Rap has long gone international, and the idea of using the shuffling beats and staccato cadences to communicate political ideas and frustrations took hold in the Middle East. Arab-language rap was a factor in the Arab Spring, and

This week will be a fateful one for Egypt. Its first post-revolution president, Mohamed Morsi, just granted himself sweeping powers. Many in the judiciary have pushed back. Protesters are back in Tahrir Square. And now Morsi is rushing through a vote on a new constitution, since the folks who would vote on it—his allies, since everyone else has withdrawn from the committee—could be pushed out ...

So wildly varied is the recording output of Milwaukee poet, singer, trumpeter and activist Harvey Taylor that one never knows where he will go from one album to the next. Inspired by last year's Middle Eastern uprisings, Taylor and various local...

History seldom repeats itself but often offers a guide to what might happen next. Given the media's general incomprehension over the “Arab Spring,” the analysis by Marc Lynch, director of George Washington University's Institute for Middle East...