Both scholarship and journalistic accounts of Middle Eastern rap and Algerian rai tend to focus on their political and sociological dimensions, rather than on their sounds and aesthetics. This is especially the case when it comes to hip-hop from Palestine, which is almost inevitably presented as a transparent expression of the political grievances and issues of the Palestinians. Little attention has been paid, by contrast, to Palestinian rap as “art,” and in particular to its sound. Meanwhile, recent popular trends in Algeria, involving the mixture of rai and hip-hop or rhythm 'n' blues (sometimes known as “rai 'n' b”) have been almost entirely ignored. Marc Schade-Poulsen (1999) has helpfully suggested that the use of “Western” sounds (disco, rock) into rai music represents a kind of incorporation of an “other” that represents greater access to consumptive power. What happens to “local” sounds when drum machines and synthesizers are adopted and incorporated into the Palestinian and Algerian soundscapes? What sorts of new identities are imagined? Do Palestinian youth feel themselves to be part of the “hip-hop” nation? Does the collaboration of rai artist Khaled with Magic System, from Ivory Coast, create a sense of transnational community and increase the solidarities of so-called immigrants in France? An attention to the sounds and the aesthetics of Palestinian rap and Algerian “rai 'n' b” promises to provide important insights into new imagined identities and rethinkings of the relationship between “art” and “politics.”