Showing posts with label hip-hop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hip-hop. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

the rise of islamic rap

The Rise of Islamic Rap by Peter Mandaville focuses on how South Asian Muslim youth in the UK have chosen to express themselves using Black American musical forms. The article goes on to view this movement in the context of increasing cooperation between young Muslims and left-leaning movements (the World Social Forums, the Green Party, alter-globalization, etc.)

planet grenada and islam and hip-hop

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

reyes de las calles - el mundo va acabarse

Just some amusing Afro-Cuban, Afro-futuristic, anti-racist, apocalyptic hip-hop. If I had more patience I would transcribe the lyrics along with the translation. (And I'm actually surprised and a little disappointed that no one else out there seems to have done it already.) The group's name means "Kings of the Streets" and the song's title means "The world is going to end". The lyrics tell the story of what happens when God (and the Martians) come down to Earth to set things right.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

america 2001 - long hairz collective

Just continuing my Michigan musings... here is one of the few clips I could find online with music by the Long Hairz Collective. I've blogged about them before (see "i've seen ethiopians knocking out rome" and also water warriors). I could be wrong but I think they've basically broken up but the members are still out there performing and putting positive messages out there in the atmosphere.



You can download their album Dread Locks & Pony Tales over at CD Baby

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

an intimate look at hip-hop's jihad

‘New Muslim Cool,’ a new PBS documentary, shows how young Muslim Americans in the post-9/11 era are deepening ties between hip-hop and Islam

by Suad Abdul Khabeer

Real hip-hop heads know that Islam and hip-hop have been longtime friends, feeding off each other’s energy. Muslim ideals of self-respect and social change have inspired some of the greatest emcees, and hip-hop is giving voice to the dreams and daily struggles of a generation of Muslims. This cross-pollination between Islam and hip-hop is vividly illustrated in a new documentary, New Muslim Cool, which premieres tonight on PBS.

Directed by veteran filmmaker Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, New Muslim Cool chronicles three years in the life of Hamza "Jason" Perez, a Puerto Rican Muslim, family man, emcee, interfaith prison chaplain and social activist.

So why is Hamza’s story called the New Muslim Cool? Because he is part of a generation of young Muslims who are coming of age in a post-9/11 America. They are tackling questions of race, faith, freedom and even, as Hamza does, questionable intrusions by the FBI. They unapologetically choose God and country; they are doing American Islam with style.

And then, there’s the music. Citing influences such as Malcolm X and Pedro Albizu Campos, Hamza and his brother, Suliman, bring together the best of who they are. They use hip-hop in the great music traditions of the African Diaspora. The music seeks to speak to the harsh but sweet realities of everyday life; to encourage an elevation of the spirit, and to inspire a commitment to social change.

Set in Pittsburgh, Pa., the film opens with Hamza’s words (played over a hip-hop track by his group, M-Team): “I would always have two consistent dreams my whole life; one, that I was gonna experience death at the age of 21, the other that I was gonna be in jail, and then, both of them came true.”

He describes his conversion to Islam at the age of 21 as a “death of all my past, the negative.” Hamza finds Islam on the same street corners where he hustled as a drug dealer, and as a Muslim, he returns to the streets to offer a way out to the “30 below”: young, black and Latino men under age 30 who see drugs as their only path to the American Dream.

Inspired by his spiritual awakening, Hamza seeks to “move the crowd” as he himself was moved. And in many ways, his story is the quintessential hip-hop track, a journey from the rags of ignorance and desperation to the riches of knowledge and empowerment.

Eventually, Hamza does make it to jail, but it is not as an inmate as he had anticipated. Instead, he winds up as a chaplain providing spiritual guidance to prisoners of all faiths.Yet, Hamza’s story also extends beyond his religious community. His struggles echo the realities of many young Latino and black men. His mother, Gladys Perez, is a single parent who worked two jobs to keep her children in Catholic school and off the streets in a local community that lacked the economic, educational and political resources to support her.

In the face of these familiar circumstances, Hamza, then only known as Jason, chooses a likely path, drug dealing, which he later successfully rejects. Yet, Hamza’s gritty life story also has its softer side. Pushing back against two popular stereotypes—sexist Muslim men and absent “baby daddies”—Hamza is lovingly building a blended family, made up of his two children from a previous marriage and his African-American wife, Rafiah, and her daughter. In the film, he is seen cracking jokes as he rubs his abuela's feet. It is a story resonating beyond Muslim and hip-hop audiences. At numerous screenings, whether national or international, it is clear that viewers are moved deeply by Hamza’s growth as a Muslim and as a man. Because at its core, the New Muslim Cool is about the struggle to respond to adversity with your better self. It’s about finding beauty in the least expected places. Set over the treble and funk, it tells a story we can all relate to, about the complexities of what it means to be imperfectly human. New Muslim Cool premieres on PBS tonight. Check local listings.

Suad Abdul Khabeer is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University.

see also:
new muslim cool
new muslim cool (trailer #2)
boricua rappers drop anti-imperialist album
more M-team

Friday, June 05, 2009

i love hip-hop in morocco


I Love Hip-Hop in Morocco is a documentary film project about the hop-hop scene in Morocco and the attempt to organize the first Moroccan hip-hop music festival. Very Grenada-esque. It never ceases to surprise me how much hop-hop has been able to spread to other societies, adapt and innovate.



see also: planet grenada and islam and hip-hop

Monday, April 06, 2009

sufi rap

The Naqshbandi-Haqqani media library gives this clip the title of African Salawat / Rap / Hadrah I've been to the Burton masjid before for other activities (Eid prayer, dhikr) but apparently I missed hip-hop night.

See also sufi breakdancing.

Friday, March 13, 2009

the alchemist

Here is a video for [the alchemist] by Amir and Mikail Sulaiman from their upcoming album, The Meccan Openings:

[the alchemist] by Sulaiman.s Temple from The Meccan Openings from amir sulaiman on Vimeo.

I'm in the middle of a book about the Andalusian mystic, Seal of the Saints, Shaykh al-Akbar Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi and so I'm really intrigued by the title (one of Ibn 'Arabi's major works is called Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya or the Meccan Openings/Revelations/Illuminations so I'm wondering how deep the correspondence goes between the titles.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

new muslim cool

Hamza Perez left life as a drug dealer for Islam ten years ago. Now, after a devastating break-up with his first wife, he moves to Pittsburgh's tough North Side.

In a rundown building surrounded by crack and crime, he helps start a new community for African American and Latino Muslims. Like Hamza, many are ex-gang members who are using hip-hop culture to take their religious message to the streets, slums, and jail cells of urban America.

Raising his two kids as a single dad and longing for companionship, Hamza finds love on a Muslim networking website and seizes the chance for happiness in a second marriage. But when the FBI raids their mosque, Hamza and his community come face to face with a whole new set of challenges, and have to choose how they respond.

While he continues his MySpace.com-fueled rise as part of the provocative rap group Mujadideen Team, Hamza starts reaching for a deeper understanding of his own faith -- leading him to some surprising new relationships with Christian and Jewish allies.

Setting Hamza's story in the context of young American Muslims' emergence among the deep dividing lines of the post-9/11 world, New Muslim Cool gives audiences an authentic, intimate, and fresh view of life in one of the world's most rapidly growing and least-understood communities.



See also: Interview with Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, director of The New Muslim Cool

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

sufi breakdancing

I just added a number of posts to Third Resurrection which you might like to check out (including the one below) and I'll probably put a few more up in a couple of days.

I recently discovered the blog Fire of Ashk which posted a clip of some Naqshbandi followers of Shaykh Nazim doing dhikr in a circle, where one excited brother starts to breakdance:



See also:
planet grenada and islam and hip-hop

Thursday, July 03, 2008

planet grenada and islam and hip-hop

Over at Goatmilk, Wajahat Ali recently posted an in depth piece entitled: Fear of a Muslim Planet:Hip-Hop’s Hidden History by Naeem Mohaiemen on the historical connections between Islam and hip-hop. It made me want to do put together a sampling of Grenada posts on the same subject.

Pieces range from

a simple list:
an old list of rappers and their religion

to specific peeks at particular Muslim hip-hop artists:
digging below the underground
more on lupe fiasco
one.be.lo - s.o.n.o.g.r.a.m.
de la soul
ali shaheed muhammad
whatever happened to q-tip?
boricua rappers drop anti-imperialist album

to discussions of Islam's presence in pre-hip-hop African-American music:
the last poets
muslim roots of american blues
all that jazz...

to broader more "sociological"discussions of the phenomena of Muslim hip-hop across different musical groups:
verily, there is only one hip-hop umma
al-ahram does a story on muslim hip-hop
more on muslims and hip-hop
hisham aidi

to pieces which focus more on the Muslim community and speak about the music in mostly general terms:
new age jahiliyyah
islam and hip-hop
traditional islam for the hip-hop generation

to more regional-based posts...

on African Muslims doing hip-hop (whether in Europe or the Continent)
in bleak projects, emerging culture
daara j brings rap back to its african roots

or Arab and Arab-American hip-hop:
rap the casbah
(global) southern girl
representin' the west (bank)

or Asian-related hip-hop:
an african american muslim convert as the founder of chinese hip-hop
afro-asian crosscurrents in contemporary hip-hop

Enjoy.

Friday, June 13, 2008

the roots: the spark



I actually wanted to include a clip of this song back when I wrote the post: o son of being / the spark but did not find one until now. I've recently been thinking about the relationship between Islam and hip-hop and so The Roots came to mind again (Malik B is Sunni and Black Thought is/has been a Five Percenter). Also, in spite of what I said in my mayda del valle post I went ahead and got The Best of the Roots album a few days ago (along with Game Theory and Rising Down)

see also: an old list of rappers and their religion

Sunday, May 18, 2008

rap the casbah


"Born Here" - DAM


“Min Irhabi?” (“Who’s a Terrorist?”) - DAM



In These Times: Rap the Casbah by Michelle Chen
For more than a generation, hip-hop has drawn kids from neighborhoods around the world into the musical intersection of street culture and political consciousness. Now that common ground is making a mark in one of the globe’s most conflict-ridden areas: the Arab world.

(global) southern girl
verily, there is only one hip-hop umma
representin' the west (bank)
hisham aidi
daara j brings rap back to its african roots
al-ahram does a story on muslim hip-hop
more on muslims and hip-hop
afro-asian crosscurrents in contemporary hip-hop

Monday, May 12, 2008

more assorted bits

1. I think it is not just surprising but sad that out of all the members of Public Enemy, Flavor Flav seems to be the most successful and the one who is still in the public eye in a big way... from the Surreal Life, to Strange Love, to 3 seasons of Flavor of Love and a Comedy Central Roast, to a new sitcom. Why can't Chuck D get that much exposure? I would love to see Chuck D replace Colmes on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes, for instance. The situation isn't all bad. Chuck D is actually still doing alot of positive projects, he's just not as visible as before.

2. I realized that the Rumi poetry event I went to the other day had the highest concentration of white people of almost any event I've been to since moving to Miami.

3. I don't think I'm going to come up with anything deep or new on this issue, but I'll just say that the doctrine of Quranic abbrogation has often stuck me as odd. It is bizzare to think that there are verses in the Quran which are meant to be read, studied and recited for the past 1400 years, from the time they were revealed to now, and from now until Judgement Day, but they are only legally valid for a period of 20 years or so. Maybe more on this later.

4. I recently picked up the book Jesus for President: politics for ordinary radicals by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. It is a pretty good read so far. The authors seem to be advocating a kind of hippie liberation theology. The book takes many of its visual cues from the 'zines while the text highlights many of the ways in which the Jewish and Christian writings take a critical stance towards conventional secular ideals of kingdom and empire.

5. I just went to a Borders and discovered a new Boondocks book which I hadn't known about before: All the Rage: The Boondocks Past and Present (nice).

See also:
second things second
"armageddon has been in effect... go get a late pass!" (part one)
what has hip-hop really done for racism?
Sunni Forum: Hanafi Doctrine of Naskh (Abrogation)
www.jesusforpresident.org

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

mami el negro esta rabioso (el africano)

This post has been rattling around in my brain for a couple days now (or longer depending on how you count) but Kismet "made me" finish it a little bit more quickly due to her comment on negro bembon. If anyone wants to look at how race shows up in Latin music, "El Africano" by Wilfrido Vargas (actually written by Calixto Ochoa, but Vargas went further with it) is a necessary "text". In one version, the song lyrics are:
Mami el negro esta rabioso, quiere bailar/pelear conmigo, decicelo a mi papa. Mami el negro me echa miedo, me tapo la cabeza y el negro me destapa. (or alternatively) Mami, yo me acuesto tranquila me arropo de pie a cabeza y el negro me destapa. CORO : Mami que sera lo que quiere el negro? (repeat)

Wlfrido Vargas: El Africano  

 The classic merengue tune is about a "rabioso" (angry, literally "rabid") black man uncovering the innocent girl who has little experience with "lo que quiere el negro" (what the black man wants). On one level it is a festive party anthem, but on another it pretty clearly perpetuates certain alarmist attitudes towards Black sexuality. (e.g. see race and sex) DJ Laz made heavy use of a Vargas sample and updated the song musically, if not lyrically. While more recently, Cuban-American rapper Pitbull came out with "The Anthem" featuring Lil' John as an homage to the original. Miraculously, he manages to make the lyrics more lascivious (the girl is certainly not calling her daddy for protection) and racist (adding typical Latin stereotypes of Black female/"morena" sexuality to stereotypes of Black male sexuality). 

 DJ Laz: Mami El Negro
   

 Pitbull: The Anthem 




 So far, my favorite piece in this lineage is "Mami El Negro" by the 'conscious' Spanish (as in from Spain) rapper El Chojin. To be honest, I never heard of El Chojin until working on this post but he is growing on me. I also like the Grenada-esque anti-bling anthem Si Mi Chica Se Llamara Shakira /If Shakira was my girlfriend. But in "Mami El Negro" he is the most explicit in terms of breaking down the racist content of the original song, along with the ignorance and prejudice he faces in his everyday life. El Chojin: Mami El Negro  
  Lyrics to "Mami El Negro" by El Chojin

Alguien me pregunto de donde soy! hombre no es la misma cancion
pero si es un poco mas de lo mismo racismo,
he crecido como muchos han crecido
escuchando la cancion de los conguitos, la del negro negrito
y payasadas por el estilo
y me las he comido siendo un niño
pero amigo he crecido y tanta estupidez me ha convertido
en un hombre orgulloso y decidido
a no aguantar ni una broma mas,
me cago en el payaso de George Dan,
los del colacao, los de la Warner y todos los demas,
retrasados, que yo nunca me he reido de un blanco por ser blanco,
tanto tonto tan simpatico, tan asno rebuznando
\"ah tu no tienes que tomar el sol en verano\"
me daban pena pero ya estoy arto,
me dais asco, tontos que sois tontos
y lo curioso es que se creen graciosos
pues mami ahora el negro esta rabioso
otro tonto y monto el pollo gordo,
bobo te cojo y te pongo rojo,
avergüenzate si alguna vez creiste que de veras un blanco
con taparrabos gritando en lo alto de un arbol podria ser el rey de algo, no
a Tarzán se lo comio el miedo al hombre negro,
un desconocimiento inmenso te ha hecho ciego, terco, memo y no tengo porque entenderlo,
ser bueno paciente y toda esa mierda,
al proximo que me venga con la ingeniosa idea
de decir que me parezco a Jordan, Eddie Murphy o al que sea se la lleva,
ea o sea que esta es vuestra manera de hacer que me sienta en vuestra tierra integrado,
pues lo siento pues la habeis cagado,
yo no me quiero sentir integrado
tengo mi peña, mi micro, mi dj y los platos
y bastante interesado que paso,
que ni somos iguales ni tenemos que aparentarlo,
mami ahora el negro esta rabioso
pero es porque tu le has cabreado

¿Mami sabes tu que es lo que quiere? Que el negro esta rabioso de oir a tanto lerdo
¿Mami sabes tu que es lo que quiere? Que el negro esta rabioso es hora de exigir respeto
¿Mami sabes tu que es lo que quiere el negro? No hay ningun problema mientra veas donde termina el juego
¿Mami sabes tu que es lo que quiere el negro? Pues que le dejes simplemente ni mas ni menos

Es cierto, las cosas son mucho mas sencillas de lo que parecen
no tenemos porque andarnos con estupideces,
ya somos mayores, mira, no somos iguales,
no te escandalizes el racismo existe
es real y esto no es una llamada a la reconciliacion
es simplemente informacion
porque sabes que?
lo cierto es que no me importa una mierda lo que tengas en la cabeza,
simplemente callatelo, no hagas comentarios,
no intentes ser gracioso y ya veras como asi a todos nos va a ir mucho mejor,
que yo no tengo porque ser mejor persona que tu,
que no te he pedido de ningun favor, simplemente digo las cosas como son,
soy realista y tener esta actitud la que me han hecho tener a lo largo de mi vida,
ha hecho que incluso haya gente que me llama racisma,
es la risa, o sea que me vigilan, hacen chistes, cancioncitas,
no me quieren en sus familias y encima yo soy el racista
pues nada hombre cuidado que te tengo discriminado,
a ver si voy a hacer que te sientas marginado o algo,
mira cuando alguien dice lo que todos piensan pero no lo dice,
se le decalifica pero bueno asi es como funciona esto,
pero bueno yo soy el que tiene el micro, tengo un disco y consigo
que lo que digo se te meta en el cerebro
ahora piensa por ti mismo firmado el Chojin 1999 a diez meses del 2000.
also: shakira and wycleff at the grammys

Saturday, January 05, 2008

an african american muslim convert as the founder of chinese hip-hop

Given that this blog is supposed to be about "an emergic global anti-hegemonic culture" with Islam at its heart, I thought it would be good to include the following post from Islam in China: An African American Muslim Convert as the founder of Chinese Hip-Hop

Sunday, December 30, 2007

"armageddon has been in effect... go get a late pass!" (part one)

Is Public Enemy right? Has Armageddon been in effect? (some might say that the show Strange Love is one of the signs of the end times.) The title for this blog entry just came to me last night when I was driving around listening to It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back but in reality I've been mulling over the same question (in different language) for a while these days.

For example, the Dawnbreaker Collective, mentioned in the last post would probably answer that question in the affirmative. Firstly, the Bahai Faith teaches that the Second Coming of Christ and the arrival of the Mahdi already occurred over 150 years ago (in which case, most of us will definitely need that late pass). But secondly, even though the song "Son of Being" may seem upbeat at first, some of the lyrics definitely have their pessimistic end-of-the-world side (e.g. "the whole world getting rolled like a Cuban cigar", "the world's just a pothole", "this place won't last so you better take a picture"). In fact, the Bahai Faith generally uses metaphorical interpretation to stretch the meaning of the end-time prophecies of many different religions in order to claim that they have already been fulfilled by the central figures of their faith.

Or to consider PE's words from a different direction... yesterday I was listening to an audio tape of Imam Jamil al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown) giving a jummah sermon entitled "What Color is Pharaoh?". Imam Al-Amin set up a comparison between Pharaoh's treatment of the children of Israel, COINTELPRO's treatment of Black activists during the Civil Rights era and the government's treatment of Muslims "today". (the sermon was given fifteen years ago). History isn't just history. Things move in cycles. Patterns repeat. But then perhaps that suggests that prophecy might not be prophecy.

In an older post, the number of the beast we already touched on Preterism, an understanding of Christian eschatology which holds that all are most of the prophecies in the Book of Revelation were fulfilled by 70 AD when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans.

There are even a few groups in the Islamic orbit which say that the Mahdi has already come (e.g. the Nation of Islam, the Ahmdiyyah, the African Islamic Mission). I think that in a future post I would like to consider how these groups understand their various mahdist claims in light of the fact that the world seems to have gone on, much as before. I'm especially interested in how believers in the Sudanese Muhammad Ahmad do this. More later.

Planet Grenada:
the mahdi
remember imam jamil al-amin

Central Mosque: Description of Imam al-Mahdi
Central Mosque: The Coming of Isa (as)
Wikipedia: People Claiming to be the Mahdi
Chuck D: Flavploitation?
Chuck D's blog