For mainstream hip-hop fans used to hearing lyrics about East-West rivalries and other American concerns, Adil Omar rhymes in unfamiliar territory.
The Islamabad, Pakistan, native gives a shout-out to cricketer Shahid Afridi and riffs on his country’s traffic jams and weather (“You wonder why I’m cocky, ‘cos I stay burning hotter than a summer in Karachi”). His lyrics are punctuated by shouts of “Islamabad, get up! L.A., get up!” He also plays up his outsider status (“I’m a foreign damnation at your borderline waitin’,” from “Paki Rambo”), while mocking the globalization that facilitated his rise (his song “Ten Thousand” ends with a skinny vanilla latte order).
The 21-year-old got his big break in 2008, when Cypress Hill rapper B-Real came across his music online and invited him to Los Angeles to collaborate on his album “The Harvest.” Two years later, Mr. Omar released a track online, “Incredible,” and followed it with another single, “Off the Handle,” featuring L.A. rapper Xzibit and produced by Fredwreck, who is known for his work with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.
Mr. Omar is now working on “The Mushroom Cloud Effect,” an album slated for release this year that will feature Westerners such as Xzibit, Everlast and B-Real as well as Pakistani singer-actress Meesha Shafi.
He spoke with the Journal about Pakistan’s hip-hop scene, working with Xzibit and what he listens to in his down time.
The Wall Street Journal: How did you get started in hip-hop?
Mr. Omar: I’ve been writing since I was nine and recording since I was 13. I don’t remember how I started exactly, but it’s always something I wanted to do and be a part of. I grew up listening to everything, but hip-hop is what spoke to me most and what I enjoyed writing most.
Who are your musical influences?
Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails, Everlast, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, House of Pain, Cypress Hill, Kool G Rap, Big Pun, Tupac, Eminem, Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, Marilyn Manson, Dr. Dre, the Beatles, N.W.A., the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Wu-Tang Clan, Motorhead, Gang Starr, Nas, Rakim, Ice Cube.
Why do you rap in English rather than Urdu?
I grew up with English as my first language. I was educated in British and American schools and born to a mother who grew up in the U.K. and only spoke English with me. I’m pretty whitewashed. I do love my culture, but me rapping in Urdu would sound forced. I’d rather leave that to good Urdu and Punjabi MCs. I also work in English because I write in English and I’d rather reach a wider audience than limit myself just to Pakistan and India.
What’s the hip-hop scene like in Pakistan?
It still hasn’t really developed. There’s some promise, but a lot of garbage too. I don’t say this with some sort of elitist attitude. It’s cool that kids have dreams, but if you’re in it for the glory and not putting in the hard work and sacrifice, then step out. If you can’t be yourself, then step out.
How did your collaboration with B-Real come together?
[We] either chatted online, or he discovered me through MySpace four years ago, I don’t really remember. He told me he was working on a mix tape that was almost complete, and that if I came out on a specific date I could be on it. Of course I didn’t hesitate, so I stayed in touch and went out to L.A. myself to record the track ["Takeover"] for him.
I don’t like the song we did. I sound really nervous and hadn’t really tapped into my own identity yet, but it opened a lot of doors for me. B-Real introduced me to a lot of people who ended up helping me over the years in terms of putting me on projects, promoting me online. B-Real and I have maintained a friendship over the years and done other songs together as well, one of which will be on “The Mushroom Cloud Effect.”
And Xzibit?
During the early stages of my album, I already had plans for Fredwreck to produce the first single with a video shot by Matt Alonzo. I initially met Fredwreck through B-Real back in 2008 and stayed in contact with him over the years. He also gave me a lot of friendly advice, and we’d hang out whenever we’d overlap in Dubai. When we started discussing the single and brainstorming, the idea of getting Xzibit on it to generate some buzz came up. Fredwreck and Xzibit have been close friends and have been working together for over a decade, so he connected us, we booked a studio session in L.A., and it evolved from there.
What’s next for you?
I’m finishing up “The Mushroom Cloud Effect” and “Star Power,” another single and video I’m in the middle of shooting. After the album’s done I’ll go on tour and start focusing on two projects I’m releasing in 2013: a collaboration album also titled “50 Feet Tall” with fellow rapper Hard Target, now managed by Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit, as well as a project with Greydon Square titled “Serpents of Eden.”
Who do you listen to today?
When I’m not working on or listening to my own stuff, I listen to a lot of the music I enjoyed growing up: Nine Inch Nails, Everlast, Johnny Cash.
–Edited from an interview with Sonya Rehman
Watch the music video for Adil Omar’s song “Off the Handle” featuring Xzibit (explicit lyrics):

Engaging a group of students in a conversation about today’s Hip-Hop music, I asked them to quote for me lyrics from some artists who are presently deemed hot MCs. It goes without noting that when most names were mentioned, I immediately opined, “What is he talking about”?

To which one youth responded, “Does it have to make sense?”

Truth be told, I’m becoming an old man. Now granted, I haven’t started wearing the black shoe polish in my hair to compensate for the lack thereof. Nor am I wearing super-sized headbands to hide my receding hairline (which, might I add, would look ridiculous with me dressed in a shirt and tie, standing at a chalkboard teaching Math). My oldness is appearing in other debilitating forms. My stamina isn’t what it used to be, and my memory is fading, quickly.

But probably the worst indication of prolonging the inevitable is the fact that I have not the slightest clue what many of these rappers are now talking about. I guess that wouldn’t matter if I still didn’t have an infatuation with the music that I fell in love with as child. I find it easier to fall in love than it is to fall out of it. However, I’m getting old, and I know it because I am now starting to quote the words my parents used to say to me when I was a child.

Words such as, “I don’t know what this garbage is y’all are listening to today.”

I can barely tune into the local radio station that caters to the Hip-Hop-oriented demographics, because the majority of songs sound as if they were made for a strip club compilation CD. I don’t know about other mature adults, but at this stage in my life, I only want to listen to strip club songs when I am in the strip club. Not when I’m in my car during the day, either transporting my 13-year-old daughter to or from school.

Then if I’m not listening to strip club songs, I’m being force fed songs that I literally need translation for. I understand Hip-Hop is a young man’s sport, but would it be wrong for me to suggest that it doesn’t have to be a genre of music precisely geared towards a specific age group? And would I be inherently stupid not to believe that our young folk only want to listen to strip club songs or songs about trapping?

People oftentimes will say, “There’s a lot of conscious Hip-Hop music out there. You just have to find it.”

Before we go any further, really consider that quote. If I have to seek consciousness, then what am I presently in the midst of?

It pains me that our music has drastically changed the way it has. Truth be told, it wasn’t all conscious then, but various options provided for us diversity. And due to that diversification, conscious Hip-Hop was readily available and made mainstream. Now, we know that it was for the monetary profit for corporations, but it would be remiss to say that our community didn’t profit from it as well. Arguably in a far greater capacity than just dollars and cents. Some would suggest that systematically, it was determined by the powers that be to dumb us down by over saturating our community not with the spirit of Malcolm, but instead the fictitious life of Montana. We’ve replaced the idealization of strong, Black women with only the sexuality of Foxy Brown.

Plainly speaking, we’ve been duped to believe that we don’t have much more to offer to each other than lying *ss street stories and bedroom tales that should remain inside the bedroom of consenting adults. Man, I’m getting old because I do remember the time when I would relish those same stories that are being spoken to our children, by our children today. I done spent many of nights jumping up and down at a club, screaming to the top of my lungs foolishness. I’ve been watching the movie Scarface since it came recorded on two separate VHS tapes.

However, apparently that wasn’t all that I was doing. And more importantly than anything that I must stress, that was not my only alternative. Unlike today’s Hip-Hop oriented entertainment culture, I was given viable options, which lent to my balance. My greatest concern of our culture for today’s youth is that they are not getting the same balance. And what they are being fed is just as unhealthy, dangerous, and detrimental to their well being as foul food or contaminated water.

So, “does it have to make sense?”

Given the impact and influence that our youth allow the music to have on their lives, I reckon that it should.

A few of hip-hop's brightest stars will party it up tonight when MTV2's "Hip Hop Squares" premieres at 11 p.m. ET/PT. Expect to catch personalities like 2 Chainz, Common, Mac Miller, Machine Gun Kelly and DJ Khaled on the new show. 'Hip Hop Squares,' I ain't gonna lie, it's gonna be the best game show," DJ Khaled told MTV News when he gave us a tour of the set. "Especially because it's representing hip-hop, but it's real exciting. If I wasn't even on it, I'd be watching it myself."
If "Squares" looks familiar to you, then you may remember its predecessor, the iconic tic-tac-toe game show "Hollywood Squares." In the new remixed version of the show, rap personalities like Mac Miller, Fat Joe, Ghostface Killah and 2 Chainz all answer trivia questions helping contestants win cash prizes.
"Tic-tac-toe, answering questions — I think it's a cool game, especially to incorporate hip-hop in it," 2 Chainz told MTV News.
Asher Roth remembers the original show well. In fact, it was those childhood memories that factored into his decision to participate in this new incarnation. "When I was younger, yeah, I definitely used to check out the 'Hollywood Squares.' It was just fun," he said. "I think that was the thing that attracted me to 'Hip Hop Squares'... it's just laid-back, it's chill. I mean I get to sip on a beer while I answer questions right."
"Just getting to experience it was a lot of fun," Common added.
Fat Joe believes the new show, which is hosted by New York radio DJ Peter Rosenberg, helps solidify rap's place in American pop culture. "Doing hip-hop trivia, this just pushes it one step further for hip-hop to be solidified as American culture," he said. "This is the first time throughout my whole career when I seen my name, I said, 'Wow I made it.' "

Congressman John Mica has called for “most” of the nation’s busiest airports to evict TSA screeners and replace them with private security, as Orlando International Airport considers doing precisely that in the aftermath of a deluge of scandals to plague the federal agency.

Despite helping create the TSA a decade ago, Mica, head of the House transportation committee, has become one of the agency’s most prominent critics, being instrumental in the passage of a recent bill which allows airports to opt out of using TSA screeners in favor of their own privately hired personnel.

Mica’s goal is set about, “eliminating the roughly 52,000 TSA screeners nationwide,” according to the Orlando Sentinel.

“Hopefully we can get most of the airports into that model,” said Mica.

Although progress has been slow, Orlando International Airport, the 13th busiest in the United States, could be the first large domino to fall, setting off a chain reaction that could cause a wave of opt-outs.

“Officials at Orlando International Airport, the region’s largest, said the facility is considering a change to private screeners — though no decision has been made,” states the report. The smaller Orlando Sanford International Airport has already replaced TSA agents with private security.

Mica has produced a study which estimates that over $1 billion dollars would be saved if the nation’s 35 busiest airports switched from TSA to private screeners.

“It’s a bloated bureaucracy that is mostly security theater,” said the Florida Republican.

While the TSA boasts that its screeners have helped protect America against another 9/11-style attack, the agency has set about accomplishing the kind of evisceration of freedoms that terrorists could only dream of.

Not only are TSA goons now situated in other transport hubs such as subways, bus terminals and ferry ports, they are also out on the highways. It all adds up to over 9,000 checkpoints a year where Americans routinely have their 4th Amendment rights violated.

TSA workers are also routinely caught engaged in criminal and abusive behavior, with a new scandal hitting the agency on an almost weekly basis.