Nizar Wattad is a Palestinian rapper, hip hop producer and screenwriter who grew up in the United States. He and his younger brother Bader were first exposed to hip-hop by a cousin in Palestine, and began freestyle rapping while growing up in Johnson City, Tennessee. After graduating from the George Washington University, Wattad found work as a journalist for a magazine on Middle East affairs. The attacks of September 11, 2001 motivated him and h...
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Nizar Wattad is a Palestinian rapper, hip hop producer and screenwriter who grew up in the United States. He and his younger brother Bader were first exposed to hip-hop by a cousin in Palestine, and began freestyle rapping while growing up in Johnson City, Tennessee. After graduating from the George Washington University, Wattad found work as a journalist for a magazine on Middle East affairs. The attacks of September 11, 2001 motivated him and his younger brother Bader (B-Dub) to form a hip-hop crew, in the hopes of providing an alternative to the mainstream media's depiction of Arabs and Arab Americans. The brothers recruited the producing talents of GW alum CJ Pizarro (Cookie Jar), and formed The Philistines. Their lyrics reflect a wide range of contemporary issues, with particular emphasis on the situation of the Palestinians.
The film Slingshot Hip-Hop, which Wattad helped fund, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008, and Wattad has continued to perform alongside...
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