From Boasting to Social Engagement: Humorous Traits in Levantine Arabic Rap

The aim of this paper is to show how (black) humour, sarcasm and cynicism – which are deeply embedded in rap music in general – can be richly detected in Levantine and Egyptian Arabic rap/spoken word lyrics of the past few years, starting from the Arab revolts in 2011. These stylistic features are used to attain many effects: from shocking the audience in order to make them aware of social problems, to deconstructing the historical narrative which lays behind some historical figures or events, and from expressing an ultimate attempt of resistance in a world that is becoming more and more puzzling – especially after the failure of the revolts at achieving their goals –, to creating a parallel universe made up of brilliantly combined words. Considering a number of rap sub-genres (i.e. egotrip, political rap, nonsense and party rap and others), the paper displays the usage of humourous features providing a wide range of examples. Furthermore, it aims at analysing the strictly literary value of puns, which can be seen also in a perspective of verbal competition, in a manner that is not irrelevant to the Arabic literary tradition.