is seen in the latest episode released earlier this year, Talk About Sudan, in which Sudanese, Egyptian, and Lebanese musicians gather under one cause: a call for ending the annihilation and exploitation of the Sudanese people and other communities whose lives and homes are destroyed by occupational and military forces. In this episode, unlike most where he starts by saying a few words, BlackB states:

إحنا النهارده مش جايين نغني، إحنا جايين نشهد. السودان مش مجرد خبر على شاشة. السودان حياة وناس بينادوا بالسلام. فن من مصر إلى السودان إلى ليبيا إلى لبنان: صوت واحد ضد الصمت. راب شارع جايه تحكي لكم الحقيقة، ودي هي رسالتها. وحنتبرع بكامل أرباحها للسودان.

We’re not here today to sing, we’re here to bear witness. Sudan is not just a headline on a screen. Sudan is life and people calling for peace. Art from Egypt to Sudan to Libya to Lebanon: one voice against silence. Rap Shar3 is here to tell you the truth, and this is our message. All of today’s profits will be donated to Sudan.

This agility and adaptability allow Rap Shar3 to be expansive in messaging and outreach, uplifting Arab artists across all genres while spotlighting the conditions and circumstances dictating their livelihoods today. In Talk About Sudan, Shahd Mahmoud sings “Mal Elhawa”, yearning for the serenity of her home through a lullaby:

يا بلدي الطيبة شايلانا

علك بخير.

يا بلدي بنيلك راويانا

فيك هام الطير.

يا بلدي كلك حزنانة

بموت الناس اللي هد الحيل.

O my good country that carries us

I hope you are well.

O my country

with your Nile

you quench our thirst 

while birds soar high.

O my country

Whose land is grieving

the deaths that broke our backs.

Similarly in Ard Kan3an, Ana Palestine, released in November 2023, BlackB opens:

كل الدعم لأهالينا في فلسطين. في وجود المجازر والعدوان على أخوتنا، إحنا لا نملك غير صوتنا. وحنتبرع بأرباح الحلقة لفلسطين

All support to our people in Palestine. In the face of the massacres and the aggression against our brothers and sisters, the only thing we have is our voice. We will donate the event’s profits to Palestine.

“Major platforms like Spotify only allow artists to upload their tracks, preventing listeners from realising that the artist behind them is someone like their neighbour, someone they could meet on the street,” reflects BlackB. “Rap Shar3 organically introduces creatives to listeners who care for their craft and story. We only have our voice, and we don’t want to sing our lungs out in a vacuum to those who wouldn’t bat an eye at the death of our people.”

Rap Shar3 has just returned from San Francisco after connecting and recording with its creatives, Palestinian rappers MC Abdul and Sammy Shiblaq included. The programme has always intended to uplift talent in the diaspora, who face other types of monsters when it comes to censorship. “It was fascinating being introduced to that scene and witnessing how these artists tend to each other, especially as they stand in solidarity with one another,” says BlackB. 

Following its pause to honour the spirit of Ramadan, BlackB and the team will release more episodes, this time experimenting with formatting. Instead of just doing collective performances, they’ll release episodes focused on the discography of a single artist or a duet of musicians, allowing them to sustainably release episodes every seven to ten days. The first episode of this format features a collaboration between Sudanese rapper Hleem Taj Alser and Libyan rapper KA7LA.

When asked about the future beyond these plans, BlackB pauses—not out of pessimism but because of his commitment to letting the street and its people guide its direction. Rap Shar3 moves in response to the places and people it encounters, growing from the needs and demands of each gathering rather than a fixed roadmap. The pause is also a matter of necessity, a way of moving through life one day at a time, especially in times shaped by uncertainty and imperial violence across Arab countries. What he knows for certain, however, is that the programme will travel as far and wide as possible, with sights set on taking it from Rabat, Tunis, Khartoum, Nairobi and Amman to London, Rio, Mexico City, Shanghai and, soon enough, a free Palestine.

let’s add that he has only released one song titled Mala3een (right when Shar3 was founded), which was a collaboration between him and co-founder Khaled Shaker