The room was decorated with a large red, black and green rebel flag and a framed photo of the Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash. Faraway and Madani smoked cigarettes and sipped steaming glasses of sweet tea as they recorded lyrics for their latest song, a tribute to cities caught up in the revolution.

The freewheeling rap scene developing in Benghazi indicates how much has changed in eastern Libya in the past two months. Speaking out against Gadhafi before the rebellion used to mean prison and maybe even death. And rap, like other forms of Western culture, was despised by Gadhafi, who burned foreign musical instruments and books after he seized power in 1969.

"I always wanted to talk about Gadhafi's mistakes and crimes, but we never had the chance for free speech," said Madani, who is the son of a famous local singer in Benghazi and works part-time in his family's cell phone and car parts shops. "All you could talk about was how good Gadhafi's revolution was."

Faraway, who like many rappers in Benghazi is known by his nickname, "Dark Man," and Madani, aka "Madani Lion," form the core of Music Masters, but the composition of the group has changed over time. One of the rappers quit just after the uprising started because he feared being targeted by Gadhafi's thugs, Madani said.

Many of the songs that Music Masters and other groups have recorded in the past two months feature rapid fire lyrics reminiscent of Eminem. The lyrics ridicule Gadhafi and lambast him for his treatment of the country in the past four decades.

"Gadhafi, open your eyes wide and you will see that the Libyan people just broke through the fear barrier," sang the group Revolution Beat in their song "17 February," a reference to the so-called "Day of Rage" when protesters took to the streets in several towns and clashed with security forces.

Roughly a dozen rap songs recorded since the start of the rebellion have been put on CDs with rebel-inspired album covers and are available for sale in downtown Benghazi. One cover has a drawing of fighters on a captured Gadhafi tank flying the rebel flag.

Some of the songs mix Arabic and English, a testament to the American origins of rap. When the rappers perform in public, which is rare, they wear baggy pants, T-shirts and baseball caps typical of many American rappers.