RappersAAE delight.

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If you told a lot of young people today that hip-hop started out as a way to reach people with new ideas about different cultures and express the artists' way of life, they would probably say; "What ;" or alternatively give you that blank expression of mixed contempt and disinterest that only teenagers are capable of.And who could blame them ;The modern hip-hop/rap scene is largely dominated by a simple working formula - videos featuring a multitude of scantily clad women, lyrics with thinly-veiled innuendo, an excess of profanity and of course the 'gangsta' image of a fast life immersed in violence.Hip-hop has become a pervasive music genre, dominating the radio and youth culture all over the world. And when any music form becomes this popular, it's only a matter of time before entrepreneurial music-makers, like Dubai-based duo Desert Heat, take that music and make it their own.Salim and Abdullah, aka Illmiyah and Arableak, are two brothers who spend their days working at the airport and a bank, and use their spare time to take hip-hop back to its roots.The duo started out in 2001, when worldwide events convinced them they had a message to send out, and hip-hop could be the way to do that."The main thing that really pushed us was after we saw what happened on September 11. After those events we had the whole world hating Arab people and we didn't understand, we ourselves were confused and didn't know what was going on," Salim says.Aa "The majority of the Arabs didn't know how to respond and everyone had to do something, other Arab countries or other Muslim countries also had to play their part. We decided we would try to speak to the youth at least. And what's the best way to reach the youth ; Through music."For these two rappers, the music is a conduit to fight stereotypes, both those around the Arab culture and those around hip-hop. "If you really look at it we're trying to fight two stereotypes, one is Arabs being terrorists or being perceived as terrorists by ignorant people and two is hip-hop being perceived as something that is negative," Abdullah says.

The brothers started out, like many aspiring rappers, listening to what was cool at the time, in their case Tupac. But when they decided to bring out their own brand of hip-hop they became more influenced by artists like Run DMC and Public enemy - "old-school rappers who

had a message".Although they're also careful to not let the message overtake the music. "We're trying to balance it!" Salim smiles.

"We don't want to be preachers but at the same time, even if people don't listen to the lyrics, we want at least the music to catch them and then after a while they might pick up a sentence here, a sentence there, and think; 'Ok besides the music being good, they also have a good message'," he adds.And so far, their blend of English and Arabic raps has led to career highs like meeting Akon, doing a concert with Sean Paul and releasing their own album, which is due out in the next few months.And although this looks like the beginnings of success, with all that entails, Desert Heat insist that fame and fortune are not at the top of their wish list."It's not really about the fame or the money, if it really came down to it - being able to put out what we had to put out for free - if we could do that, we would do that," Abdullah says.Salim adds: "The important goal right now is just to get the message out. If we change the mind-frame or the stereotype of maybe one person and that one person can go and make a big difference in the world, that's the main aim right now. Sales, being famous, that's not really important - if it comes it will come anyway."For more information on Desert Heat visit www.desertheatarabia.com

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