“Mr. President
Your people are dying
People eat from the garbage
Look what is happening in your country
Misery is everywhere
People have nowhere to sleep
Today I speak fearlessly on behalf of the people
Crushed under the boots of injustice”
With these words, Tunisian rapper Hamada Ben Amor, also known as El Général, became one of the loudest voices of the Arab Spring. Recorded in December of 2010, the song, “Rais Lebled”, became a YouTube sensation and the anthem of the Tunisian revolution.
El Général appears in “The Protester: A Portfolio by Peter Hapak” featured on LightBox yesterday, part of TIME’s Person of the Year 2011. At the end of the shoot we asked El Général to freestyle for us, a cappella.