For nearly a year, Palestinians living in Gaza have faced an endless torrent of death and destruction. Since the October 7 attack by Hamas, more than 40,000 people (at least 16,456 of them children) have been killed in Israel’s assault on the Gaza strip. In all, The Lancet medical journal estimates the death toll will reach more than 186,000. Simultaneously, at least 115 Palestinian children have been killed in the West Bank, triple the number in the previous year, in an area that is ostensibly not a war zone.
During that year, much of the world has viewed Palestinians solely through the lens of suffering—war-ravaged, oppressed, displaced. Yet reducing their existence to grief alone erases the spectrum of emotions animating them. Even amidst genocide, joy can be more than a rejection of oppression; it can be a defiant assertion of humanity, a reminder that life can flourish even in the bleakest times.
It can also be a radical rebellion, a transgressive claim to happiness in the face of constant erasure. And so can community. That belief was the catalyst for this weekend’s Palestine Will Live Forever benefit concert, the brainchild of Gabriel Teodros and Maher Joudi.
Taking place this Saturday, September 21, at the Seward Park Amphitheater, the benefit will feature performers including Calina Lawrence, Essam, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, the Native Guns, Nikkita Oliver, Macklemore, and Ijeoma Oluo. All proceeds will be evenly split and donated to Palestinian aid organizations, including Pious Projects, HEAL Palestine, UNRWA, and Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.
Allow me to address those I’ve already seen and heard dismissing this festival online as something it is not.
I understand the emotionally pitched feelings as we near the one-year anniversary of October 7. I ask readers skeptical of this festival to grapple with this: What does it mean to excuse the disproportionate suffering and mutilation of hundreds of thousands of people who had nothing whatsoever to do with the terror attacks that day? It means a radical abandonment of an empathy that is not zero-sum but reciprocal. Without that class of empathy, what can be our future except for indefinite death and destruction?
What I believe this concert to be is pro-life in the truest sense of the word and a reminder of humanity in tragically inhumane times. Compassion for the Palestinian people—a people who Israel is not at war with, according to its emissary to the United Nations—does not require a renunciation of the pain of the families who lost loved ones in Hamas’ attack or a belief in anything beyond the death and desecration of Palestine ceases.
For Teodros and Joudi, the hiphop showcase stands as much more than music; it is a lifeline. For Teodros—a former KEXP radio host, musician, and writer—art has always been a tool to ignite change, blending hiphop with a deep connection to global struggles. Maher, a Palestinian-American organizer, father, and community leader, has brought this concert to life not just to raise funds for Gaza, but to remind the world that Palestinians have not forgotten their claim to all that life bestows: Jubilee and affirmation.
Along with nearly a dozen other organizers, they’ve created a music festival that amplifies defiance and hope, asserting that even in the face of unimaginable loss, Palestinian art, expression, and music remains a form of resistance. In a world determined to erase Gaza, and censor advocacy for it, they ask: What does joy look like when survival itself is rebellion? What does it mean to insist on the right not just to live, but to thrive? I spoke with both to get that answer.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Both of you have long been outspoken about Palenstinain rights and self-determination even before the genocide now taking place in Gaza and the ongoing atrocities in the West Bank. Why did you feel that the vehicle of a hiphop festival in Seattle’s South End was an effective way to harness the emotions of this moment that has seen so much death, displacement, and destruction?
Joudi: It’s funny that you ask that question because I actually posted a video about doing a music festival in the midst of this that was posted on Instagram. It’s difficult… The dichotomy of living as a Palestinian America in America is hard. You’re just trying to live life.
I have two kids. I have a family. I have a job. I’m personally blessed. But this is at the forefront of your mind every day you wake up. You’re thinking about Palestine at all times. You could be doom scrolling all day, you’re talking to people about it. It leaks into every conversation that you have, and it really starts to dictate how you look at the world. So, the decision to even proceed with this didn’t come easy.
I have been a hiphop head my whole life. That’s the music that I’ve run to in times of joy and times of trauma. Hiphop is the first place that I ran to to find music that spoke about Palestine. It introduced me to so many artists that I never even knew existed.The language of resistance found within hiphop, particularly Palestinian hiphop, pulled me through some really dark shit.
The way that these young Palestinian artists were able to mesh trauma with resistance, I was just like, we gotta try to figure out how to get these guys out here. Like, if I feel this way, I know everybody else does.
What artists are you most excited about performing?
Teodros: The first one that comes to mind is Suheir Hammad. Having her share her poetry at the festival is such a big deal, especially at this time. She doesn’t perform much at all, so it’s rare to even see her on stage. She was my introduction to all things Palestine because I read her book Born Palestinian, Born Black sometime in the late ’90s. And I would say this as an Ethiopian American hiphop artist, Suheir is the first person of any background that I felt gave me permission to stand in all of my truth, share every part of my story, and see that none of it contradicts. That’s what I felt when I saw her tell her own story.
Joudi: The first time I heard her was on Def Poetry Jam in 2001. She performed a poem that spoke to being Palestinian after 9/11. I was a 20-year-old Palestinian kid in America and the towers had just fallen. That was a heavy load. I remember listening to that poem probably daily for six months, and it brought me to tears every single day. Suheir is definitely beyond this world for us as a community. But I also want to highlight some others we’ve met on this journey we’ve been on the last two months, including a brother by the name of Abe Batshon, out of Texas. After five minutes of talking to this guy, he put a battery in us to just go. He was like, “I don’t think you guys understand, how important this is.” That was the sentiment of so many people we talked to when we brought up the idea of doing this.
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Why did you feel this concert was so needed locally?
Joudi: We live as Palestinians every day. And everyday, I feel so grateful to be Palestinian, regardless of what we’ve already gone through, and what we’re going through. The all-encompassing thing with this festival is it quickly morphed into being not just music (yes, they’re all musical artists) but we were recently on a three-hour Zoom call talking about our messaging. It’s not a party. It’s a part of our resistance. These artists were very much hand picked because of what their message to the world is and what that message means in this current dynamic that we Palestinians find our lives in.
So in some ways the concert is also cathartic?
Joudi: It’s definitely cathartic. At least it’s cathartic for me. When the genocide in Gaza started in October, I was left grasping for straws and trying to figure out how do I make a difference? I ended up connecting with a few other Palestinians trying to meet with congressionals to have our voice heard, and we started doing political advocacy work. We met with [Seattle] Mayor Bruce Harrell in November. We started meeting with [Washington Senators] Maria Cantwell’s and Parry Murray’s offices.
But the political stuff can be so depleting. There is no energy given back. So, when we started doing this, it felt like an energy boost because as much work that’s gone into it, it really fills my cup in a world where my cup has been leaking since 2000.
Teodros: We’ve been getting messages from people all around the map. It’s definitely starting to feel like a destination kind of festival. One of the things that Abe said to us that really stood out to me was that it’s the first time he’s seen this many Palestinian hiphop artists from different generations share a stage. We have folks who are our age, along with artists like Sammy Shiblaq, who is in his twenties. You got to look out for him because his delivery, his cadence, his whole vibe is different from anybody else on the bill. He’s from Detroit and definitely has his own style.
We’re highlighting the Palestinian artists because we should. But there’s also a lot of artists, like myself, who aren’t Palestinian but who have just been very outspoken in solidarity for years and years. We have Native Guns (Bambu, Kiwi, and DJ Phatrick), Rell Be Free, and Macklemore, who have all been consistent on Palestine.
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Hiphop celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. One of the themes of the celebration was how, at its best, hiphop is an art form of resistance. What are your thoughts on that in relation to this concert?
Teodros: There’s a film that came out in 2008 called Slingshot Hip Hop, and it’s all about hiphop in Palestine. That film is one of my favorite documentaries about the hiphop period because it showcases the way that the spirit of this thing that we grew to call hiphop has translated into different places as a music of struggle, a music of resistance, a music that fights for liberation.
In this documentary there’s this group called DAM who are known as Palestine’s first hiphop crew. They’re discussing watching Tupac’s video for his song “Holler If Ya Hear Me.” He’s rapping in a place that looks like a place where the group was. Just that imagery of hiphop provides permission for the group to tell their own stories. Seeing that film was just so deep to me.
One of my favorite memories of hiphop culture is that I got to connect in a real way to other hiphop artists from Palestine and learn about their real stories from them in person. They’re not being interviewed on CNN. The most powerful expression of hiphop that I’ve seen in my life is hiphop from Palestine. I mean to be from a place where you’re living under apartheid and you’re facing tanks and you’ve got nothing but rocks, and you’re rapping to tell your story. This is what’s important about this culture to me. It’s a movement for freedom. Our movement for freedom as people of color in America is intrinsically tied up with the struggle for Palestinian Liberation.
Joudi: There’s a reason growing up that I felt a connection to NWA and Public Enemy, but I didn’t feel a connection to the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Nirvana, even though I lived in Seattle. Hiphop talks about struggle and trauma in the bloodline that is generational. These are conversations that resonate with the Palestinian diaspora. The first visuals that I saw when Ferguson, Missouri popped off after the death of Michael Brown was of teenagers in the Gaza Strip holding up signs that said I stand with Ferguson. They related their struggle to what was going on there. All of our liberation struggles are connected. If you only try to solve one, you’ll never solve any of them, right? Hiphop helped me bridge that gap before anything else.
So how important do you think the imagery of this festival is with all of the bad faith arguments and flat out misrepresentation found in many mainstream media sources around the movement for Palestinian liberation?
Joudi: The greatest form of rebellion is community. People who want to engage in bad faith can say what they want to say. Thankfully, I’m around people whose opinions I value, who support us, and so all the rest of it just fades away. No struggle was ever won with anybody rocking with the mainstream anyway. I mean, it wouldn’t be a struggle if it was.
There are definitely days where that stuff could get to you, and you get frustrated, for sure. The gaslighting is really crazy. But the reason why this time feels different is because we previously lived in a world where we had to just listen to whatever mainstream news told you. There was no other resource. What made this so crazy is we got cell phone videos from day one showing us what was actually happening. So you put that side by side with what CNN is showing you, and you call bullshit right away. You know what I’m saying? Like we have real news, not CNN, not Fox. Now we got real news.
Teodros: On top of that, hiphop is storytelling. We are centering Palestinian stories at the end of the day in the service of Gaza. And I feel like that’s what legacy media misses. They never put a microphone in front of Palestinian people’s faces, ever. They never center the voices of the people living through this shit. What brought me to hiphop, was that I never saw my story reflected in the media period. So what do you do? You tell your own story. You start writing raps. You do graffiti. You do all these accessible forms of art that come from Black innovation here in America. I feel like hiphop was social media before social media.
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I want to be clear that this is in no way to minimize either the rise in antisemitism or anti-Palestinian bigotry that have both increased since the October 7 attacks. But I want to ask about a few local social media personalities on the right who have tried to paint the festival as anti-semetic for taking place in the Seward Park neighborhood, which has a large Jewish community. Do you want to address that at all?
Teodros: It’s typical. The conversation around this festival started in a coffee shop in the South End. I’m born and raised in the South End. Seward Park is a place that we all went to growing up, for everything from Pista to Hispanic Seafair. So hosting it in Seward Park just made sense. The Amphitheater is a venue that’s accessible, where we knew we could bring a pretty big crowd, and we wanted to do this outdoors. It’s a neighborhood that houses Jewish and Muslim communities amongst so many others. Yes, this is a Palestinian issue but this is also a human rights issue that touches all our communities. Anyone who doubts that should come out on September 21 and see for yourself. Some of the loudest voices we have in support of the festival are Jewish.
So what’s your vision for this festival after this year?
Teodros: Whenever I think about an event of this scale, I like to think about the relationships and bonds that are built through bringing people together and through time seeing what that grows into. We’re bringing a lot of people together that have never shared a stage or even met each other. But that’s one of the main superpowers that we have as artists and organizers, bringing people together over a shared experience, a shared mission, a shared vision. And once you bring those people together and they connect over something that’s real, it’s like seeing what they do with that is just, is really exciting.
Joudi: I’m excited for what the future is for all the reasons that Gabriel shared. I also think that there’s going to be momentum that we have to capitalize on afterwards, both community locally and nationally. A lot of these artists are coming from a lot of different places, and I think have found avenues to express themselves through music but maybe don’t have the community around them to organize beyond that point. I hope to provide an avenue for them to find a community in us and in people that are like minded and have come together for this festival, to be able to move and continue to push the message, to continue to educate, to continue to organize, to continue to resist beyond just the festival. I think if we do all of this and garner this much momentum and then just let it fizzle out afterwards, then I don’t think we’ve completed our job. I think we’ve left a lot on the table.
I just hope everybody that comes to this festival gets involved, if they’re not already with the Palestinian cause in any and every way they can. There’s a lot of artists I love that haven’t spoken up, and I don’t know why but I really hope this kind of festival inspires more artists to use their voice for justice. We do all of this in service of our people in Palestine, whether it’s marching, having meetings, or showcasing our art. All of this is in service to them and their resistance.
Palestine Will Live Forever: A Benefit Festival for Palestine is Saturday, September 21, at Seward Park Amphitheater, 1-8 pm, $30, all ages.
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