Abdel-Rahman Al-Shantti (born September 14, 2008) known professionally as MC Abdul or MCA Abdul is a
Palestinian rapper from
Gaza, Palestine.[1][2] He gained popularity when he sang a rap about freedom in front of his school in Gaza which garnered hundreds of thousands of views on social media.[3][4][5] As of December 2023, his videos for "Shouting At The Wall" and "Palestine" have received more than 2.1 million views[6] and 1.5 million views,[7] respectively, on YouTube.
Early life
Abdel-Rahman Al-Shantti was born in Gaza, Palestine. His mother had surgery to treat CNV bleeding in Egypt around 2007, but Al-Shantti said his mother was not able to maintain the surgery due to
the blockade of Gaza by Israel. He started rapping and writing songs at age nine. He began recording cover versions of his favorite tracks and sharing them with friends and online. His family exposed him to artists such as
Eminem and fellow Palestinian
DJ Khaled, the former of which Abdul considers to be one of his four favourites; the others are
NF,
Tupac and
Jay-Z. He said he would like to go on Arab Idol like fellow Palestinian
Mohammed Assaf.[8]
At the start of the 2023
Gaza genocide, Al-Shantti is living in
Los Angeles,[9] although his family, including his younger siblings, are still living in Gaza.[2]
Career
In 2020, Al-Shantti advocated on behalf of Palestinian families in Gaza who were bombed by releasing the song "Shouting at the Wall".[10] Following the release, he caught the attention of the record label
Empire. MC Abdul spoke about the importance of rapping as a tool for coping with challenging times saying “The power that I have in my pen when I’m writing, I am unstoppable. The microphone is the only escape possible”.[11] In 2022, he performs his first concert as part of the
FIFA World Cup festivities in
Qatar.[12]
In 2024, MC Abdul featured on
Saint Levant's single "Deira" which has over 2.5 million streams on Spotify,[13] and over 2.9 million views on the music video on YouTube.[14]