Episode 16:  “You’re an Expat” ft Freek

Narration: Last year we had a very special opportunity to put on a Movement live show in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. 

And I’ll say that when I arrived, I had an image in my head for the Emirates. Like futuristic glass towers built out of the desert. Islands built out of the sea. Everything controlled and artificial and extravagant. Now that image is not wrong exactly, but it’s also not complete.

Because when my team and I stepped out of our hotel at night, you know, after the temperature had settled down to a manageable 90 degrees, we saw a very different kind of city. A bustling, energetic, and radically diverse city. 

Basketball games, couples on dates, textile markets, juice shops, and the food. The food. Food from everywhere. 

Abu Dhabi, like Dubai and many cities in this region, is overwhelmingly made up of non-citizens. Almost 90% of the population are foreign nationals. In the media, you often hear those people described as “migrant workers,” but here in the Emirates, the term we heard most often was expats. It took me a second to adjust when I heard people use that term, because I have an image in my head for expat too, and it’s not, well, it’s not this. 

But that trip forced me to rethink a lot of things.

My name is Meklit and this is Movement: music and migration, remixed. 

We’ve spent this whole first season telling stories about artists and families like mine, who immigrated mostly to the United States, who entered into a society in which we were the minority. Outliers. But we’re going to end the season with three stories from the United Arab Emirates, a place where that situation is flipped. Where movement is the norm. Where immigrants are the majority, playing every single role in society, from the dentists, to the doctors, to the janitors, to the restauranteurs, to the domestic workers. And yet, their place in society is still, well, precarious. 

Meklit: Do you remember your very first live show?

Freek: Yeah, it was 2014. Back then I had a song it's called, unemployed, that kind of went viral in the city.

Narration: Today, the story of a Somali rapper named Mustafa Mohamed Ismail, AKA, Freek.

Freek: That was the first project that made me be like, listen, like let's not fake it. Like let's not talk about. We gettin money.

Meklit: Right,

Freek: I'm in a yacht. I'm like, listen, we're gonna shoot a video. There's like a cheap sandwich from Abu Dhabi's like literally like half a dollar. The broke people sandwich that we call it.

And literally we shot the video inside, like literally on the table, eating the sandwich. It just resonate like a lot of people related to it because a lot of people that used to eat from that place used to hide they used to eat from that place just, and we just exposed it. Like, listen, we are those people.

It was a disgrace to be unemployed or be a guy that don't have anything on his pocket. But we turned out to be a funny comedy song. We just literally dissing ourself

We uploaded on YouTube literally in like two hours from recording it to uploading it. And sometimes when you don't really care about something, it blows. And then I had this promoter calling me, be like, Hey, you wanna perform it live?

I remember we performed that track three, four times, cuz we didn't have anything else to perform. And wow, like 300 people came through. And a lot of them, they were proud to see us because they know we're from the same area they're from. And it just made them believe that something can come out from the city. And that was literally the day I'm like, I need to keep doing music. Like what? People, people are singing along to this?

Narration:  Freek got his artist name early in life.

Freek: I was doing some random things growing up. I was the only black guy skateboarding, that listens to heavy metal. So it was like, man, this guy's a freak. Like, it’s a freak of nature, you know?

Narration: But what started as a taunt, became a badge of pride. He spells Freek F R E E K  like the word “free.”

Freek: And I just, I just labeled myself that. Just to give that power just to stay in that path you don't have to be normal sometimes. It's cool not to be normal sometime.

Narration: Mustafa, like a lot of expats, was born and raised in the UAE. He’s never even been to Somalia, but since that’s where his parents came from, that’s the passport he has. In order to stay in the UAE, expats need a visa, and in order to keep that visa, they need a job. So you can see why a song about unemployment and cheap sandwiches might resonate. It's not just about money, it's about legal status, the right to stay in the only home you’ve ever known. And this is something Mustafa has had to think about for a long time.

Freek: I never saw anything else than the UAE. The city hugged me. Like the city literally didn't make me feel like I'm a stranger. I was around Sudanese, Ethiopians, Eritreans, Egyptians and the emirates, of course, it's like I felt like I never knew that I'm an expat until I was like 9 or 10.

Meklit: What was that moment?

Freek: It was, it was , it was shocking to be honest. Like, I had to grow up. I need to find a job. I need to, I need to get into Uni because I didn't wanna leave. After 18 your dad can't sponsor you. Basically you're on your own

Meklit: I gotchu

Freek: Yeah, I called it home. So I'm like, listen, I'll fight. I'll fight until it works out.

I stayed, I hustled, I joined a company that I hated. Just for me to keep doing videos and trying to pursue music on the side. My mom, was the first obstacle I had to surpass, cause she was like, you are here, you're an expat. You need to follow the program. You can't, you can't just be you. It's not even a thing. Like, doing something in the entertainment, let alone in music, not in business. Like 

Meklit: Right

Freek: That was definitely a no, no.

When I started, I was writing in English cuz that's what I knew. And I didn't wanna be an artist back then. It just, I was like, yeah, it's just a hobby. But as soon as I started rapping in Arabic, I was like, wow, like there's something, it's like literally therapy. Like when I hear it, I feel good. Like I'm narrating my own story, 

Meklit: Yeah

Freek: you know, and in my own language. And it, and it's a territory that no one touched, you know? 

Meklit: Really?

Freek: Yeah, there's a lot of Arabic rappers, but, it's the accent. It's my slang. It's my area. Cuz no one is gonna sound like me and that just makes it more real to me.

Meklit: so this is like a theme that's running through all of your work. Like you're really trailblazing. You're making your own path. You're, like building the infrastructure.

Freek: Unfortunately I had to do something. I couldn't just sit for the door to open.

Narration: But at the same time that Freek was opening doors for himself, other doors -- bigger doors -- were starting to open all around him.

Freek: It's like, it's just the perfect timing. Like when I was 23, I didn't have a visa. I didn't have a residency. I was illegally just staying, and I just needed a platform. And that's what I'm saying. Like the internet, boom. YouTube. Boom. I was there to just take the opportunity I asked my friend, I'm like, let me borrow your camera for like three weeks. And from then, like I open my channel, I started dropping music

Narration: And doors were opening within the UAE as well.

Freek: Back in the days they brought shaggy a couple of times I went to Shaggy's concert 10 times cuz I knew no one was gonna come. And look at now, Dubai, like there's artists coming literally every weekend. It's like literally an international city that no one needs to think anything stereotypical. Like it's like Dubai, nah, we know Dubai. And by the time I grew, the UAE grew more and. We had festivals in the city. It's like all came on the right time, you know? It's like, it's like a hand in hand. It's like if I was another country, it probably wouldn't be the same, you know?

Narration: Freek told one story that captures how his career and his country really did rise up together. Back in 2009, before his first song went viral and before he was even performing, Freek got a job as an usher for the first ever F1 Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi. Hosting the race was a big deal for the city, and Freek was there, checking tickets.

Freek: They got Beyonce to open up for the F1 that day. And I was looking at that stage, I'm like, wow. It was like 20, 25,000 people, 30,000 people just singing along to her. I'm like, wow, like this is, this is phenomenal. Like, I wish, I wish I could be on that stage.

Narration: Fast forward ten years to the 2019 Grand Prix, and Freek was on that stage, opening for Future. His old supervisor from his days as an usher even saw the concert.

Freek: I remember this, my supervisor texting me, like after my show, like 10 years later, he's not, he doesn't even work in that place anymore. He's like, man, you shut it down. Like you killed it.

 Meklit: Wow

Freek: Like for him to just, to see it’s just, it's crazy. I wasn't, I wasn't that character. Like I wish I had that same power 10 years before. It just wasn't my time. I wasn't ready.

Meklit: Yeah, yeah. You were on a path.

Freek: Yeah, I had to take it in, and study until I found the right platform and boom.

Meklit: So I assume that now, you know, now you have the visa. Now you have that, that solid foundation. That's right..

Freek: Yeah. I got a golden visa now I can stay here for good. As a singer as well. Like I got it from the government because, and what I'm doing. And I never thought this can happen, like, just because of music and just to be validated and just to feel like important in what I'm doing and it's beautiful.

Meklit: Yeah, it's an acknowledgement that you're contributing so much.

Freek: Yes. 100%. Sometimes you won't see opportunities. There's nothing in front of you and people might tell you to stop because there's nothing. But like when you're ready, everything is gonna happen. Opportunities just gonna pop from nowhere. And that was the day I'm like, listen, I need to quit my job. Like I'm done. I need to step out.

Meklit: Quittin day! What is your writing process like? Like when you're writing a song

Freek: I like to listen to instrumental for a while. I like to listen to instrumental for like an hour or two and try to tap into something within myself. I tap into old memories, stuff that bothered me, but I couldn't speak about it. I couldn't cry or let it go.

Freek: It was one of my songs called, Samihni, it means, forgive me. I was just talking to the people that I stopped hanging with and it goes like, 'iidha lam 'arud ealaa alhatif alyawma, Samihni. Alyawm aitadah 'ana alzalami. lidhalik la 'alumuni. It means, if I didn't pick up the phone today, please forgive me. Today it turned out to be dark. So don't blame me.

 It just takes me back to those days when I was like, it was so dark for me that I just realized the people I was hanging out with, they were the reason why I was negative.There were, those are the reason why, I was in that dark space. It was comfortable to be around and then when I found out that I can get out of it, it just, it was literally the bright, in the end of the tunnel.

And there's this bar when I was like, kan hadha hu haliu alqadimi, laqad tuiat tilk alsafahat. Where I'm saying is, I folded those pages. That was the old me.

Narration: Since the time of our interview, Freek has performed internationally in the UK and in the US. Find all of Freek’s music and videos at FreekTV.net. That’s Freek spelled F R E E K, like Free.

We have two more stories about incredible artists building careers in the United Arab Emirates – so look out for those. And if you enjoyed this story, consider sending it to a friend, or leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts. Believe me, that stuff really does help people find the show. 

Movement is produced by Ian Coss and myself, Meklit Hadero. Our co-creator and podcast godmother is Julie Caine. Our broadcast partner is The World. We are supported by The Mellon Foundation National Geographic Society and distributed by PRX.