on hip-hop and other art forms. As of 2008, concerts and nightclubs were non-existent in the Kingdom, and local radio and TV played mainly Arabic pop music (all state enforced policies). Tamer Farhan, a member of the Saudi rap group Dark2Men that appeared on HipHopNa, said that rappers in Saudi Arabia are forced "underground because of the wrong impression people have of them". Even socially cautious acts are subject to censorship. This phenomenon is not restricted to Saudi Arabia however, as relatively liberal Kuwait joined them in banning the group Desert Heat's first album despite their "pro-Muslim" message and "cautious approach to religion, politics, and society". However, hip-hop music, both Arabic and American, has managed to circumnavigate some of these restrictions. In addition to subversion via the internet or bootleg record sales, it seems that censorship inconsistencies and/or linguistic difficulty associated with translating hip-hop from English may account for some English language records making their way to cities where they would otherwise be banned. Abdullah Dahman of Desert Heat offers an example of west coast rapper Snoop Dogg, whose records are available for purchase in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Another example, 2 Live Crew's album "As Nasty as They Wanna Be", released in 1989, made it by censors due to translational difficulty. Hip-hop music from the Arab Spring movement presented direct challenges to the strict censorship policies of many regimes throughout the Middle East and North African region. Arabic hip-hop became a means of expression that actively resisted against the state and its regulations. In states like Tunisia, a state that previously censored all negative public statements against the government and was characterized as having one of the least free media in the world, hip-hop music became a visible representation of the resistance and signaled the impending social and political changes. Several rappers were arrested for their music, including El General in Tunisia and El Haqed of Morocco, which only generated more attention to the issue of censorship and the artists themselves. Regional Arabic hip-hop Hip hop communities in different Arab countries are interconnected with each other to varying degrees and also have connections to their respective diaspora communities in the US and Europe. United Arab Emirates Hip-hop was found in Forums Year 2001 in the United Arab Emirates was not given his rights for being too Underground for listeners, There aren't many rappers in the UAE Unfortunately no one