In an industry where men are allowed to react and women can only overreact, Etaf Almutawa, a rising Kuwaiti-Palestinian artist, doesn’t shy away from expressing her anger at the Arab patriarchy in her latest single, ‘Small Details’.
Since her emergence in the music scene, the UK-based singer has quickly built up a reputation for her radical and authentic music, which she uses as a banner for Arab women’s liberation and empowerment. Her musical style refuses to conform to the traditional genre structures, crafting a genre-defying sound that is as political and intersectional as it can get.
Her latest track ‘Small Details’, which marks her first venture into Arabic rap music, is nothing short of that. She continues to harness her personal struggles as an Arab woman under a misogynistic and patriarchal society as a source of inspiration for her music. Through provocative and powerful Arabic verses against the backdrop of fast street beats, she crafts a narrative that resonates with many women worldwide who share her cultural background.
The track opens with Etaf criticising, in a somewhat satirical manner, the archaic social constraints that try to control women’s bodies, behaviours and expressions as a way of dismantling those patriarchal notions of femininity. Throughout the song, she refers to these challenges as ‘small’ in the sense that they are unnoticed. She calls on women to unite against adversity and oppression, singing, “It feels good to become a revolution in the name of honour. You and I we are a revolution.”
