Rap Song of the Week is a Friday round-up of the hip-hop tracks you need to hear. Check out the full playlist here. Today, we highlight Pakastani rapper Eva B’s “Rozi,” which was featured in the premiere episode of Ms. Marvel.
In music you can fake almost anything except urgency. Anger comes naturally, longing is as easy as yawning, but real urgency — a desperate need to get these thoughts out now — is so special it transcends language. “Rozi” may be rapped in Urdu, but its message resonates equally in English; a banger without borders.
Eva B — not her real name — has been called Pakistan’s first female rapper, and the decision to keep her face and identity hidden has as much to do with safety as religious practice. “Lonely difficult times to cut alone,” she spits in a translation provided by her team, “I am woman in house but I work like a man outside/ I’ve been subjected to criticism all the time/ Keeping strong I hide every pain.”
The song provides a thunderous soundtrack to Disney+’s latest MCU series, Ms. Marvel, which follows a Muslim girl living in New Jersey. But with a beat inspired by South Asian music seasoned with a dash of South LA, and lyrics that demand respect from oppressors, “Rozi” will make anyone feel like a superhero.