BEIRUT: Sitting in his bedroom studio in Gemmayzeh, rapper Nasser Shorbaji’s ginger cat Latifah slips between his legs and claws at a keyboard case in the corner of his room. Copies of Gil Scott Heron and Tupac’s poetry collection are stacked on the bedside table.

The laid back, but quietly confident, rapper known as Chyno is cloaked in an air of relief and content for an obvious reason. His debut solo album, “Making Music to Feel at Home,” was released two weeks ago after years of laborious recording.

“It literally took me my whole life [to make this album]. Now I’m 30,” Chyno said. “For a debut album, that’s a while.”

Chyno is no amateur. As part of the hip-hop band Fareeq al-Atrash, he’s been recording and touring for seven years. Releasing this album was not a completely new experience but a personal exploration of his Syrian-Filipino heritage that he felt had to come out now.

He recalled a trip to General Security with his bandmate (and sponsor) John Imad Nasr. “I was telling him, ‘Man this album had to come out now.’ I don’t know if I have another album like this in me.”

Rap is possibly the most character-driven musical form. Listeners expect to learn about the artist through his music – background, political views, and personal quirks. It must be genuine.

Finding a subject that’s a true reflection of the artist is a difficult thing for most rappers and Chyno said he “didn’t know what to talk about for the past 26 years in hip-hop.” He originally thought the identity crisis he faced being Syrian-Filipino and transitioning from place to place was a unique struggle, until millions of people from his native Syria were displaced.

“That feeling has become universal to my people,” he lamented.

When it came to writing this album, he said there was no writer’s block. He threw away just as many rhymes as he wrote.

The importance Chyno places on this album is evident from the opening track, “Ballad of an Exodus.” “My mind travels to Damascus corners,” he raps, “Tagging walls in Bab Touma/Manifesting for a new Syria/This is my Magnum Opus.” Defining your work as your magnum opus is a bold statement but Chyno said he felt this “is really the time where my personality and who I am can resonate to the rest of the world.”

The album touches on several topics that are pertinent to the region – from suicide bombings (on the single OPP), child soldiers (on Neverlands) and the internal dialogues of Syrians inside and outside of Syria (on the second single Fight or Flight).

He also manages to unpack some of the complex geopolitical dynamics of the region – not with direct explanations, but witty references.

Though the subject matter can be quite heavy, and the album sound quite dark, Chyno maintains a light-hearted tone throughout the album, using funny references or switching his cadence.

“I don’t know how intentional [that] is. It’s just my personality,” he explained. “I’m a person who’s usually very sarcastic, trying to cover up a lot of pain with being funny.”

Despite drawing heavily on his Syrian heritage in his work, Chyno admits that he doesn’t feel completely at home in either the Syrian or Filipino settings. By making this album in English (he raps in Arabic with Fareeq), he wanted to act as a cultural ambassador.

“Rapping in English I have this responsibility. I have this responsibility to talk to the West and let them understand why these people are like this and really know why they become like this,” he explained. “After I finished the album, I wish people from Syria and from the Philippines are proud of me even and say, ‘This is our man.’”

The internal dialogue of wanting to feel at home somewhere is explored throughout the album, from the title, to the production, to the cover art.

Chyno said he produced the album so that the music gradually becomes more welcoming and melodic as the listener progresses through it, reflecting how one adjusts to new surroundings. His rhyme patterns reflect this too, progressing from stuttering flows to more complete sequences.

The cover art depicts a circular sound wave – a recording of the phrase “Making Music to feel at Home.” Removing the CD from the case displays a small burning house, suggesting that when you remove the music it destroys your home.

Beyond feeling at home, Chyno wanted this album to explore hypocrisy. “The theme of the album deals with a lot of hypocrisy,” he said, “and feeling comfortable with this hypocrisy to maneuver how you struggle in this part of the world, or any part of the world.”

OPP examines the hypocrisy of a suicide bomber being driven by notoriety and status for his family instead of belief.

Origami looks at an atheist aid-worker coming to conflict zones to do soul searching.

Chyno often uses narrative to get his points across. It’s a writing style he learned while working on this project, he said. It is one of the many things that he taught himself while creating this album.

He had minimal production experience before masterminding this entire project and taught himself how to mix the music through YouTube tutorials.

Navigating the difficult and competitive world of independent music was also a learning experience. He was helped with support from artists that were his friends and his own shrewd business sense.

Despite the difficulties of being an independent rapper in Lebanon, Chyno (who previously lived in Spain and recorded parts of the album there) said that he feels at home making music in Beirut.

“Everyone wants to assimilate somehow and find out where they are in this world,” he said. “I have identity issues and I have an identity crisis and Lebanon has one too, so I feel like I kind of fit in here.”