With John Lennon as Muse, Palestinian Rapper Tamer Nafar Tells Stories of Past and Future

Tamer Nafar is in Amsterdam, having already performed in seven European cities — Birkenhead, London, Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, Brussels — by the time we speak. Touring his first solo album, In the Name of the Father, the Imam and John Lennon , the rapper and founding member of influential Palestinian collective DAM is adamant on discovering, or rather, refining his set-list to find the best sequence to convey his message. Language and the arts that engage it are a dominant and recurring theme in N

Across music, acting, screenwriting, and activism, and being fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, it’s the positioning of the words and the sequence of narrative that he instead focuses on as we dive headfirst into our conversation. “Last night, I think we got it right. I think we got it good, like I think we nailed it,” he says, looking at his touring bandmates in the room. “That sequencing of the story, which song to go after which, it’s so important. We like to get it right, to experiment, to tell that story.” Through this album, Nafar’s decades-long journey through hip-hop, identity, and activism converges. In the Name of the Father, the Imam & John Lennon is a record that’s been years in the making and born out of urgency both personal and political. Nafar grew up in Lydda, a mixed Palestinian-Jewish city near Tel Aviv. Rife with neglect, poverty, and violence, he was attuned to observation as much as he was to writing. Teenagers in his neighborhood navigated one of the largest drug markets in the country, where police presence was often as threatening as it was absent. Amidst the chaos, he discovered an outlet in hip-hop. Tupac’s handcuffed youth and anti-authority ideas felt strangely familiar, and Nafar, armed with a dictionary and determination to dream beyond the misery in front of him, began translating lyrics, eventually finding words that would best convey his own story. I tried to find producers, but it was all wedding producers.

Key points

• Across music, acting, screenwriting, and activism, and being fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, it’s the positioning of the words and the sequence of narrative that he instead focuses on as we…
• “Last night, I think we got it right.
• I think we got it good, like I think we nailed it,” he says, looking at his touring bandmates in the room.
• “That sequencing of the story, which song to go after which, it’s so important.
• We like to get it right, to experiment, to tell that story.” Through this album, Nafar’s decades-long journey through hip-hop, identity, and activism converges.