And as a music producer, he wrote songs for artists like Beyoncé and The Weeknd and was nominated for a “Best Original Song” Academy Award for co-writing The Weeknd’s “Earned It (Fifty Shades of Grey)” in 2016. We have to do better.īelly: Most of that hate rhetoric that you tweet from that iPhone … was a result of a Syrian refugee coming here and having the opportunities and giving his son (Steve Jobs) the opportunities to create something greater than we’ve ever known.īelly has worked with rappers like Snoop Dogg, Future, French Montana and Travis Scott. If we don’t move fast, we’re allowing human beings to die right now. To me, that’s the human issue … Forget what color or creed people are, what race they are. That’s a little deep, that’s a little heavy. As an immigrant, how do you feel about the refugee crisis?īelly: You’re allowing people to die because you haven’t decided whether or not they’re worth enough of being here. In May 2016, Belly and The Weeknd canceled their performance on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” because Trump was also slated to appear on that episode.ĬNN: What inspired “Immigration to the Trap”?īelly: I just wanted to let all the immigrants out there know, that have been through that experience, that there’s somebody just like you that went through some of the same things you did that managed to pull himself out and be here and you can do the same thing.ĬNN: Refugees from countries like Syria are facing many political barriers and nations like the United States have taken steps to limit resettlement. The Grammy-nominated artist has been outspoken in criticizing President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigration. “I bring nothing but love and joy to everything I do when it comes to this music … I just want to see people smile more when they see me instead of reading my name and getting a preconception of what I am.” “People would check your passport and be smiling, and ‘good morning,’ and then they see my government name and it’s like ‘Ahmad Balshe,’ and they’re like ‘Oh my God,’” Belly said, reflecting on the discrimination he faced as an Arab and a Muslim. The video for the song was shot in the Seine-Saint-Denis district in France, where there’s a high immigrant population. He addresses the struggles of immigration in “Immigration to the Trap,” reflecting on his own experience as a teenager selling drugs on the streets to get by. The Palestinian-Canadian rapper, who is signed to Jay Z’s record label Roc Nation and The Weeknd’s label XO Records, reflects on his own struggles as a young immigrant in his latest mixtape, “Mumble Rap.” READ: French Montana: Healthcare should be a right It taught me how to speak, it taught me everything.” and the only reason I convinced my mom to buy it was because there was a baby on the cover,” Belly laughed, “and I listened to that album like it was English class, so that’s the cultural impact that era taught me. “I was speaking broken English when I bought ‘Ready to Die’ by (Notorious) B.I.G. It’s easy to be patient when you know what you’re destined for (this is 4 year old me reciting a poem about my mama □) /FoZUALsbws- MICRO JORDAN October 25, 2017 They lived in a motel room for about a year, and Belly, whose full name is Ahmad Balshe, found himself in a strange land, struggling with poverty, learning English and grappling with culture shock. Belly was 7 years old when his family immigrated to Ottawa, Canada, from the West Bank city of Jenin in the early ’90s.
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