Apr 2001
In this issue:
Features
Amman City Limits
"A-City" is MC Maze's shout-out to his home town. And with the help of Dima Amr, its now Jordan's very first hip-hop video clip.
Issue: Jun, 2008
Documentaries being screened at Sundance, name-checks with the Wu Tang Clan, million-plus downloads on YouTube, front covers on NOX magazine… the explosion of Arabic hip-hop has been as loud as it has been enduring. It’s everywhere. Apart, that is from Jordan. Amman maybe many things, but a hotbed of urban music isn’t one of them. Make that a hotbed any music.
MC Maze has, if you’ve been reading the pages of this magazine for the last year or so, has certainly been trying to change that – single-handedly in some cases. The smooth-flowing MC and lyricist from Amman has been pushing out songs relentlessly for the past 18 months, and was even commissioned to try and get youngsters in Jordan to vote in largely meaningless elections. So, someone, somewhere is taking notice.
The next step was the inaugural pop video. And, appropriately enough, the first hip-hop clip to be shot in Jordan’s capital is called “A-City” – whose lyrics we featured, if any of you were paying attention, in issue 17. Directed by Deema Amr, the video featured various amounts of ’tude in the genteel Abdoun, the perennially clogged Swefieh and the old skool environs of Jebel Amman.
“This is going to be Jordan’s history,” Maze said. Or maybe hollored. “Jordan is about to witness the strength of its local talents, big time. Everybody is asking me about the track, and have even started to call Amman ‘A-city’ as well. I am receiving messages saying I am representing the flag like no one ever did."
So, with half an eye on posterity, we sent down our photographer to shoot the shoot. So to speak. “Now I can call myself the very first Jordanian hip-hop artist,” says Maze. “I’m major without a major deal. Petra is the seventh wonder of the world, but I’m the first hip hop wonder in Jordan… ha ha!”
