My playlist: Saudi rapper Dehmez selects some of his favorite tracks

DUBAI: Saudi rapper Dehmez fell for hip-hop as a listener first, tuning in to the Kingdom’s early rappers in the mid-2000s before he ever made music of his own. “I was into it from day one — listening to the Saudi rappers, living in that world,” he tells Arab News. “By 2010 I found myself making it too. I went from being a listener to a (performer).” Umm Kulthum. (AFP) However, at that time, rap was, he says, just a hobby. “In 2021, I got serious, wrote a song and put it out online.” Here, Dehmez talks us through some of the songs that have shaped him as a person and as an artist.