Nizar Wattad

Nizar Wattad
Born	Palestine
Nationality	Palestinian American
Occupation	Hip hop producer, Rapper

Nizar Wattad is a Palestinian rapper, hip hop producer and screenwriter who grew up in the United States. He and his younger brother Bader were first exposed to hip-hop by a cousin in Palestine, and began freestyle rapping while growing up in Johnson City, Tennessee. After graduating from the George Washington University, Wattad found work as a journalist for a magazine on Middle East affairs. The attacks of September 11, 2001 motivated him and his younger brother Bader (B-Dub) to form a hip-hop crew, in the hopes of providing an alternative to the mainstream media's depiction of Arabs and Arab Americans. The brothers recruited the producing talents of GW alum CJ Pizarro (Cookie Jar), and formed The Philistines. Their lyrics reflect a wide range of contemporary issues, with particular emphasis on the situation of the Palestinians.

The film Slingshot Hip-Hop, which Wattad helped fund, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008, and Wattad has continued to perform alongside longtime friend and colleague Omar Chakaki (Offendum), with whom he co-produced the NOMADS vs Philistines mixtape. Wattad and Chakaki have also collaborated with hip-hoppers Excentrik and the Narcicyst on The Arab Summit: Fear of an Arab Planet, and with HBO Def Poet Mark Gonzales on the spoken-word presentation Brooklyn Beats to Beirut Streets.

Meanwhile, still hoping to reach a wider audience and pursuing his lifelong passion for storytelling, Wattad gave up journalism to earn a masters in screenwriting from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Two of his scripts have been finalists for notable prizes,2006's Agency for the 2006 ABC/Walt Disney Studios Writer's Fellowship and Glenville for the 2008 Sundance Screenwriter's Lab. Wattad has penned feature film scripts for Desert Door Productions and director Hany Abu-Assad of the Golden Globe-winning Paradise Now. Wattad is currently working on his Arab-American family drama Land of the Brave (finalist for the 2009 Sundance Lab and winner of the 2008 RAWI-Sundance Fellowship) while recording his solo album, Alter Ego.

References

• The Philistines
• Slingshot Hip-Hop

External links

• Profile of Nizar Wattad at the Institute for Middle East Understanding
• The Philistines on MySpace
• Ragtop on MySpace

Persondata
Name	Wattad, Nizar
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth	Palestine
Date of death
Place of death