An Interview with Playlist 4 Palestine
A conversation with the hosts of WOBC's Playlist 4 Palestine
By Edie Carey
At the start of the semester, I found myself looking through the WOBC show schedule at the some 150 different programs broadcasting 24/7 on air and online. In my three semesters as part of WOBC, I was used to tuning in to the station on a whim to hear someone play a tune that reminds them of their favorite sexually transmitted disease, or maybe debut their friend’s experimental hyperpop cover of a Dolly Parton song. So I was surprised when I saw that the station’s Sunday 3pm broadcast is called Playlist 4 Palestine, described as a “weekly broadcast of Palestinian news, literature, and music curated by students.” Intrigued about this unique slot on WOBC’s airtime, I sat down with the show’s DJs to talk about music as resistance, radio as an educational tool, Palestinian history, and more.
Tell me a bit about your show. How is it structured, why did you want to do it, and what’s your planning process like?
DJ Pel: I had the idea when I was applying for board that I wanted to do more student org stuff with the radio, and I figured, why not start with SFP? Because that's one that I'm super involved in. We also have a lot of people in SFP who are involved in the radio, and it felt like a really great medium that we hadn't really tapped into yet. We've done a lot of zines, we've done film screenings, teach-ins, but auditory stuff, we'd never done. And also, it's not only a school resource, it's a community resource. The first couple weeks, there wasn't a whole lot of structure to it, we were just playing music and talking about it, then we came up with the flow. We usually do news, then we pick a focus for each week, so this week we’re talking about US relations with Israel, and giving historical context, current context, and then find both music and poetry on that topic.*
*DJ Pel also wanted to note after our interview that it was SFP and Kayla Shomar-Corbett who brought the idea for the show to fruition.
DJ Isaiah: I wanted to join just because I've had a lot of thoughts on everything that's happened since October 7, and even before that. I was involved with SFP for some time, but not as involved as I wanted to be, and I thought this would be like a great way to be more involved. I've always thought about wanting to do a radio show because I feel like I just kind of like to yap about things that I'm passionate about, and this is a great way to do that. I really like finding poetry, and finding voices that can provide super potent emotional perspectives on things I wouldn’t be able to do myself, and [elevate] the voices of those that are intimately involved with everything that’s going on.
DJ Patty: I think this is a really good medium to get more of Palestinian culture, because a lot of the teach-ins or movies we screen are all focused specifically on the conflict. But I thought that, you know, the music and the poetry was another way to sort of appreciate Palestinian culture, not through the lens of the terrible events that are happening now.
What do you hope to convey to your listeners?
DJ Patty: This did not all start on October 7. This is not something that's new. This is something that's been happening for 75 odd years now.
DJ Isaiah: A lot of the poetry that I've read talks about how the general themes of everything that's happening in Palestine is not confined to Palestine itself by any means. It's a struggle for humanism and respect for all forms of life, and refuting these concepts like imperialism, settler colonialism, that are central to Palestine but transcend just that area. It has to do with all of our societies. I want to compel people to really think of Palestine in a super broad sense that impacts their lives in the most intimate ways imaginable.
How do you navigate talking about Palestinian issues while adhering to FCC guidelines on political speech, especially during election season?
I think in some ways it's actually easy, because US support for Israel has been very bipartisan. We're not endorsing any political party or candidate because the majority of them support Israel, and that’s part of our issue and part of why we want to discuss this. Obviously, politics is intertwined with it, but like Isaiah said, it’s also a human issue, and trying to appeal to it from a moral and emotional lens has been really impactful I think. It’s definitely a challenge, but I feel like it’s clear where we stand as people putting on the show and as SFP, but I think we do enough to give listeners information and let them make up their own minds.
Who are some Palestinian artists—whether that’s musicians or poets—that people should know about, but probably don’t?
DJ Patty: Mohammed Assaf has that song, Dammi Falastini, which was super popular, but he has a lot of other really good stuff, too.
DJ Isaiah: In terms of poetry, Mosab Abu Toha is super outspoken. He has a lot of really good contemporary poetry.
DJ Pel: Fadwa Tuqan, she is considered the mother of Palestinian poetry. And personally, there’s this artist Bashar Murad, who is kind of famous in Europe because he's been semi involved in Eurovision discourse. He was going to possibly be in Eurovision for Iceland, but then didn't get it, which is especially controversial, because Israel is allowed in Eurovision and continues to be allowed. But he's Palestinian and he's queer, and you can hear it in his music. But also he makes it very clear that he's Palestinian first, and we can't be concerned about queer Palestinian rights without being concerned about larger Palestinian rights. And I think that's really important. I also just really like his music! Zeinab Shaath, she is not Palestinian, but she did this EP called the Urgent Call For Palestine in 1972 which was just declassified this year.
DJ Patty: It’s actually kind of a crazy story behind that. In 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon, they invaded the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) Research Center, and they demolished and destroyed and stole a bunch of boxes of archival material, including all of the original prints of [the EP].
DJ Pel: I think that especially really speaks to the culture aspect and the importance of music and poetry in Palestinian liberation movements. The fact that they saw it as something so threatening that it was something to be classified and destroyed reinforces why this feels important. There’s also a legacy of, for Palestinian men who are in Israeli prisons and detention camps, Palestinian women would sing outside of their camps in a coded way so that the Israeli guards would not be able to decipher what they were saying but the men would understand that people would come rescue them.
That kind of answers my other question, which was how do you see the role of music in the Palestinian cause.
DJ Pel: Well, Dammi Falastini, that song has become such a symbol for Palestinian liberation, both for Palestinians but also the rest of the world especially in the past year, and it was removed from Spotify. There’s been a lot of suppression, so we’re seeing how the attempt to suppress just actually shows how powerful it is and how much it is a unionizing force for people.
DJ Patty: I'd also say just our last show, we played a few songs that were traditional folk songs, even dating back to before the British Mandate of Palestine to the Ottoman occupation. I think it's really interesting to see how these songs change over time, to sort of relay the narrative of the different events that have happened over the years.
DJ Isaiah: Yeah, and I don't want to say it hits harder, but it kind of touches different parts of you, the listener, in a way that just like cold hard statistics or facts don't. It gives you a really personal angle towards the whole struggle that is really important for humanizing Palestinians. It makes you able to build a more holistic image of Palestinians.
Do you guys have anything else to add?
DJ Isaiah: Please listen to our show!
DJ Patty: Come to SFP!
DJ Isaiah: Give us calls!