Meet Yukka. A 22 year old female rapper, self announced feminist and  former law student from Egypt who’s been rapping about women’s rights,  equality and the Egyptian revolution since 2011. Interesting, right?

Her parents reject her rap career and deny speaking with her. As she  explains, it’s impossible to get a boyfriend as a female rapper.  Recently she’s been blacklisted from some concert venues in Egypt  because of her revolutionary rap against the upper structural forces in  the country. She’s expecting to be investigated by the national security  force in the nearest future, something she fears, as they informally  are known to have raped, tortured and undermined women during the  revolution, she tells. Now this November, RAPOLITICS is running a  project highlighting Yukkas personal story.

RAPOLITICS met Yukka for the first time during Spring 2013 as part of the BOOST project in Alexandria.  Quickly she managed to impress us with her charismatic and strong  personality and story. In September, she participated in another  RAPOLITICS-project with 35 raptivists from the Middle East, North Africa  and Denmark. Through her artistic expression she manifested herself as  being a strong-willed and ambitious young rapper carrying heavy loads in  her heart.

She started writing down her thoughts in a diary when she was ten  years old. A bit further down the road she realized how writing in rhyme  and rhythms seemed more natural to her. From a young age the themes of  Yukka’s writing expressed her thoughts of feeling oppressed in her own  home as well as by the system and society surrounding her.

In her teenage years her diary rhymes developed and turned into actual rap lyrics. When asked about her reason to rap, she says:

I rap to break the silence inside me. It wasn’t enough  just to write my thoughts down for myself. I needed to break the silence  for many girls just like me. I wanted to inspire them to speak out  loud, do whatever they want to do, and not care about what people think  about it.

In 2011, Yukka started focusing on the revolution taking place in  Egypt. This subject goes hand in hand with her educational profil, as  she studied law to be able to increase possibilities of general  structural equality and freedom of expression in Egypt.

Her texts primary are about what she considers the degrading and  politically unacceptable behavior exercised by the Muslim Brotherhood.  But they also address how the police and military is worsening the  situation with their actions, resulting in blood baths. Being a female  rapper in Egypt, Yukkas has taken a remarkable decision to face the  world with her head held high and she immediately stands out as a unique  example of a strong outspoken woman in the society she comes from in  Alexandria. Yukka’s story strongly reflects the many political issues  and cultural clashes Egypt is facing.

As part of the RAPOLITICS-project simply entitled Yukka funded  by CISU, a photo exhibition will take place in Copenhagen the 21th of  November 2013. Yukka herself is going to be at the opening to tell her  story and answer questions from visitors. And of course Yukka is here to  perform as well. She will be recording a collab-track with three Danish  female rappers, and together they will perform the 23th of November at  café Zorro.

About the blogger: Katinka is a communications  volunteer at RAPOLITICS. She holds a Bachelor Degree in International  Development Studies and is at the moment taking a Master’s Degree in  Communication from Aalborg University Copenhagen.

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I Rap to Break the Silence Inside Me