British Rapper Lowkey Dedicates Show to Chile's 9/11 Victims

A global order that promotes elite narrative is why the victims of September 11, 2001 get most of the global recognition and coverage while the tens of thousands who lost their lives as a result of the U.S.-backed military coup in Chile in 1973 on that same date get sidelined and ignored, British-Iraqi rapper Lowkey told teleSUR in an interview Sunday.

OPINION: Chile's 1973 Coup and Barack Obama’s Selective Memory on 9/11

“I think the reason for the discrepancy in the depiction of the loss of life that took place on Sept. 11, 2001 in contrast to Sept. 11, 1973 is linked to the global order and elite narrative which props that up and maintains it,” Lowkey told teleSUR ahead of a performance in London where he highlighted the 1973 coup in Chile against socialist President Salvador Allende.

“So when we look at the example of Chile we have a democratically-elected president who was working for the nationalizing of the copper and for the protection of his country’s sovereignty and I think it is not often we see that story and the victims within that story are sidelined for the victims of the center of power.”

Lowkey is making a comeback after being absent from the public eye for the past five years. He will headline 13 performances across the U.K. where he will highlight social issues.

His performance Sunday was to “give our respect to the progressive movement that has carried on” since the 1973 coup in Chile, “which was based on the work that was done by Salvador Allende and his collaborators at the time.”

Lowkey said his music aims “to recognize these marginalized and sidelined parts of the story and those who were victims of the overall global order.”

But Lowkey’s respect for Chile goes beyond a professional nod as he sees Allende’s life and work as an example for all generations.

IN DEPTH: 9/11: A Tale of Two Attacks

"On a personal level, I find Salvador's life inspiring from the fact that this is someone who discovered the difficulties which everyday Chileans were facing through his work as a doctor,” the rapper said of the late president.

Watching over thousands of the poor and marginalized during his time as a physician, Allende “really saw the true destruction neoliberalism was reeking over society and wanted to build a democratic and revolutionary alternative to this order that was imposed upon the Chilean people.”

Music is the way to reclaim the history of the underdog and sidelined, Lowkey stressed, and it is artists’ duty “to continue to assert our identities and assert our independence as much as we can.”