Rapping with fear and respect in Saudi Arabia. Paris: Making hip hop in Saudi Arabia is a bit of a tightrope act, says Qusai Kheder, self-styled ambassador for the genre who has built a niche following for his sex-and-violence free brand of rap music.
“Saudi Arabia is a very conservative country — that’s where we are from,” the 35-year-old said before performing to a crowd of mostly Arab, largely female, young fans at the Arab World Institute in Paris this month. “This is our culture, our heritage, and we have reasons to respect it,” said the Riyadh-born young man in leather jacket, grey snood and clipped goatee, whose stage name is simply “Qusai”. “But at the same time, we don’t have freedom of expression, freedom of speech, so we set up limitations in whatever we do — some people for the fear and some people for the respect. “I do a little bit of both,” he said with a laugh. So in 1996 he left to study in the United States, making a name as a DJ and radio personality.
And when it comes to content, Qusai must tread a fine line. Shereen El Feki: Pop culture in the Arab world. Sheikha Al Mayassa: Globalizing the local, localizing the global. K-pop conquers US, ‘Gangnam Style’ The emerging markets hub News and comment from more than 40 emerging economies, headed by Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Sign up for our morning news, opinion and markets data round up from the FT and around the web. We have two emails per day - London and New York morning espresso (sent at approx 6am and 11am GMT). Pretty much everything you need to know about beyondbrics is in our About this site page. But briefly: To comment, please register for free with FT.com and read our policy on submitting comments. There is an overall beyondbrics RSS feed, as well as feeds for all our countries, tags and authors. All posts are published in UK time. Get in touch with us - your comments, advice and even complaints. Newsbeat - Gangnam Style could be UK's first K-pop number one. By Greg Cochrane Newsbeat music reporter South Korean pop star Psy recently appeared on TV in the US Chances are by now you'll either have seen, or know someone who has seen, the video for Psy's track Gangnam Style.
That's because since its release in mid-July it's been clicked on more than 220 million times. Right now, it's racking up an average of 10 million new views each day. It's a colourful, over-the-top, hilarious pastiche of commercial pop videos and sees Psy debut his now internationally famous "horse riding dance". Back home in South Korea, 34-year-old Psy, is already an established artist.
Psy recently appeared on a US chat show with Britney Spears and Simon Cowell But for this latest release he decided to poke fun at an affluent and fashionable district in Korean capital city Seoul - Gangnam. Psy likens Gangnam, which translated means "south of the river", to Los Angeles celebrity hot spot Beverly Hills - you get the idea. Bieber connection Chart history? Saudi band makes parody of Korean hit Gangnam Style. YouTube.
Who is Jay Chou? What is 'pop culture'?