“Songs, stories and poetry are how we keep memories in our hearts and pass them on from generation to generation”
By KHADEEJAH KHAN — campus@theaggie.org
On April 24 and 25, Syrian American rapper and poet Omar Offendum performed “Neo-Hakawati Nights” at the Mondavi Center, joined by Palestinian multi-instrumentalist Zafer Tawil and DJ Thanks Joey as a part of a series of events for Arab American Heritage Month.
In Arabic, “hakawati” translates to a storyteller who performs in a collective setting.
The event took the audience through the journey of the Arab American experience while bridging New York, where he lives, and Damascus, Syria through hip-hop and Arabic poetry.
“The goal is to bring the hakawati experience of Damascus with the hip-hop music that I love,” Offendum said. “Putting it all together and just talking about the experiences of Syrians moving through the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s through rap and poetry.”
The performance began with Offendum reading a poem by Lebanese American writer and poet Khalil Gibran, titled “To Young Americans of Syrian Origin,” followed by a performance of Offendum’s song, “Damascus.”
Offendum reflected on growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when most of his peers were not familiar with Syria at all. However, that changed at the height of the Syrian Civil War — not only for Offendum but for the greater Syrian community.
“That [war] became what Syria was known for,” Offendum said. “Not the beautiful images, or the history, or the culture, or the tradition, or the stories, or the mountains, or the castles, or the alleyways or the food and the music and all of it. All of it just got whittled down to this idea of this conflict.”
Highlighting tradition and culture in his art, Offendum performed the “Story of Qahwah,” conveying coffee’s forgotten roots in Yemen and its role as a commodity reflecting how Arab achievements and contributions are exploited and sidelined.
“I call it ‘qahwa’ – it went from ‘qahwa’ to ‘kahve,’ caffe to coffee,” Offendum said. “From an Ethiopian cherry to one of the most traded commodities in the world after oil. And in a world long before it, it’s what Muslims were known for. So, of course, they tried to ban it.”
Offendum explores “suppressed history,” shedding light through his poetry in an effort to preserve memory. Another element of this history that Offendum hopes to preserve is Little Syria, an Arab American neighborhood in Manhattan that was later pushed out to construct the Brooklyn Battery Center. Offendum’s Little Syria Project carries on its memory as a tribute to the poets who lived there and the newspapers that told their stories.
“A lot of the poetry that I find myself drawn to from these poets is descriptive of their lives and these places that I’ve perhaps dreamt of living or wish I did or wish I could have,” Offendum said. “Whether it’s Palestine or Damascus in Syria, or Little Syria, the neighborhood where all the other poets lived.”
Toward the end of his performance, Offendum recited a poem by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, titled “Alaa Hadhil Ard,” which translates to “On This Land.” After reciting the poem in Arabic, he recited its translation in English.
“We have on this land all of that which makes life worth living,” Offendum said.
The poem recounts the small details of everyday life, such as moss on a rock, bread’s aroma or the changing of seasons — the retention of which is the roof of “the invaders’ fear of memories” as Darwish wrote.
“The lady of our land, the mother of all beginnings, the mother of all ends, she was called Palestine,” the poem reads. “My lady, it is because you are my lady, that I have all of that which makes life worth living.”
After reciting Darwish’s poem, Offendum performed his song, “God is Love,” originally released in 2024 amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Palestine.
“This one is for Haifa, Yafa, Akka, Gaza, Areeha, Ramallah, Tabariyeh, Ramleh, Jenin, Safad, Beit Lahm, Al-Quds, Min il-Sahr, Lil-Jibaal and every Falasteeni hood around the world,” Offendum said, naming various Palestinian villages under Israeli occupation.
In these poems, land has always been tied to memory. For Arab Americans in the diaspora, like Offendum, stories about these lands are bearers of memory and connection for those unable to visit them.
“Without memory, you can’t have hope,” Offendum said. “It is something you have to maintain and cultivate because the oppressor doesn’t want us to have hope. Songs, stories and poetry are how we keep memories in our hearts and pass them on from generation to generation. It’s what human beings do. That’s especially what Arabs do.”
Written by: Khadeejah Khan — campus@theaggie.org
