Turning the tables with Palestinian DJ Sama’ Abdulhadi
You’ve lived in many different places – where does your music feel most at home?
I change my music depending on the country. If I’m in Berlin, it’ll be a completely different set to the one I’ll play at home. It might have the same tracks, but you’ll hear the way I play them differently because I know the crowd is different. The music I play is Berlin techno, so it always works there, but Lebanon and Palestine are my favourite crowds.
As the first world-famous DJ to come from Palestine, do you feel any kind of pressure to represent your home?
There are so many different layers to being Palestinian and a lot of pressure on me to represent all those stories. I can speak for myself and a small section of Palestinians, but I can’t speak for the people in Gaza or Jerusalem. It’s an honour to be one of the few people who can be listened to, because we’ve never had anybody in the music industry to speak for us. I hope the community on this side of the world grows so that it won’t just be me who has to represent everybody.
DJs aren’t usually expected to have a degree in geopolitics…
Exactly. And the questions people ask me are really hard. I didn’t expect to have to be completely knowledgeable about world politics and [its terminology]. But now all I read is politics and history, so whatever question I get from some random fan in a club somewhere in the world, I have the right words to say. I feel that if I didn’t have those words, I’d be reflecting badly on six million people in Palestine.
You’ve been referred to as ‘the DJ who brought techno to Palestine’. How do you feel about that label?
Well, I did bring the genre here – and the tracks – but I didn’t make the first successful party. I tried to make techno parties work here and I failed! There are other people who made the scene happen. It was a collective effort – it was built by those people and by all the people who were willing to take a bus from Haifa [in northern Israel] to Ramallah, to come out to dance to this music. Now, the parties have people from all different cities and I’ll always come back and play.
You’ve formed a party collective called Union. Tell us about that.
I wanted to create a safe space, a home and a hub, so I contacted my DJ friends across Palestine and said, ‘Let’s make a collective.’ It’s open to anyone who wants to be a part of it, even if they’re not DJs. Members can be stage designers, people who do graffiti, who like to build light systems… they can even come to just help set up. Everyone will work all the jobs at a party. For example, I’ll DJ for two hours, then I’m at the door selling tickets for an hour, then in the bathrooms for an hour. It means that everybody gets two hours of dancing and two hours DJing. Nobody cares if we make money – and whatever we do make from it, we split.
Where do you usually hold your parties?
We take over different venues. We actually bring our own things from our homes to [furnish] the place: people bring their couch, their lamps, their rugs, to be part of the design of a party, and then they’ll pack it all up and take it back. There’s a real family vibe, and everybody has a vote on what we do. We took over an abandoned kitchen in a restaurant and turned it into a makeshift club where you had the lights going through the room, with the DJ booth on the stove. Then we packed it away until we did it again the month after. It was a crazy underground party, but it worked for a really long time without getting shut down.
But throwing a party hasn’t always been so easy – can you explain the circumstances that led to your arrest at Maqam Nabi Musa in 2020?
For some people it’s one of the holy sites. The government should have known it was a non-permit location, but they’ve been trying to make it more of a tourist attraction, so they’d been giving out permits. A lot of different [events] had happened at that location already, but with mine people noticed and the public went crazy about it. That’s when the government said that they had nothing to do with it – but they were the ones who’d given me the permit. It was the first fully legal party I’ve done, ever! Normally they would come and shut down a party, but they’d never imprison us. However, [this time] it became a public-opinion case. I still have a little bit of PTSD from it. The court case hasn’t happened yet, so it isn’t over. The people in the country didn’t get their closure, but I didn’t get mine either. I’m still not doing parties right now, out of respect.
Do you think the situation was handled fairly?
I guess they had to listen to the public. They could have just said they were sorry for giving me a permit. But they didn’t and it went into some dark places.
You’ve described techno as a healthy ritual for you. Is it still a safe space?
Yes. To be honest, it’s my therapist and I’m so happy that I do it more now. It can feel pretty serious before a big gig, but there’s a switch when I get on stage and press play. Everything disappears and I’m just there with the crowd and the speaker. I love that feeling.
Can you remember the first time you felt it?
It was an early time when I was playing in Ramallah. That’s always been a space I’m really comfortable in – even if I do make a mistake, nobody’s mad at me. The first time I played Fusion Festival in Germany I felt like I was having a panic attack the whole time, but now that festival just feels like my home.
What do you have planned for the near future?
Well, I’ve always wanted to create a festival in Palestine. I’ve always thought that if we could get a lot of big DJs to play here and loads of foreigners to come and see the country, it might make a difference. It could even change the world’s perspective a little.