NDTV Exclusive: Beats Beneath Rubble - Gaza Rapper Turns Survival Into Song

In the rubble-strewn lanes of Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp, a man who taught himself to make music is trying to do something that, in ordinary times, would have been simple: he is trying to be an artiste. He is also, deliberately and insistently, a witness to large-scale human suffering.

"I grew up in Jabalia camp, a place that taught me everything about patience and strength. My childhood wasn't ordinary, it was full of sounds: the sounds of bombing, people, and the distant sea. Amid all this, I was trying to create my own voice. I learned how to see beauty among ruins and to search for meaning in a place that reminds you of death every day," Mohammed Lafi, a 32-year-old Gaza-based rapper, told NDTV. 

The line between politics and art in Gaza has always been thin but since October 2023, it has been all but erased. As negotiators and mediators shuttle between capitals and resort towns -- diplomats discussing the logistics of hostage releases and conditions for any pause in fighting -- artistes inside the Strip continue to confront more basic constraints. 

For Lafi, the act of composing a beat or a rhyme is not only self-expression, it is survival.

"I discovered rap through the internet - through clips of foreign artists who spoke honestly, without filters. I felt that this genre resembles us in Gaza: direct, bold, and full of pain. The first time I wrote a lyric, I was angry at everything, and instead of screaming, I wrote. From that moment, I knew music wasn't just a hobby, but a way to survive," he told NDTV. 

"My inspiration doesn't come from names or icons, but from my life itself, which doesn't resemble anyone else's in this world. No one has lived what we've lived here, this strange mix of fear and resilience, loss and hope. Every moment I've lived, every farewell, every wall I've stared at -- that's my real inspiration. I write from an experience that cannot truly be translated into words," he added. 

The Limitations

The practicalities of making music under siege shape not just the content but the form. While delegations from Hamas and Israel on Monday began indirect talks in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh aimed at preparing conditions for the release of detainees and prisoners, the diplomatic outcome of the talks will shape the daily lives of Gazans for months, if not years. 

"Practically, everything here is difficult, power cuts, lack of equipment, the blockade, slow internet," Lafi told NDTV. "Rap, for me, is confession. I pour everything into it -- honestly, without masks. Sometimes I write to heal, sometimes to scream for those who cannot." 

"But these conditions shaped me into an artist who relies entirely on himself. I produce everything myself: from recording to music, from mixing and mastering to filming and editing. I studied multimedia to develop my tools, and now I also work in filmmaking, handling the camera and shots the same way I handle melodies and lyrics. The visual is an extension of the sound, the scene an extension of the idea. When I create a video or edit a scene, I approach it like a musical segment -- making every detail carry emotion, colour, and rhythm," he added. "Every obstacle in Gaza taught me something, every limitation pushed me to invent another path to reach my goal."

Art As Resistance 

Gaza's health ministry figures report a death count running into the tens of thousands since the October 2023 escalation; by early October 2025 the ministry's roll call had more than 67,000 dead and many more wounded.

Those numbers are not abstractions, Lafi said, adding that they are absences around which songs must be composed and performed. He speaks of friends and relatives and houses turned to dust. His songs are, by his own admission, acts of resistance. 

"I believe art is true resistance. Rap, for me, is the voice of those who have none. When I rap about a child who lost their home or a young man who lost his dream, that is resistance. Art isn't just a soft weapon; it's memory. Rap tells the story as it is -- raw, from the streets, for the streets," he told NDTV. 

One track in particular, a song titled 'Gone' he released in January 2022, remains the most personal work he has put out. The lyrics start with the idea that "what's gone is gone" but instead of closure, it's a constant cycle of loss and repetition. 

The voice here is that of a refugee who never settles, caught between displacement and the corruption around him. It's a confrontation with broken systems, with war that never ends, and with the feeling that the ground itself refuses stability.  The song captures the contradictions of life, people who dream of escaping and never returning home, and others who know the truth yet choose to lie. 

The Challenges 

It is difficult to overstate the scale of the material losses that underpin any creative act in Gaza. The besieged Palestinian territory has seen unimaginable devastation since October 7, 2023. 

"The first challenge is survival itself, staying alive and staying true to what I believe in. Then come technical challenges: power outages, lack of support, and no safe spaces for art. But perhaps the hardest is disappointment, when you feel like you're shouting to the world and it doesn't hear you," Lafi said. 

"I move around Gaza, living in temporary places. Food and water have become complicated, but we try to live day by day. My house was completely destroyed, and I lost many lifelong friends, neighbours, and several relatives as well. We were displaced and lived in tents; now we all share two small rooms that we try to call home. Every day brings a new struggle for food, water, and the simplest human needs. We barely manage to hold ourselves together, working every day to mend what remains inside us. We've lost so much around us, and we fear losing ourselves from within if this continues for long," he added. 

Message To The World 

Gaza's 2.3 million residents, whose access to essentials increasingly depends on how logistics, security, and politics play out in Jerusalem, have very limited options to reach out to the world. Lafi hopes that his music could serve as the conduit through which the message from Gaza reaches all around the globe. 

"I dream of taking my music beyond the blockade, for our voices to reach the world - not as headlines, but as art, as life. I want to be a bridge between Gaza and the world, to show that behind wars, there are humans who dream, sing, and create music from the ashes. My goal isn't fame; it's to leave an honest mark - to say: 'We were here... and we spoke our truth.' If the world is to listen, then let them hear who we were when we were still here."