"Listen to my story! Listen to my pain and suffering!’’ Afghanistan’s first female rapper Sosan Firooz pleads into her microphone.
「聽聽我的故事!聽我的苦難!」阿富汗首位女性饒舌歌手費魯茲透過麥克風請求。
With her first rap song, the outspoken 23-year-old singer is making history in her homeland where society frowns on women who take the stage. She is already shunned by some of her relatives.
But for Firooz, the best way to express herself is through rap, a musical genre that is just starting to generate a following in Afghanistan. She sings about repression of women, her hopes for a peaceful Afghanistan and the misery she says she experienced as a small child living in neighboring Iran.
So far, the song, titled "Our Neighbors," has only been released on YouTube, with a video that shows a series of pictures of Firooz posing in a hip-hop style gear. In some pictures, she wears a bandana with skulls, but her long hair flows freely, with no headscarf — a rarity among Afghan women.
Firooz is also an actress, appearing in secondary roles in a number of local TV soap operas. Earlier this month, she sang at a three-day music festival in Kabul.(AP)