Theresa Baumgartner Presents: Muqata’a - Quboor Mamila قُبور مَاميلا

Theresa Baumgartner met Palestinian underground hip-hop pioneer Muqata’a back in 2018, when she was filming on location in the city of Ramallah in the West Bank, Palestine. The DJ and producer has become legendary for his unique approach to sampling and looping, which he has developed into a practice which is at once musical and political. “When our land is being taken away, our culture is muted,” he told The Guardian around the time of the release of the documentary. “It’s a way to try and disrupt that – being a glitch in the system is very important. When your heritage is being attacked by the state, you have to find ways of being remembered, so I sample a lot.” Incorporating classical Arabic music, old records reclaimed from his grandparents’ collections and field recordings of Israeli military checkpoints into his compositions, Muqata’a fashions dense and detailed audio portraits of cultural and societal disruption, a project which is invoked by his moniker, which can be translated as “disruption,” “inter