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.

From Diary to Rap Lyrics

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

Head Held High

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.

Yukka in Denmark

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.

Check out the invitation to the photo exhibition and to the concert on Facebook and read more about the project here.

The photos of Yukka were taken by photographer Anna Maria Nielsen.

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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.