Sensing Palestine: Global Decolonial Aesthetics in Latin American–Palestinian Musical Collaborations

Multi_Viral’s Rage Against the Misinformation Machine

Among Calle 13’s and Residente’s ample musical repertoire covering themes of social protest, anti-imperialism and injustice, Multi_viral and Bajo los escombros stand out for their focus on Palestine. In the first instance, the rap-rock song Multi_viral, released in 2013 and written by Pérez and Cabra, features the participation of Palestinian female singer Kamilya Jubran, who sings the chorus in Arabic (“Calle 13 - Multi_Viral” 2013). The emphasis on Palestine becomes manifest with the inclusion of a Palestinian artist, and more so with the video-clip, which was filmed in the small town of Beit Sahour in Bethlehem (BBC, 2013). Notable collaborations with former Rage Against the Machine (RATM) guitarist Tom Morello and the unusual intervention of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (Gonzalez & Pérez, 2013) contribute to the intended transnational resonance and outreach of the song, which calls for popular mobilization against misinformation as a method of resistance for the marginalized. The song delivers lyrics in Spanish, English and Arabic, as well as brief sentences in French during the chorus. The latter is interpreted as a gesture to include and direct the message toward Belgian and French ex-colonies across Africa and the Middle East.

While Palestine is not explicitly mentioned in the lyrics, the content of Multi_viral is generally construed as a critique towards misinformation and disinformation disseminated by state actors and mainstream media corporations across the world. Broadly speaking, the song aims to reclaim the discourse to delink from dominant narratives and offer an alternative view of reality through the eyes of the people who experience it first-hand or contribute to revealing it. In doing so, the song protests the complicity of international state and non-state actors in sustaining armed conflict and colonial exploitation. Calle 13 establishes the transnationality of the message by drawing connections between Mexico’s YoSoy132 and Spain’s 15-M movements, presenting collective awareness as a tool for change (Dotson-Renta 2021, 388). Notably, the specific mention of YoSoy132 in one of the early verses directly contributes to Multi_viral’s central thesis. YoSoy132 is a non-partisan student-led movement arising after a visit by the then presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, during which students expressed their repudiation toward the candidate’s political platform. The movement’s manifesto openly demands the protection of freedom of expression, and calls for the democratization of information, the exercise of transparency across all forms of media and the fulfillment of their civilian role as propagators of public interest (Ramos, 2012). Furthermore, the mention of Spain’s anti-austerity, anti-capitalist and anti-corruption social protests following the 2,008 global financial crisis links predicaments across the Global South and Global North, contributing to a more encompassing and universal interpretation of epistemic diversity within the decolonial turn.

Other verses further support the interpretation of the song as a promoter of global decolonial epistemic contention. In other words, the message is also about epistemic freedom and awareness, and a call for reappropriating forms of meaning-making and expression. For instance, Calle 13’s verses below are intended to reclaim reason and freedom of thought as instruments of resistance available to subject peoples across the Global South, and differentiate them from the tools of domination that colonial powers rely on, such as state violence and secrecy:

Reason commands me; you take orders from a colonel (“Calle 13 - Multi_Viral” 2013) [my translation]

Similarly, Assange’s contribution further consolidates the overarching political protest theme of the song. The significance of his involvement is attested not only by the words he delivers, but also by the mere fact of being a part of it. More importantly, his narration in the song, delivered in English, frames the message concomitantly as one of both global resistance (Pinchot, 2020, 207) and epistemic reclamation through which populations of an imagined “new world,” connected across cities in Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa, defy state-sponsored violence and disinformation, and “strike back” with the diffusion of people’s knowledge as an alternative to dominant state discourse.

While the lyrics outside the context of the music video broadly address shared predicaments and apply to any decolonial project elsewhere, Kamilya Jubran’s participation is pivotal in demonstrating the impact of disinformation that shapes perceptions of the Palestine–Israel conflict among global audiences. In Pérez’s words, Jubran’s presence is central to the project because she “has actually experienced all the media manipulation of what happens between Palestine and Israel; everything that happens there arrives here distorted” (Gonzalez & Pérez, 2013). Jubran’s Arabic chorus reverberates Residente’s opening Spanish verses, singing “everything started with a blaze, when our eyes looked up,” also translated in the official YouTube video as “when we release flames from our gazes” (“Calle 13 - Multi_Viral” 2013), symbolically calling for collective awareness and resistance in the face of misinformation. As a curious yet meaningful detail, the sound Jubran’s voice glitches at the end of the first verse, which appears to evoke the haunting presence of those who attempt to either censor resisting voices or distort the facts. Jubran’s brief yet powerful intervention in the chorus reinforces the role of her contribution in steering the discussion toward Palestine. Calle 13’s reference to misinformation continues in verses following the chorus, which are directly applicable to the dominant narratives about Palestinians:

Those are the reheated lies

Moreover, the song’s predominant theme is of particular relevance to the media coverage of the Palestine–Israel conflict in Latin America. While support for Palestine across Latin America has been historically complex and ambivalent among state leaders and civil society groups, the discourse of far-right governments in some Latin American countries and the media outlets that represent them reflect support for Zionism and US-backed Israeli policies. This is evinced by the broadcast of news that often decontextualizes the situation in the Middle East and contributes to the dehumanization of Palestinians (Martinelli, 2024). In fact, the evolution of Calle 13 leading member’s views about the conflict offers a singular yet meaningful example of this phenomenon. In a recent statement, Pérez expressed regret for writing a verse included in one of Calle 13’s most popular and emblematic songs released in 2005, Atrevete-te, which references Palestinians as suicide bombers, and attributed the misstep to his lack of knowledge about the situation in the Middle East (Pacheco, 2023). He explained that after educating himself about the conflict, the plight of Palestinians and the situation in Gaza, he decided to omit the verse in his concerts (Pérez, 2023), an action that not only reveals his changed stance on the conflict, but also demonstrates how knowledge plays a vital role in the construction and endorsement of narratives.

Bajo Los Escombros’ [Under the Rubble’s] Message of Denunciation and Resilience

Calle 13’s Pérez or “Residente,” now as a solo artist, released the song titled Bajo los escombros in May 2024. The song is unambiguously dedicated to Palestine and specifically addresses Israel’s attacks on Gaza from October 8, 2023 (BBC, 2024). Bajo los Escombros features Palestinian female singer Amal Murkus, who has previously collaborated with legendary female nueva canción exponents Joan Báez and Mercedes Sosa (Murkus, n.d.) Far from the rap-rock genre of Multi_viral, this song features a traditional Arabic musical ensemble. Pérez opens by rapping in Spanish, addressing the resilience of generations of Palestinians with a lineage that cannot be obliterated despite decades of occupation, displacement and violence:

No one is moving us from here

Similar to Multi_viral, the last two verses above mark a distinction between the disempowered and their colonial oppressors. By stating “our upbringing was different,” Residente, who appears in the video with a Palestinian keffiyeh (the traditional Arab patterned black-and-white headscarf) wrapped around his shoulders, juxtaposes the innocence of unarmed children playing football while being watched by armed soldiers, a visualization of the realities of growing up in Palestine and the resilience of its people who are able to hold on to life amid military oppression. Interestingly, the use of “we” in this verse establishes a sense of connection between the artist, who represents his country and region, Puerto Rico and Latin America, and Gazans, as the image is reminiscent of growing up in humble environments or working-class neighborhoods in Latin America and the Caribbean. The use of the inclusive first-person plural is meaningful because it transmits the artist’s solidarity and sense of closeness to Palestine by placing himself as a speaker among the people he represents and those he sings for. Relatedly, Residente makes use of anti-colonial discursive resources by further emphasizing the injustices of military occupation, which are countered by the perseverance of resisting subjects:

The invader is a pig, clearly

Residente also speaks of knowledge as tool for resistance. A later verse makes reference to widely disseminated footage of IDF soldiers celebrating after conducting airstrikes or shooting at unarmed civilians (Holmes, 2018; Toler et al., 2024), which sparked extensive condemnation and demonstrated the IDF’s dehumanization of Palestinians. The verse also suggests that the truth behind the events and the circumstances surrounding the genocide and destruction of Gaza are indeed made known. In other words, the presence of rubble itself attests to the reality and speaks for itself:

Under the rubble lay the cheers

Finally, Murkus’ emotive chorus echoes the message of resilience delivered by Residente’s verses throughout the song. She also makes explicit mention of Gaza’s devastation while sending a message of hope for those still standing in the midst of war and who may believe they have been forgotten:

You were the home, now turned into stones

Solidarity and Palestine’s Liberation in Somos Sur [We Are the South]

Comparably, female Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux’s Somos Sur (We are the South), featuring female Palestinian-British rapper Shadia Mansour, known as the “First Lady of Arabic Hip-hop,” shares several common features with Calle 13’s Multi_viral and Bajo los escombros in terms of the translocal framing of the message and the intentionality behind the collaborations. Like Multi_viral, the song’s primary message is clearly transferable and inclusive, as illustrated by Tijoux’s early verse: “no one is surplus, all are missed, everyone counts” (“Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur” 2014). Tijoux invites the people of the “South” who “dream of the fall of the empire” to join her “joyful rebellion” and dance to the lively beat of the song. She also refers to it as “el baile de los que sobran” (“Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur” 2014), or “the dance of those left over,” which she borrows from a widely popular song by Chilean rock band Los Prisioneros (The Prisoners) released in 1986. This song, which offers a sardonic take on inequality, unemployment and socio-economic cleavages in Chile, and summons the youth to “join the dance” of hopelessness and social alienation, has become the anthem of mass protests in Chile in recent years (BBC, 2019). Relatedly, the chorus of Somos Sur fully encapsulates Tijoux’s message and clearly states to whom it is directed:

All the silenced

The transnational anti-colonial frame of the song’s lyrical content is more overtly emphasized in verses like “neither Africa, nor Latin America are for auction” (“Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur” 2014), and during the bridge, where Tijoux mentions several countries across Africa and Latin America, representing disempowered subaltern communities that colonial power schemes attempted to eradicate “through epistemicide, genocide, and femicides” (Quintanilla, 2020, 72). Tijoux also demands from the colonial powers, namely, the US or “Yankees” that they “get out of Latin America,” and the French, Dutch and English from elsewhere (“Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur” 2014). Subsequent verses converge transcontinental predicaments and local injustices by mentioning “looting,” “trampling,” and “colonization,” and referencing the 2008 assassination of Chilean student activist Matías Catrileo of Mapuche origin by military police (It’s been 11 Years, 2019) and Wallmapu, an ancestral Mapuche territory, and an important site of political contest and anti-colonial struggle in Chile. The latter allusion is both locally and globally illustrative of subjugated indigenous populations and territories that have been radically minimized, altered or vanished by conquest and colonially imposed nation-state systems (Huenchumil, 2022; Pairican, 2022).

Another notable premise found Somos Sur’s lyrics is epistemic defiance and intellectual awareness. In fact, this theme sets the tone of the song with the opening verse. Here, the ability to think is depicted as an instrument of resistance against a commanding authority figure, whereby “you” below is assumed to address a dominant colonial entity or a repressive national state:

You tell us we should sit down,

Remarkably, one of Tijoux’s later verses: “we have life and fire […] fire in our eyes” (“Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur” 2014) resembles that of the opening lines and chorus of Calle 13’s Multi_viral, signaling a state of intellectual awareness among peoples who resist epistemic hegemony, misrepresentation and censorship. In a similar manner, toward the end of her interjection, Mansour raps that “they use the press so they can manufacture, but when my sentence is served, reality presents itself” (“Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur” 2014), which addresses the role of Western and Israeli media in manipulating the facts or distorting reality, countered by acts of resistance such as speaking up or exposing fabrications. These can be understood as expressions corresponding to the exercise of a form of “border thinking” that invites critical assessments of the colonial difference, and “generates conditions for a dialogue and a rupture from dependency, fear, feelings of inferiority, illegitimacy and subservience” (Aceituno, 2018, 18).

Against the backdrop of anti-colonialism and epistemic resistance, explicit references to Palestine stand out in both Tijoux’s and Mansour’s lyrics. Tijoux’s bridge ends with the interpolation: “yo te quiero libre, Palestina!” (“Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur” 2014) or “I want you free, Palestine,” which opens the floor to Mansour. Like Tijoux, Mansour adopts the translocality that envelops the song. In the verse below, Mansour’s reference to bilad al-sham, or Greater Syria, the pre-colonial name for the region comprising present-day Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan is deliberate and evocative, as it symbolizes Arab unity, the past yet desired territorial integrity dismantled by colonization. By extension, it alludes to Palestine’s belonging to the broader Arab world and historical attachment to the land. Furthermore, Greater Syria is mentioned alongside Africa and Latin America, as the embodiment of a “greater South,” the geographically scattered collection of people joined by a shared history of colonialism, subjugation and music:

The mother of all languages

To further emphasize Mansour’s identification with the South, Latin America and her Spanish-speaking counterpart, she slips in the Spanish phrase “hasta la victoria siempre” (ever onward to victory), the popular Cuban political mantra originating from a farewell letter written by Ernesto “Che” Guevara in 1965 to Fidel Castro (Spencer, 2007). Lastly, Tijoux interjects with a poetic self-reference as a restrained, chastened or silenced individual who will “free herself with the Palestinian soil,” culminating with a calling directed at the rest of the South (Africans and Latin Americans) to “join hands” in solidarity (“Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur” 2014). Tijoux’s support for the Palestinian plight has become more evident in her recent live performances, where she is seen wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh in the studio and the Palestine watermelon football jersey on stage, and carrying the Palestinian flag scarf and asking her audience to chant “free, free Palestine.” ¹

Dismantling Colonial Barriers, Segregation and Injustice With Border Ctrl

The song Border Ctrl is led by Palestinian musical collective 47SOUL formed in Jordan in 2013 by Tareq Abu Kwaik, Ramzy Suleiman, Walaa Sbait, and Hamza Arnaout (47SOUL n.d.). It features contributions from two female rappers: Shadia Mansour and London-based Chilean–German rapper Fedzilla, whose work often addresses social and political issues including racism, misogyny, patriarchy, and Palestine (Rishma, 2023). This song is part of 47SOUL’s album “Semitics” released in 2020 (47SOUL n.d.), of which title also makes a powerful statement of epistemic disobedience: it reclaims the term “Semitic,” which in modern times has been associated worldwide with Israelis and the Jewish people due to the use of the “anti-Semitic” label against those who either criticize the actions of the Israeli government or advocate for the Palestinian cause. This is a way of challenging misconceptions and recovering meaning by referring to their native language or themselves as semitic, reminding us that the word also includes Arabic-speaking peoples.

The textual content of Border Ctrl touches on both Israel’s separation wall to protest racial segregation in Palestine, and the US–Mexico border wall to criticize US immigration policies. The content of the song also hints to the hundreds of military checkpoints across Israel, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as additional physical barriers, shedding light on the mistreatment and denial of basic rights of Palestinians who attempt to cross them. The separation wall, checkpoints and required documentation and permits to move past them represent Israel’s denial of Palestinians’ freedom of movement, and are functions of systematic oppression and apartheid (Fakih & Omar, 2023). The artists’ stance against the multilayered nature of Israel’s control over Palestinian life, which also includes restrictions such as requiring permits from Israeli security authorities, and either delayed or unattainable identity documents (Shehada, 2022), is captured by the sarcastic tone of the chorus:

Everyone, welcome to the queue

Similarly, in the first of two parts in the song, Fedzilla’s Spanish rapping replicates 47SOUL’s chorus:

Welcome to the queue

Here, Fedzilla raps in Spanish, but she chooses to include the Arabic term hawiyya in her verse. While this may probably be a stylistic choice intended to achieve consistency in her rhymes, the use of the term in Arabic in place of Spanish words for identity card, such as cédula or carnet, is telling of the artist’s goal to emphasize connection and solidarity between Latin America and Palestine. In effect, at the start of the song, Fedzilla is heard exclaiming: “Palestinos, Latinos… hermanos!” (“47SOUL - Border Ctrl.” 2020), which can be translated as “brothers” or “siblings.” This is a straightforward declaration of fraternity and solidarity, setting the direction and purpose of their collaborative musical decolonial project towards bonding Latin American and Palestinian peoples’ realities. Pertinently, during the bridge, a 47SOUL band member sings in English: “we are going to dissolve this Mexico-Bethlehem wall” (“47SOUL - Border Ctrl.” 2020), which is an allegory to the geographical separation of communities across the Global South, and a call to dismantle the obstacles that separate them and, instead, create a unified global movement. Respectively, Mansour and Fedzilla further reinforce the message of solidarity and unison in their interjections:

From Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, to Mexico

Similar to the way Fedzilla adopts an Arabic term earlier in the song, the voices of 47SOUL members are also heard under hers as she raps the last verse above (“47SOUL - Border Ctrl.” 2020). Additionally, a band member exclaims the Spanish adlib “Venimos del sur! Vamos, vamos!” (We come from the south, let’s go!) in the outro of the song with the Spanish translation of the archetypical “yalla, yalla!” (come on! or let’s go!) exclaimed by Arabic singers between lyrics to up the song’s energy. These are ways to devolve the gesture by speaking in their Latin American counterpart’s native tongue, and bolster the message of unity and solidarity that trademarks this project. As in Multi_viral and Somos Sur, the song is a call on peripheral communities to break through territorial barriers and join each other’s decolonial epistemic/aesthetic endeavors in order to speak out against marginalization, discrimination and domination, and create a single consciousness in response to colonial difference rooted in their unique experiences.

Images of Political Protest, Epistemic Assertion and Solidarity

From the onset, Calle 13’s Multi_viral video is filled with Palestinian imagery. It opens with panoramic images of Bethlehem, and shows a room’s walls featuring what appears to be a bullet hole, a map of Palestine and a drawing of Handala (“Calle 13 - Multi_Viral” 2013), the fictional character of a small boy created by Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali and a national symbol that epitomizes the Palestinian people. A book by renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and a keffiyeh can also be seen around the room as a boy wakes up to pack up what appears to be an AK47 rifle magazine (“Calle 13 - Multi_Viral” 2013). The boy warily walks by a group of what seems to be IDF soldiers and spray-paints the phrase “a spark ignited from our eyes” in Arabic on a concrete wall before meeting another youngster who supplies him with additional rifle parts. The second youngster transports them to a third boy and both begin assembling the “weapon” together. This part of the video plainly suggests that the Palestinian boys are building a firearm and planning an attack, until a close-up of an electric guitar’s headstock and neck are shown at minute 2:45. It is then revealed that the boy had built an escopetarra, a guitar made from a modified rifle (“Calle 13 - Multi_Viral” 2013). The name derives from compounding the Spanish words escopeta, meaning rifle, and guitarra, which means guitar. The escopetarra was created by Colombian musician César López in 2003 in response to the armed conflict in his country with the objective of “transforming sounds of war into sounds of peace” (Wanumen Jiménez, 2022, 64). The instrument is globally recognized as a symbol of peace and non-violent resistance (Restrepo, n.d.).

As the video progresses, we see images of the boy running towards a rooftop where he plays the escopetarra, along with shots of Tom Morello performing the guitar solo (“Calle 13 - Multi_Viral” 2013). Images of the boy and Morello are shown intermittently, concluding with both raising their fists at the end of the solo as a symbolic gesture of defiance, resistance and solidarity, implying that they are both either playing alongside each other or are, in fact, the same person. ² The development of events throughout the video perfectly matches the main theme of the song, as it defies misconceptions and misrepresentations of civilian Palestinian resistance by focusing on music as a locus of protest, replacing armed struggle as a way towards liberation. As in Assange’s case, Morello’s participation is meaningful not only due to his innovative guitar technique and global celebrity status, but also because of his political activism. As member of RATM, Morello engaged in the production of songs critiquing racism, social injustice, corporatism and imperialism (LeVan, 2013, 200). As a public figure, Morello has endorsed a number of other causes, including Occupy Wall Street and anti-war movements (Marans, 2017).

Bajo los escombros’s video features the singers and a classical Arabic music ensemble performing in a New York studio (“Residente, Amal Murkus - Bajo los escombros” 2024). Residente and musicians are dressed in black and wearing keffiyehs over their shoulders. Amal Murkus is the exception, who wears a thob, the traditional Palestinian long gown with embroidery. The video begins with a close-up of the qanun, followed by shots of the performing singers, musicians and their instruments. At minute 3:20, an audience made up entirely of immigrant Palestinian children wearing keffiyehs becomes the focus of the video. This is followed by closer shots of children holding damaged toys and school books that appear to have been burned from shelling (“Residente, Amal Murkus - Bajo los escombros” 2024). This powerful image is indicative of pictures of Palestinian children’s toys and other belongings found in the wreckage of buildings after bombardments. The image implies that the toys have been retrieved from the rubble and are now held by living children, transmitting a message of hope for the continuity of Palestinian life. The imagery aims to capture the unprecedented violence of Israel’s recent attacks on Gaza, which caused the death and injury of more than 50,000 children since October 2023 (Beigbeder, 2025). While the simplicity of the video is patent, the element of surprise and the powerful messaging of these visual transitions gradually elevate the experience to reinforce the watcher’s emotions and engagement with all elements of the production and, more importantly, with the recent devastation of Gaza.

Filmed in Chile, Somos Sur’s music video is a colorful blend of indigenous Latin American and Palestinian cultures. The beautifully crafted chaos and fast-moving images suit the upbeat music and lyrics, which invite people to dance. The opening credits are presented in both Arabic and Spanish, in order to ensure it is accessible to both audiences. The song title is translated to Arabic as nahnu al-janoub, and the artists’ names also appear in both languages. The video begins with vibrant images of indigenous Mapuche dance. Tijoux is the focus of the initial section of the video, who is accompanied by elements of her culture and dressed in indigenous Mapuche attire. Palestinian cultural elements are introduced in full later in the video to preamble Mansour’s appearance. At 1:48, while Tijoux exclaims “Yankees out of Latin America,” images of Palestinian dancers wearing traditional dabke attire and keffiyehs begin to appear. Mansour is then shown wearing a thob, reflective of her cultural identity and signature artistic image. The video gives way to imagery representing her Palestinian counterpart’s identity, including a waving Palestinian flag (“Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur” 2014). In blurred images from minutes 1:13–1:34, the two singers appear dancing together, this time with Tijoux also wearing a Palestinian thob alongside Mansour (“Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur” 2014). After Mansour’s performance, interspersed images of a large dancing crowd are visualized, including both singers, as well as the Mapuche and Palestinian dancers, and it becomes difficult to tell the two groups apart. As both cultures become intwined, the video consolidates its message of unison and solidarity between groups that are rarely, if ever, seen dancing together, creating a unique image of who they are and how they see themselves as the resisting “South.”

Shot in Mexico, Palestine, Jordan and the United Kingdom, Border Ctrl’s video-clip features 47SOUL group members, Fedzilla and Shadia Mansour joined by Al-Ajaweed Dabke Group from Jordan’s Al-Baqa’a Refugee Camp performing the traditional Arabic folk dance (“47SOUL - Border Ctrl.” 2020). The dabke dancers are of Palestinian origin (Daher, 2021), and do not wear traditional clothes, but frequently perform in military uniforms with combat boots and, also for this video, with keffiyehs wrapped around their heads. Their image symbolizes the militaristic nature of occupation while, at the same time, is evocative of Arab nationalistic or resistance movements, which also fits into the tonality of 47SOUL band members’ singing, and the song’s thematic emphasis on separation walls and checkpoints as means to exert control and maintain order. Interpolated images of 47SOUL members walking and interacting with people in Mexico and Palestine are noteworthy. In the same way, shots of emblematic sites in Jordan, Mexico and the US are featured, including Al-Qalaa archeological site and the Amman citadel in Jordan, the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Central Library mural featuring pre-colonial iconography, Tucson’s Barrio Viejo or Barrio Libre (Old or Free Neighborhood), which houses a large Mexican community, the historic town of Coyoacán and the Tijuana beach lighthouse at the San Diego border (“47SOUL - Border Ctrl.” 2020).

Images of the artists walking along the Israeli separation wall quickly shift to them walking by a convenience store in Mexico. Similarly, a person walking by graffiti that reads “sin papeles” (without papers) swiftly changes to the group members walking by the Israeli wall once again. In the same way, interlinked, fast-moving images of a band member approaching a street juice vendor standing by the separation wall in Palestine switch to the same member buying a juice from a Mexican street vendor (“47SOUL - Border Ctrl.” 2020). These drive home the idea of a shared existence and experience across vast distances, reinforcing the notion of solidarity and fraternity. Adding to the sense of connection with the experience of colonialism beyond the Middle East, the video shows a band member opening his jacket to reveal his T-shirt with a printed image of indigenous Americans holding rifles that reads “Homeland Security, fighting terrorism since 1492” (“47SOUL - Border Ctrl.” 2020), the year in which the colonization of the Americas commenced. Finally, shots of the West Bank separation wall display graffiti art, including small replicas of Banksy’s Rage, the flower thrower and an illustration of Camilo Catrillanca (“47SOUL - Border Ctrl.” 2020), the 24-year-old son of a Mapuche community leader assassinated by Chilean police in 2018 (McGowan, 2021). Catrillanca’s image rests above the phrase “Wallmapu libre” (Free Wallmapu), which Tijoux also mentions in Somos Sur, accompanied by the phrase “El derecho de vivir en paz,” which translates to “the right to live in peace” (Puebla Hernández, 2019).

The Decolonial Sound of Unity

Multi_viral is a standard rock melody in the vein of RATM, which makes it no surprise that Morello features on guitar. Moreover, RATM’s well-known for its anti-government, anti-war stance makes Morello’s contribution a fitting component of this track. The guitar solo features all of Morello’s characteristic technique and style based on the Western pentatonic scale, foundational of rock and blues music. Overall, there is no intricate mix of genres in the musical arrangement. However, during Jubran’s Arabic chorus there is a hyper-fast rhythm of an Arabic beat mixed with Western break beat, which interrupts the rock sound. Additionally, after the chorus, there is a filtered effect-heavy mawal, a sentimental freeform Arabic vocalization delivered by Jubran (“Calle 13 - Multi_Viral” 2013). These exceptions can be interpreted as ways to integrate Arabic melodies that represent Palestinian culture in what would otherwise be a mainstream rap-rock song. With the heavy distortion of the Arabic chorus, which is, in fact, highly disruptive and sounds almost out of place, the music emphatically aims to give protagonism to Palestine.

In contrast, Bajo los Escombros offers a rare blend of traditional Arabic and Andean music to transmit the message of unity. This visibly intentional artistic choice functions as a channel to express solidarity and create unison between Latin America and the Arab world, and namely, Palestine. The music features a takht, “an ensemble comprised of violin, qānūn, ‘ūd, nāy, and riqq-[which] is at the heart of authentic performance of classical Arab music” (Chami, 2020, 33), although this song does not include a nāy, or Arabic flute. The song begins with the traditional sound of the qanun, a stringed instrument essential to traditional music across the Middle East, played by Palestine-born musician Firas Zreik (Zreik, n.d.). Additionally, the song features a piano, violin and contrabass performed by Leo Genovese, Ludovica Burtone and Francesco Marcocci, respectively, which are staples of Western classical music and have become mainstays in modern expressions of standard Arabic melodies. The vocals begin with a melancholic mawal performed by Murkus, setting the solemn tonality of the song. The unmistakable Arabic sound in its standard 4/4 time accompanies Residente’s poetically defiant rapping for the first 2 minutes (“Residente, Amal Murkus - Bajo los escombros” 2024).

Unexpectedly, the melody shifts to Andean music to accompany Perez’s bridge, which is performed in 3/4 triplet feel by the same musicians. Unusually, distinctive traditional Andean melodies are delivered by the qanun, which replaces the tiple, charango or nylon acoustic guitar commonly used in folk Latin American music to produce its characteristic sound. The percussion is performed by musicians, Alber Baseel from Palestine and Gilbert Mansour from Lebanon, with a daff or riqq, a percussion instrument similar to a tambourine (Chami, 2020, 45) and a darbuka or tabla, emphasizing the triplet feel and replacing a bombo or a caja generally used to produce Andean percussion (“Residente, Amal Murkus - Bajo los escombros” 2024). The melody switches back to the Arabic 4/4 time for Murkus’ singing, with the musicians utilizing an archetypical Arabic rhythm, known as wahde, meaning “one.” Finally, the way Murkus sings at the climactic stage of the song is typical of anasheed, nationalistic Arabic songs or “anthems,” which commonly carry political messaging or calls for resistance. The inclusion of an Andean-sounding bridge references a widely celebrated Calle 13 song titled Latinoamérica released in 2010, of which the melody is inspired by nueva canción, and whose narrative highlights the impact of a shared colonial past and hegemonic systems in Latin America (Bomfim, 2018, 81).

Musically, Somos Sur opens with a brass melody on trumpet, which may be Latin-infused, but the song essentially stays within the hip-hop genre. The rhythm begins with a snare drum on the downbeats emulating a clapping sound. The groove becomes a straight half-time beat as the verse begins, but an Arabian melody played on strings can be heard in the background (“Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur” 2014). What is unusual about this is that the strings are playing a microtonal scale, which are found strictly in non-Western music, such as Middle Eastern and Indian tunes. This represents a seamless fusion of hip-hop and Arabic music, as the melodies beneath the verse are subtle, but an Arab ear would immediately notice them. Following the verse, there is a musical break where the strings and brass play a similar Middle Eastern motif utilizing three notes of the harmonic minor scale (“Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur” 2014), which is utilized in Western music when artists try to emulate Middle Eastern sounds. The chorus is a standard hip-hop rhythm, which is followed by an instrumental break that reprises the Western harmonic minor melody. When the Arabic lyrics begin, the Arabian microtonal melody heard at the beginning appears again underneath the standard hip-hop beat (“Ana Tijoux - Somos Sur” 2014). Interestingly, the brass that played this melody seems to emulate the Arabic instrument mizmar, a Middle Eastern woodwind instrument typically found in traditional Arabic celebratory music, such as Egyptian folk songs. It is possible that an actual mizmar doubling the brass/trumpet was used, but this is not definitive. This mix of hidden tonalities with hip-hop, Western and Arabic sounds makes this song a unique contribution to contemporary protest music in general and, particularly, to the “sound of decoloniality.”

In the intro of Border Ctrl, a mizmar-like instrument and an oud, the Middle Eastern lute-type stringed instrument, can be heard (“47SOUL - Border Ctrl.” 2020). The base beat is a variation of laf or malfouf, a quick, cyclical rhythm with two beats on a darbuka (doum-te-doum-tek). The laf is almost indistinguishable from its Caribbean counterpart, the dembow drum rhythm, original from Jamaica and foundational to reggaeton, a popular Latin American music genre emerging in Panama in the 1980s (Parys, 2024), which is also heard in the song. The way the lyrics are sung by the leading artists is distinctively baladi, “of town” or rural, adding both a nationalistic and militaristic feel to the melodic component. When they switch to English lyrics, the laf turns into a more distinctive dembow or reggaeton blended in with the Arabic melody (“47SOUL - Border Ctrl.” 2020). The English section also features a timbale drum, a Latin percussion instrument reminiscent of the Arabic tabla. From the start, it is clear that the song begins with a variation of the traditional Arabic Levantine dance music, which 47SOUL dubs “Shamstep.” ³ Additionally, besides the strong political component of her lyrics, Mansour’s powerful voice and delivery emit her firm posture and defiant sentiment that complements the song’s protest nature. Interestingly, when Fedzilla begins her interjection, the music shifts to a melody with a dembow/reggaeton rhythm and hip-hop elements, and excludes the Arabic sounds. Fedzilla’s interventions are the only time there is a drastic change in the musical arrangement and rhythm, which underscores her individuality and spotlights the presence of a Latin American representative. Overall, the song is a perfect blend of styles due to the inherent similarities of the instruments used and the origins of the rhythms incorporated, which are not only quintessential components of rebellious popular music in general, but transmit a strong message of mutual understanding and a desired “oneness.”