Rapper, producer, TV personality and owner of a vast collection of hats – Qusai is a man with plenty on his plate. The Saudi hip-hop artist – the first from the Kingdom – is a veteran and pioneer of the Middle Eastern hip-hop game and has just released a new mix-tape and has an LP set for release in 2015. Yes, the man they call Don Legend the Kamelion is a busy man, but we caught up with him in Cairo to talk about the state of Arab hip-hop, Arabs Got Talent and a very possible collaboration with music legend.

Tell us about your new mix-tape, FDL.

FDL stands for Featuring Don Legend and you’ll notice that on every single song on the mix-tape, I have someone featuring with me, especially young talents from the Arab world – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, etc. Some of them approached me about working together and I took it as an opportunity to collaborate with them.

FDL is all about hip-hop, real hip-hop, but it’s also very experimental and expressive. I’m a music lover, before I am a hip-hop artist. These songs have been recorded over the course of many years, and I decided to release it for free – it’s something for the fans, because the fans have been waiting for an album, and they’ll get one, hopefully this year.

You’ve been in the music business for 15 years – what has changed in the industry during that time?

Everything has changed – for better and for worse. Take the internet for example. The internet has opened opportunities for people to expand and to showcase their talents, whether it’s original, creative, niche or just BS. Connecting artists from all over the world on social media is amazing, but the downfall, however, is piracy. Artists are not making money from record sales like they used to, because their songs are available on the internet to download.

If you are true fan, you know what you need to do. You need to support that artist by buying his or her records.  Start purchasing the songs on the internet, don’t download it for free. It’s as simple as that. Music has become a weapon of sharing, and everyone is sharing. That’s why artists are trying to be smart, and trying to find other outlets to make money, because music just doesn’t make you money like it used to back in the day. Where are the copyright laws in the Middle East? We need that. They’re still building it. I think the first country to do that is the UAE. Emirates is trying to build a congress of copyrights like the one in the States, so they can protect the intellectual properties of any artist – to protect your creativity. The mentality in the Arab world is still somehow old school. That’s why we hope that the next generations can protect their work. It’s stealing, straight up. You feel great when you’re downloading stuff from the internet, but imagine yourself as an artist and somebody is stealing your hard work – how would you feel? People need to think like that.

Hip-hop, more than most music genres, is shaped by the culture it emerges from – is that the case with Arab hip-hop? Does it have its own characteristics? What are they? 

Well, the number one subject when it comes to Arab hip-hop is salaam (peace). Every single Arabic hip-hop artist talks about it because this is our reality the Middle East. We’re still building the industry and its tough because you’re introducing it to people that don’t understand this art, or hate it because of its misrepresentation in the media. They think you’re trying to be Eminem or Jay Z.

With that in mind, then, do you see potential for Arab rappers to make it big, or are they constrained by the culture?

I see potential for Arab rappers all the way! But our biggest obstacle is that we don’t have many outlets. We build these outlets on our own. We build our fan base and sooner or later the industry is going notice, because we’re money-making machines. I tell new artists to be smart; don’t have that “keeping it real” mentality the whole time. You’re not going to grow up with that mentality; keep it real in your art, and to yourself, but when you’re in the industry, you’ve got to be smart and play the game, otherwise people are going take advantage of you.

Alright, let’s do some shameless name-dropping. You’ve worked with the likes of Ludacris and Akon – tell us more about the experience.