MTV of Arabia: Network Shows Middle East with a Hip-Hop Beat

NEW YORK — Hunting for hip hop's next big star, music producer Farid "Fredwreck" Nassar holds auditions in city after city, seeking an aspiring few to battle for fame before TV viewers.

The formula may seem familiar, but the scenery and sounds are not. These cities where hip hop is a growing underground sensation include Cairo, Dubai and Beirut, and the rap is often in Arabic.

The show is "Hip Hop Na," or "My Hip Hop," the flagship program of MTV Arabia, a new free satellite channel from Viacom Inc. that debuts across the Middle East on Nov. 17.

"To go to Beirut and actually see kids breakdancing and to see full-on (graffiti) murals across the walls, it's amazing," said Nassar, who has produced for Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent and Britney Spears. "They're rapping about the social things going on in their country."

For many in the United States, mention of the Middle East conjures thoughts of the Iraq war, high oil prices and political turmoil.

But New York-based Viacom and other U.S. media companies increasingly see a land of opportunity where a diverse and youthful population embrace music and entertainment, including international and Western imports.

Many companies are drawn to the United Arab Emirates, between Saudi Arabia and Oman and across the Persian Gulf from Iran. Developers there are turning desert into Dubailand, touted as the world's largest theme park.

NBC Universal, a division of General Electric Co., said in May it will open a $2.2 billion park within Dubailand in 2010, bringing attractions based on movies such as "King Kong" and "Jurassic Park."

Viacom plans a Nickelodeon theme park there complete with SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer. A Nickelodeon Arabia channel is to launch next year, and an Arabic Comedy Central may follow.

Time Warner Inc., the media giant behind properties including CNN and AOL, said in September that it would ally with firms in the emirate of Abu Dhabi to develop a Warner Bros. theme park and hotel, a movie theater chain, film productions and video games.

"This strategic alliance marks a significant step in Time Warner's commitment to grow its businesses internationally," said Jeff Bewkes, the chief operating officer who is widely expected to take over as CEO in coming months.

Viacom's MTV Arabia, a partnership with the Dubai-based Arab Media Group, plans to deliver music videos, original programs and versions of shows such as "Cribs" and "Pimp My Ride" to about a dozen nations including Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen.

Of the region's 190 million potential viewers, 65 percent are younger than 25, said Bhavneet Singh, managing director of emerging markets for MTV Networks International. He said the region also includes three of the world's fastest growing advertising markets.

"It's staggering from a business and consumer point of view," he said.

While there are hundreds of TV channels in the region, many of them focusing on music, Singh said MTV Arabia aims to stand out with a quality mix of music, original lifestyle and reality shows and the area's first televised focus on Arabic hip hop.

"There is a unique gap there in that market and we definitely want to own that space," he said. "We want to capture a lot of what is happening on the ground with the youth and what is important to them."

The programming includes a show where viewers with webcams act as VJs, a behind-the-scenes look at the Arab music industry and tours of Middle East street scenes looking for artists with skills such as beat-boxing, breakdancing or magic tricks.

The ad-supported channel also will show desert "dune bashing," popular off-road driving over, around and into sand dunes.

While MTV has launched customized channels around the world, MTV Arabia presents special challenges with a region that shares a language but has varied cultural sensitivities.

"What's OK in Egypt might not be OK in Saudi Arabia," Singh said.

In the Middle East, families tend to watch TV together on a single household set, so MTV Arabia will seek to be "edgy" and "wholesome" at the same time, he said.

For Muslim viewers, the channel will on Fridays at noon have a call-to-prayer graphic float over programming in a corner of the screen.

Singh said the channel employs a large team of censors to edit out offensive language or revealing outfits to ensure shows are universally appropriate while maintaining artistic quality. International music videos will represent more than half of those broadcast.

"You can't show half-naked women on TV. It's a different kind of culture," Nassar said. "You don't have to show that to make a good channel and have good videos. You actually have to put some mind into it and make a video that has a story line."

At the heart of MTV Arabia's ambitious plans is Hip Hop Na, hosted by Nassar and Qusai Khidr, also known as Don Legend, an artist and producer who grew up in Saudi Arabia, but often calls Orlando, Fla., home. He has performed in cities including Atlanta, New York and Chicago.

Over 12 episodes, the show intends to search out local hip-hop "heroes" to unveil the music scene in their cities. The hosts will pick new talent to compete to record a track on the show's compilation album.

Hip hop in the Middle East is much like it was in America during the late 1980s, with an underground club following ready to burst into the mainstream, Nassar said.

"Our mission is to discover it and give it a platform," he said.

Nassar, whose parents are Palestinian, said the Middle East's music shows a diversity that belies Western stereotypes of a monolithic region.

In Beirut, people speak Arabic, French and English and that is reflected by its rappers, he said. Dubai's population includes people from Pakistan, India, Sudan and the emirates.

"Every little region has it's thing," Nassar said, comparing it to the way Los Angeles has black and Latino rap.

"I bet you there are some tight rappers in Iraq. I'd be really interested in what they're rapping about," he said. "The whole thing about rap music is that you can rap about something that anybody can listen to and say 'that story can be about me.'"

On the Web:

MTV Arabia: mtva.com