Palestinian Bay Area DJ draws attention to crisis in Gaza through music

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — One San Francisco man is using his talents to draw attention to the worsening situation in Gaza as the war between Israel and Hamas continues – killing tens of thousands and displacing so many more.

DJ Subeaux’s sets are growing in popularity across the Bay Area and on social media.

“Music is everything, it’s something that I use to weave my community’s fabric closer together,” said Zaheer Suboh who performs under the moniker DJ Subeaux. “It is the entire range of human emotions, joy, sadness. It is, to me, the great uniter.”

He draws you in first with the music and then pulls you in closer to listen to his message.

“To [many] Palestine is a dinner conversation. To me, it is my life,” he said.

Suboh was born in the U.S. to parents who came to America from Palestine. His family relocated back to Palestine when he was six and eventually returned to California when he was a teen.

For the last six months, Suboh has watched in horror as the beloved home of his ancestors has been ripped apart in the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

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“Since October, I actually had to step it up because I had a narrative to tell that most people are not familiar with,” he said. “And so I started using my platforms to talk about what it was like being queer in Palestine, what it was like to experience the queer community in Palestine, and what it is like to be somebody who has to fight not only for queer Palestinian rights, but also Palestinian recognition in general in the West.”

Suboh does that in part through his music. He is a self-taught DJ who learned how to spin by watching YouTube videos during the pandemic while living in Sacramento.

“I always was the person who took over the playlist when I was at parties,” he said. “I always enjoyed it. My friends would tell me ‘Don’t bring anything, just bring the playlist.'”

Now Suboh is bringing awareness to the fear, starvation, and death gripping Gaza.

“Being a Palestinian man in the Bay Area, I think there’s a lot of survivor’s guilt,” he said.

For Suboh, DJing allows him to mix two of his passions of organizing and education – a continuation of the work he does in his day job working in HIV prevention for the state.

“It brings two of my life’s elements together,” he said. “DJing is community organizing, working in HIV prevention is community survival and community health. And to me, those are common missions.”

The missions for Zaheer Suboh and DJ Subeaux are similar: making his existence an act of resistance at a time when peace feels impossible to come by.

“This is who I am,” Suboh said. “I’m doing this for all of the younger queer Palestinians who have never seen someone be happy and be queer and Palestinian.”

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