In an incredibly ironic way, the timing was perfect. Ibrahim was sitting across the table from me, his short cropped hair, tiny soul patch goatee and non-descript blue sweatshirt complimenting the twinkle in his eyes as he answered my questions about his art, about hip-hop and its place in his life, its place for his people and telling their story, their history, taking hip hop back to its roots. In the early years hip-hop was a voice, a message, a political statement for African-Americans to stand up to the discrimination of the United States system and tell their stories to the masses. In Palestine I can see hip-hop coming full circle, back to those days.

Areej sat quietly next to me, her legs crossed and hands folded.   She was there just in case any translation was needed since her grasp of English is practically flawless. I didn't want to miss a word of this interview.

"The hip-hop comes like a mountain. You put a stone and another stone and another stone, you make a big mountain," Ibrahim began.   "Everybody around can see this mountain. You can put the Palestinian flag on the mountain and if the Israelis build the mountain you can put the Israeli flag on it." His hands mimed piling each stone, one on top of the other, representing a lyric, a song, a message, something in hip-hop for him.

Ibrahim's face lit up with an evident pride that shown through with his words, "I want to build this mountain and put the Palestinian flag on it so everybody can see it."

All three of us were seated in the fourth floor restaurant of the Ibdaa Cultural Center in the Dheisheh Refugee camp. Up until this moment, it had been a very normal quiet night here. A group of men sat chatting and smoking on the multi-colored cushions in the back of the restaurant, one young man prepared strong Arabic coffee with a long handled metal pot in the kitchen, a couple of the youth watched music videos on the TV. But all that was about to change...

We had made it through six questions. Ibrahim's English sufficient to bring out his message, his words spilling out in an almost song-like form themselves.

We had reached the question about whether or not hip-hop was an effective medium for capturing the history and stories of the Palestinian people. "We are come from the history, talk about us with our song. So we use...here..." the words fell quickly from his mouth, trying to capture his message in English before it was lost. But abruptly he stopped, his focus directed on something stirring outside the window. He jumped to his feet, pushing his chair back from the table in a hurried brisk movement.

My eyes along with Areej's shifted to the window that Ibrahim was now sliding hastily open. We stood up quickly and moved closer to the window, Ibrahim had abruptly gone silent as Areej exclaimed, "See the big tank...See...now everybody. Oh my God..."

After a two second pause, Ibrahim sprung back to life. He stuck his head out the window, "Here's a big tank, look...Look...LOOK," his hand thrusting out with his fingers extending towards the chaotic scene below. Huge Israeli military vehicles, their rough rectangular protective sides creating a bulky emerald cut diamond cocoon above the massive wheels that raced through the street, protecting the Israeli soldiers inside. Scores of Palestinian youth charged from all sides smashing rocks into the sides of these armored plated vehicles; pedestrians scrambled out of the way; taxis and passenger cars veered off to the sides of the road. A convoluted cacophony of sounds rose from the streets below, shouts, screams, crashes, screeching tires...

"Oh my God. Oh my God, Oh my God" repeated Areej over and over, her lips barely opening as she mumbled these words. Her hands reaching up to grasp her face.

Suddenly the air was pierced by an explosive BOOM shaking the sides of the building and causing all of us to jump. A noise bomb intended to intimidate the people was set off from one of the vehicles right in the front of the building. All the people on the fourth floor were glued to the windows. A startling scream escaped from Areej who was standing next to me, her hand shooting up to cover her mouth, her shoulders tensing, her eyes scanning the scene below.

"S&*t," was her next word, spoken under her breath.

"There's prisoners in this cage," said Ibrahim loudly, my ears still ringing from the first bomb as I watched the stream of vehicles fly past. I wondered how he knew that there were prisoners in the middle vehicle but I shrugged off that fleeting question. From experience and from the news that constantly flits around the camp, he just knew.

"BOOM", another bomb went off.

"Look at these m#$%r f#@^%$rs," Ibrahim exploded, throwing both hands in the air. "The stones against the bombs, this is the sentence [passed upon us] and they said about us that we are terrorists"

The BOOMS echoed down the street as the cavalcade got father and farther away.

A few seconds later, Ibrahim, seated back in his chair, pushed back up to the table, his breath coming faster and faster, turned to me as if continuing the interview, "When I talk to you I see outside. I see people, a lot of people. I know where is a lot of people there is Israeli soldiers, they throw stones always...I look outside and there's a lot of children, and I say certainly there is Israeli soldiers." His voice started softly but the jumble of words began to take on more power and strength, louder and louder. His emotions peaked and he climaxed on the word soldiers before his voice descended again, his eyes shifting down towards the table, "I can feel that, I can feel that from the children outside," his words referring to the changing atmosphere in the camp when the soldiers are near.

The brief scene that had unfolded beneath us was captured in the large round white microphone that I had set up for the 20-minute interview. Since those few minutes, I have listened to the recording over and over again, isolating the few minutes where the army arrived, hearing the BOOM reverberate through my earphones, listening to the words detonate around me in the air. Ironic that it happened as I was asking about the history that fuels Ibrahim to craft his lyrics around the Palestinians daily lives. Ibrahim's music, his hip-hop draws from these experiences, trying to tell about life under occupation, the fear, the struggle, the violence. You could say that the timing was perfect, or you could realize, as I did, that reality just sunk its sharp teeth into our quiet night and bitterly reminded us of where we are...

(Listen to the recorded interview here, Expicit Lyrics-Not edited for content!)