Tuning to the voice of Palestine, a MKE musician’s call for solidarity

Photos courtesy of YMN

After Oct 7, 2023, when Israel began its genocidal siege on Gaza, Othman went to rallies and marches nearly every week. Before he knew it, he was giving speeches and leading chants.

Artistry, identity, and activism are all inextricably linked for Yaman Othman, who makes music and performs as YMN. “There’s a beauty to what everyone creates, as long as their heart’s in it,” he affirms. As a first-generation Palestinian-American, Othman’s revolutionary creative spirit will not settle for anything less than the complete liberation of Palestine.

“My whole identity is political,” Othman states. “I can’t have a conversation or bring it up without a second thought about what’s going to happen.” In a world that constantly threatens silence with censorship, Othman’s artistic expression has become an act of resistance.

Born and raised in Milwaukee, Othman connected with a lot of emotive music growing up, particularly hip hop, emo, and alternative rock. He cites Brakence, XXXTentacion, Lil Peep, Killstation, My Chemical Romance, and Blue October as some of his biggest artistic influences.

Artist and activist Yaman Othman at “Artists Against Apartheid” sponsored by Falasteen Favorites in Chicago last April.

“I resonated with artists who gave more insight into where their head is at and what their path is like,” he explains. “I think it’s really important that people get a sense of the person behind the music.”

At the age of 14, Othman began making music of his own as YMN, incorporating elements of hip hop, pop and R&B into his style. In early projects, he often touched on personal topics like mental health and alienation. Othman retrospectively recognizes how the ongoing politicization of Palestinian identity was a factor in these themes.

“If I were to say that part of my issues with mental health and depression growing up didn’t somehow come from a place of being Palestinian, I would be kidding myself. Even if I didn’t know the sole root of it, looking back, I think that being Palestinian had a lot to do with it, even more so now as the world’s getting blatantly racist in some places in the West. It’s a lot clearer for me now.”

Through his high school years, YMN began performing as well, reckoned a handful of times a year. At the same time, Othman also started attending protests in solidarity with Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

After October 7, 2023, when Israel began its genocidal siege on Gaza, Othman started going to rallies and marches nearly every week. Before he knew it, he was giving speeches and leading chants with a megaphone.

“A lot of my comfortability in front of people solidified maybe a year and a half ago,” Othman recalls. “I just started talking to people at protests who were in charge.”

Expanding his role in organizing spaces helped him feel more confident on stage as YMN as well. “I think you can get more comfortable with performing, but I don’t think you ever get fully comfortable with it,” he laughs.

Photo by Kamal Moon

Musician Yaman Othman (center) ‘speaks’ at rallies and through his songs, calling out political hypocrisy and greed.

Othman has primarily organized with the local group Milwaukee 4 Palestine, which is currently spearheading a campaign pressuring Lockheed Martin subsidiary Derco Aerospace to divest from Israel.

As YMN, Othman felt emboldened to write and release music about Palestine as his way of letting the world know how he was feeling. His first such single “Brighter Future” heartfully calls for a Free Palestine over a somber acoustic melody. He performed it live for the first time at a Palestine benefit show at Milwaukee’s Cactus Club.

Othman expands, “I wrote this whole song and had it ready for the studio, but a friend said that it sounded pretty angry and that I should go with something more emotional to appeal to people, so I sat there going through it, and I made it click in like 15 minutes.”

YMN would unleash the angrier, more confrontational energy with later tunes. He calls out the hypocrisy of respectability politics with the song “GREED.” He expresses his feelings of disaffection regarding political parties in “ATTRITION.”

Othman elaborates, “I don’t think anyone has the right to tell Palestinians what to do, how to feel, or what’s best. Genocide is genocide. I have family that faces death. I am literally voting against the people who tried to kill my dad and jailed my mom at the age of 12. I am purposefully not supporting those people, so for someone to tell me to shut up and vote for how they want, they’re just playing into the dehumanization.”

Rally for Palestine at Milwaukee’s City Hall in Nov 2023

YMN’s latest tune “We Will Be Free (Free Palestine)” is currently his most-streamed track on Spotify, featuring aggressive rapping about the constant dehumanization of Palestinians by the Zionist narrative.

“I was writing it, and in my head, I’ve had these questions my entire life that I wanted to put into a track. I was thinking about what kind of person or people could do something like this. I wanted to bring attention to the saying, “Every accusation is a confession.”

“You see Holocaust survivors that come and speak out about what’s happening, and so how do you go through a Holocaust but then essentially begin Jim Crow on people and treat them in a very similar fashion? That was my big question.”

YMN eventually connected with artists like Esa Mighty and Sammy Shiblaq, and meeting folks who have also made music centered on Palestinian liberation helped him feel far less alone.

“It’s really intimidating to try to put this stuff out and make reels about it, where anyone could say anything,” he attests.

This Saturday, April 12 starting at 3 p.m., the “Generation After Generation” Palestine fundraiser is being held at Falcon Bowl in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood, featuring performances from YMN, Esa Mighty, Sawsan, *Aya, Ellee Grim, DJ Megadon and Al-Watan Debka as well as free food from Bint Jamila’s Table, speakers, vendors and more. Proceeds and donations will benefit the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund.

As YMN prepares to release another Palestine-centered single, he poses the question, “What do people really see when they see Palestinians? That’s something that hasn’t been dropped from my mind in the last two years.”

He concludes with reflections on what has kept him going: “Are you going to sit and stand by while your own family and lineage is being erased? Likewise, for the people who know Palestinians, are you going to sit and watch while your friends and those you care about are erased? If anyone is under the threat of erasure, that’s something extremely serious that everyone should be speaking up about.”