Reshaping & Reviving the Libyan Rap Scene: Meet the Libyan Music Producer Big Seno

Big Seno was born in 1989 in Tripoli. Ever since he was young, he was in love with rap and hip hop music and his environment was all around this music genre. He was raised in a musical family, his father owned a stereo in the house that he recorded sounds in the house and they still have them to this day.  In the 90s, there was no social media and with time, he grew up and his love grew bigger with him. He then started to study and learn about hip hop. He started at first as a rapper and followed big names in the industry such as 2pac, Biggy, and Eminem. 

In 2003 he started to download recording programs and he started to experiment with making beats and he loved it. After that, he bought a drum machine. he started to learn a lot about making beats and at that time, there were no online tutorials available so he only relied on listening to other beats to find a way to make replications and further on, to make his own. He then started to listen to other beat makers and he observed how they created their beats. He wanted to learn music but he didn’t know how to read musical keys and notes.

Rap became visible in Libya in 2004. During that time, Nokia phones were hitting the market and every household owned one of those phones. He listened to a song called ''Our youth are lost'' and it was the first rap song which talked about Libyan youth. At that time, all teenagers would listen to rappers such as Double Zero. There were rappers who rapped in English in Libya. He got to know many rappers like BigDeal, Old School who raps in English as well. Many rappers participated in bazaars and charity events. 

Post 2011, he was introduced to a rapper called Phaylasoof and they had a collaboration together. In 2012, he created a group named Razor Records and he worked as a producer and beat maker. He makes beats from scratch for each song he works on. Big Seno works with rappers who sing about social struggles and issues and they shed light on these using lyrics that locals can understand. The musical scene in Libya flourished after the revolution. Big Seno and other artists are working behind the scenes to make rap develop in Libya and following the work of Big Seno, I can assure you that they put great efforts. However, progress is still slow due to the negative scene in the country and the instability of events.  

Having people, like Big Seno, who are passionate about music in Libya can tell you so much about how far people like him are going. They are working with what they have locally and they are trying to follow the world trend in music. They hope to make Libyan rap more visible within the region.

You can follow his work on Instagram bigsenobeats