Please check out this video from dancehall musician Elephant Man. I shot the photo off of my computer screen--it doesn't look so good but you get the idea. Note that the guys in kufiyas are wearing them on their heads. As Wayne, who alerted me to this, suggests, this probably indicates a more overt identification with the Palestinian struggle than the more "stylish" fashion of wearing the kufiya around the neck. (Thanks, comrade!)And "Nuh Linga" is a damned good song.
(And yes, Elephant Man has been criticized--rightly--for his anti-gay lyrics.)
1 comment:
thx for adding to the archives, ted! just to clarify, though, i'm not sure it's so easy to read any sort of political identification into this gesture. at the least, tho, it does suggest that the wearers understand the connection between the garmets and the middle east (if not palestine), as opposed to them just being trendy scarves.
this could as easily be read as a racist gesture -- akin to calling anyone of middle-eastern descent a "taliban," as they were doing in JA back in 02-03. plus, ele has been known to get into ethnic drag on many an occasion (see, e.g., "gypsy dance" or "mexican girl," which are almost so kitschy as to deconstruct themselves).
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