Liberal folks, people who don’t really subscribe to limiting dogmas and ideologies, free-thinkers, progressive citizens, etc. are constantly made to feel they’re not Arab. Arab, Arabic typography even some traditional garments have become hazardous materials: something to be ashamed of even. I lost count of how many times friends and family members told me to shave my beard before traveling, to not wear a Jordanian kaffiyeh when out abroad and to avoid cursing in my mother tongue.

I guess they do have a point, beards and Arab in the last decade or so have been synonymous to terrorism, intolerance, religious extremism and other unpleasant adjectives. Blame the media, blame imaginary lobbies you tell yourself control the world making you just a helpless whiner at the end of the day, blame whatever you want. But, really, folks like us are to blame. We are to blame because we’ve failed at showing the rest of the world, and even other Arabs, that Arab can be cool. Arab can be modern. Arab can be secular and free-thinking and happy and prosperous.

I am an Arab, I have a beard too to prove it. I am also an atheist. I am pro-women’s rights. I am pro-LGBT rights. I like to have fun. I like to do good. I am not willing to fight for any “za3im” or “tayfeh”. I most definitely will never blow myself up, or take up arms against someone or something. And most importantly, I am not alone.

Ashekman put it beautifully in one of their songs: Mujatama3 2enebleh (which I’ve embedded below) and it goes like this: “ana cocktail sha2af” but “bala ashta w 3asal”. Cocktail “sha2af” refers to a fruit cocktail with a mixture of several fruits that might seem like a weird mixture, and “ashta w 3asal” means “cream and honey” which is often put on top. Here, they mean that we’re a very unlikely mixture of people, cultures, opinions and beliefs (or lack-thereof), but brutally frank without the cream and honey sugarcoating. Amen to that guys.

I guess that is why folks like DJ Base and myself are proud to wear items from Ashekman’s collection. I can’t speak for Base of course, but I’d feel quite pleased wearing my Ashekman t-shirt with the smiley with Arabic typography that reads “hope for good, you’ll find it” while giving a talk to a foreign audience at some US university or NGO. I’d also feel really good wearing my “Beirut O7ibboki” hoodie when out clubbing in New York or Los Angeles and people would ask about it, what it meant, and hopefully, I would’ve made a lot of new friends that night that think better of Beirut, and ideally Arabs as a whole too.

Let’s make Arab cool again, enjoy Lebanese rap songs, revel in Arabic graffiti, sport witty, homegrown designs. I know this is quite an epiphany to get while shopping, but when I was trying them out and chatting up with the guys at Ashekman, I wondered, why would I wear that and not an American urban wear tee and the answer became clear. That, combined with my time spent in the US and abroad, made me realize, I’m tired of being branded wrong, everywhere. Here, I am an “Imperialist” or “Zionist” or whatever other outrageous accusation. There, I’m a “terrorist”, a “bad guy”, or whatever other uninformed stereotype. I am none of those crappy things though. I’m Gino, an Arab, with an Italian name, into electronic music, passion for all things geeky, brutally honest and an extremely firm believer in human rights and maximum freedom, for everyone.

ANYWAY, now that I’ve vented out, let’s get to the fashion. I’ll let the designs give you a feel what Ashekman’s urban wear is really like, I’ll just add a few things you might not know. Each shirt or hoodie design is limited. This means that only a few dozen are made, for one time only. So, if you like one of the designs you see, it might have already been sold out, forever. I love this, I love exclusive pieces of fashion that you won’t see every other person on the street strutting in. I mean, Abercrombie and Fitch is awesome and everything, but almost every guy I see in Hamra or Gemmayzeh has an “A&F” on their chests, so I find it lame now (that’s the hipster in me talking).

They’re also really, really witty, and I’ll giggle every time I figure out what message they’re conveying like the BonJus one, or the Captain Majed one. It’s always 100% cotton and often hand-printed or assembled. Tees range between 25 and 35USD and hoodies were on sale today so I got mine for 28USD. Ashekman make music, they make fashion that reflects this music, and then use the revenue from the fashion to make more music: a nice, wholesome street-entrepreneurial success story right from the heart of Beirut.

Have a listen here while you browse through the designs. Here’s their Facebook page if you wanna stay up to date and check where and how you can get a tee or cap or hoodie or music album <3