Photographs by Zakaria Hussein for The Key
Back in the 1970s, in his tailor shop on the outskirts of Nablus, Haykal’s late grandfather wove sumud into his stitching, tripling the thread of each shirt button so it could withstand torture and neglect in Zionist prisons. He found enduring resistance in the thinnest string.
The lesson was passed to Haykal’s father, and from his father to him.
Half a century later, the rapper known as Haykal is stitching together a run in Arabic hip-hop that is gathering momentum. With video freestyles, anti-imperialist lyrics, and live performances from Amman to New York, Haykal spent years building up to his third album, Kam Min Janneh | كم من جنّة (or, in English, How Many Heavens) — and it might be his best work yet.
Haykal is considered one of the most talented lyricists of his generation, a rapper’s rapper. Originally from Ramallah, he came up in the contemporary Palestinian hip-hop scene, where his razor-sharp politics, wit, and honesty quickly established him as one of its pillars. Then he developed a critical lung condition; unable to receive treatment in Palestine, he began the next chapter of his life in New York.
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Photographs by Zakaria Hussein for The Key
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