MASHROU’ LEILA, a Lebanese indie band, dances all over conventions of Arab pop culture. The lead singer, Hamed Sinno, is openly gay; the lyrics are sung in a Lebanese dialect that is laced with obscenities and politics; the group does not have a record label.

But its popularity has spread across the Middle East, alongside protests and revolutions that have turned once-ironclad security states upside down. The band has toured Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates, while battles over national identity were fought in parliaments and on the streets. A political assassination in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, recently left the popstars stranded after their gig there, as airport staff went on strike. Their Syria tour was postponed in May 2011 and has not been rescheduled. Egyptian fans, stuck at home because of a curfew imposed by the miliary, beg the band not to cancel its upcoming Cairo concert, which was originally scheduled for June 30th.

The group’s third album, "Raasuk (They made you dance)", is its most political yet. As Egyptian security forces began a crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Cairo in July, the band released on YouTube “Wa Nueid (And we repeat)”, a song about resilience in the face of repeated failure. "If we endure the winter, we are destined to have spring," they sing. The video has received tens of thousands of views.



The band was working on the album in a Canadian studio when a car bomb exploded in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, last October and in a rush of emotion quickly revised the lyrics of one song, "Lil Watan (For the nation)". The new version lamented: "Every time you demand change in the country, they make you despair until you sell out all your freedom. They tell you to stop reaching and come dance with them.”



The songs address other big shifts in the lives of young Arabs, too. While some Lebanese psychiatrists opposed the recent legal classification of homosexuality as "unnatural", Leila sang about gay seduction. The cheeky song, “Skandar Maalouf”, is named after two homophobic Lebanese celebrities.