Beyond the capital: Revival of cultural production and local identity in Tripoli

For decades, particularly after the Lebanese Civil War, Beirut has dominated Lebanon’s cultural imagination. Home to the country’s largest theaters, music venues, publishing houses, and festivals, the capital has been positioned as the heart of cultural life—not just for Lebanon, but for much of the region. This centralization, however, has come at a cost. It has made cultural participation feel out of reach for many outside Beirut, reinforcing class divides, geographic isolation, and a sense of disconnection among communities in the North, South, and Bekaa.

Beirut’s cultural scene has also long been shaped by globalization. For many years, communities in the capital and Mount Lebanon, especially younger generations, were more drawn to Western aesthetics. They listened to Western music, watched Western cinema, and adopted Western fashion, often at the expense of local expression. Traditional Lebanese cultural forms didn’t disappear, but they were sidelined, often seen as outdated or unmarketable.

But things began to shift. In the years following the October 2019 uprising, a new wave of local Arabic-speaking artists—from indie bands to rappers—started claiming more space in Lebanon’s music and performance scene. This was a slow but powerful process in which language, rhythm, and regional narratives took center stage again.

Then, in 2023 and 2024, the genocide in Gaza and the Israeli war on Lebanon brought this cultural shift into sharper focus. The violence and global silence experienced by Palestinian and Lebanese communities alike became a moment of rupture for Lebanese individuals, forcing many to question the values and aesthetics they had long been consuming. In response, people began turning more fully toward local cultural production not just as art, but as resistance. Regional and local cultural production re-emerged as a tool for defiance, healing, and connection to heritage.

Reimagining the cultural map

As this cultural reawakening gained momentum, Beirut mostly remained center stage. Access to performances, exhibitions, and events remained limited to those who could afford the high costs of urban life. For residents in Tripoli or Tyre, cultural participation often meant displacement: a journey to the capital, a temporary insertion into a scene that didn’t always reflect their realities.

Within this vacuum, alternative spaces for cultural performances began to emerge. One such example is Rumman. Based in Tripoli, this cultural collective has been hosting artists from different backgrounds in an effort to redraw the cultural map of Lebanon—whether consciously or subconsciously.

Founded by Mohamed Tannir and Alex Baladi, Rumman began to take shape in 2019 and formally came to life in 2021. It started small, holding pop-up events, art workshops for children, and community gatherings. Mohamed, originally from Beirut, found himself drawn to Tripoli, a city rich in cultural memory but long neglected by national policy and media portrayal.

“They say home is where the heart is,” he reflects. “I love Tripoli. At the time, I felt like Beirut had lost its identity. It became quite random. And yet all the cultural focus was solely on Beirut.”

That focus, Mohamed explains, wasn’t just geographic—it was ideological. Cultural infrastructure and recognition had been reserved for the capital, leaving little room for other cities to imagine themselves as creative centers. Yet many are unaware of Tripoli’s historical relevance in regional cultural production: “The city used to be a cultural hub. The first cinemas in Lebanon actually opened in Tripoli.”

That memory shaped Rumman’s choice of venue. After initially taking a small space where they hosted art and music workshops for neighborhood kids in Tripoli, Mohamed and Alex were faced with the need to find a new space for their activities. When they stumbled across an abandoned movie theater in the city, it felt like fate. “It was a now-or-never moment. We renovated the abandoned movie theater but kept the authentic feel behind it. We felt like the city and the community needed a cultural gem and a reminder of a rich past.” And this is how Stereo Kawalis, the venue in which Rumman holds all of its events today, came to life.

Culture must be accessible, not exclusive

The vision behind Rumman goes beyond aesthetics. In many spaces, especially in Beirut, art is treated as luxury, reserved for those with time, resources, and connections. But Rumman challenges that notion.

“We wanted people in Tripoli to come and experience the art and culture scene without having to worry about transportation to Beirut and expensive admission fees,” says Mohamed. “But we also wanted people living in other places to come and enjoy shows while also not worrying about high costs.”

This rethinking of accessibility is radical in its simplicity: it states that culture should not be a privilege. “You don’t have to be from an urban area to enjoy the arts,” Mohamed adds. “You can belong to different backgrounds, be it an agricultural worker, a student, or anything else. What we’re trying to do is remove socioeconomic divisions from the arts and make it accessible to all, even to the artists themselves.”

In that spirit, Rumman has hosted performances spanning genres, from tarab and Arabic rap to metal and experimental sounds. The audience, too, is diverse, attracting everyday people, artists, Tripoli natives, and visitors from other cities across Lebanon.

A space that repairs the social fabric

More than just an events venue, Stereo Kawalis, under Rumman’s management, is fast becoming a space for social cohesion, bringing together people who might otherwise never meet. While much of Lebanon is shaped by political fragmentation and sectarian geography, Rumman offers a different kind of encounter: one based on shared experience, creative exchange, and curiosity.

Samia, a blogger and cultural aficionado from Beirut, describes her first visit to Stereo Kawalis: “Rumman was holding a three-day festival which featured many artists I had been wanting to see. I loved the lineup. I didn’t think distance was an issue at all. I also was glad to have been introduced to a new space outside of the capital.”

For her, the impact went beyond music, creating connections with individuals from communities she hadn’t mingled with before. “I meet new people from Tripoli every time I go, be it organizers or attendees. I have become more familiar with the city and I find that it really is growing on me.”

She recalls one of the most memorable events she attended: South Goes North, a festival by Rumman featuring mostly rappers from South Lebanon performing at Stereo Kawalis. “I loved it. It felt powerful, being able to connect with the rappers and the concertgoers at a deeper level. I really think it’s important to decentralize [art]. We need to make the effort to branch out to other places. It’s definitely something I want to do more—go to the South, to the Bekaa and other areas outside of Beirut to attend cultural events.”

That cross-regional exchange is one of Rumman’s core goals. “We have artists that come from all over,” Mohamed notes, “but we also work on having local artists from Tripoli be showcased on our stages to create these connections for them to branch out in Lebanon.”

Art as groundwork for resistance

Tripoli has long been framed in the national imagination through a lens of poverty, neglect, or instability. But in recent years, and especially since the 2019 protests, the city has revealed something far more potent: a hunger for change and a motivated community.

“We noticed that Tripoli had the potential in terms of grassroots and individuals who wanted change and who loved their city,” Mohamed recalls. “But the city has been under the grip of politicians and policies that have impoverished the city’s people.”

It is precisely in this context of abandonment that cultural collectives like Rumman have emerged as essential. In moments of national and regional crisis—after the Beirut port explosion, during the ongoing economic collapse, and amid the brutality of the 2024 war—it has not been the state that responded, but rather community members, including artists and cultural workers. “It was beautiful to see how artists and cultural workers, who had essentially lost their income, flocked to the forefront in relief work whether after the explosion or during the brutal war in 2024.”

Furthermore, across Lebanon, a growing number of people, especially younger generations, began seeking out spaces that felt aligned with their grief, rage, and sense of disillusionment with mainstream institutions and narratives. As Western countries turned a blind eye to the genocide in Gaza and to the bombing of Lebanon, many found themselves alienated not only from global politics, but from the global culture they had once embraced.

They turned inward, toward the language, music, and spaces that honored those traditions without diluting or commodifying them. And increasingly, these spaces were found scattered in different places like Tripoli, in collective-run theaters, in restored cinemas turned into stages of solidarity.

A new cultural imagination

What spaces like Rumman offer is a challenge to how cultural value is measured in Lebanon. It reminds us that art does not belong to the capital, nor to the few, but rather is made for everyone.

“Don’t underestimate crowds outside the capital,” Mohamed insists. “They’re sometimes forgotten, as if Beirut must be the only cultural hub in the region.”

The case of Rumman reflects a broader, deeper shift happening across the country. Lebanon is witnessing a powerful wave of reconnection: to its language, to its artistic heritage, and to the cultural expressions that have sustained communities through decades of war, grief, and upheaval. What was once dismissed as old-fashioned or peripheral is being reclaimed as alive.

In a country marked by systemic neglect, displacement, and global erasure, cultural production has become a form of political memory. To sing in Arabic, to write about the land, to bring people together through music and movement are ways of refusing to forget. In a world that often seeks to erase, depoliticize, or rebrand Arab identity, cultural reproduction becomes a frontline. It becomes a way of saying: “We are still here, and we remember our roots.”

Through these spaces, a different Lebanon begins to take shape: one that is listening to its own voice again.

 

This article is part of a dossier produced as part of the activities of the Independent Media Network on the Arab World. This regional cooperation brings together Maghreb Emergent, Assafir Al-Arabi, Mada Masr, Babelmed, Mashallah News, Nawaat, 7iber and Orient XXI.