Tamer Nafar

Tamer Nafar was born in 1979 in Lod

Nafar was born in Lod in 1979 to Fawzi Nafar and Nadia Awadi. He grew up in the mixed city, which suffered from drug smuggling and crime. He describes himself as a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship.

At 17 he found hip hop and learned English by translating the lyrics of Tupac into Arabic. In 1998 he released his first EP, Stop Selling Drugs, with his younger brother Suhell. With his brother and their friend Mahmood Jreri he formed DAM, which raps in Arabic, Hebrew and English.

After the Second Intifada began in 2000, DAM recorded the political song Innocent Criminals, which caused controversy in Israeli media. The 2003 documentary Channels of Rage by Anat Halachmi followed Nafar and the rapper Subliminal.

Nafar co-wrote the film Junction 48 with Oren Moverman and played its lead role. He won an Ophir Award for its music with Itamar Ziegler. In 2016 he performed a song at the Ophir Awards that included lines by Mahmoud Darwish, and Culture Minister Miri Regev left the hall in protest.

Several of his shows were later canceled or challenged, including in Umm al-Fahm in 2019 and Kafr Yasif in 2022. He is married to Sadika, has 2 sons and lives in Lod.