Al Qaeda’s New Front: Jihadi Rap
Abdel Majed Abdel Bary, the rapper suspected of murdering American journalist James Foley somewhere between Syria and Iraq, is the product of a British youth culture that has managed to merge two seemingly contradictory lifestyles: gangsta rap and jihad. Like Douglas McAuthur McCain—an American hip-hop fan who was recently killed fighting for the Islamic State—Abdel Bary represents a new and very scary evolution in modern jihadi history.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recently described the Islamic State as a threat “beyond anything we’ve ever seen.” Yet we are only just beginning to grasp what is different about this group. One reason is that it includes men in its ranks whom you might expect to see in a nightclub rather than fighting in the desert for an organization that would, traditionally, whip you for listening to music.
As a result of this cultural elasticity, the Islamic State has succeeded in attracting supporters outside its natural recruiting pool. Both McCain and another Westerner, Denis Mamadou Cuspert, a German citizen who died fighting with the Islamic State—and had a previous life as rapper Deso Dogg with three albums to his name—became converts as part of this broader appeal.
I first began to look into this hybrid phenomenon in 2008 when I was a journalist researching a subculture that had fused the extremism and violence of gangsta rap with that of al Qaeda—or at least a version of it. During a months-long investigation for British television station Channel 4, I met dozens of young men across London who tended to have three things in common: a history of criminal activity, an ambition to be a gangsta rapper and a fixation with the terrorist group begun by Osama bin Laden.
In a fried chicken shop in the south London district of Brixton—which saw mass riots against the police in the 1980s—I met with several young men who were walking examples of the powerful effect of al Qaeda’s ideology. None came from Muslim backgrounds. Aged between 16 and 20, they were members of a gang that identified itself around their local postal code, SW16. Their activities revolved around crime and self promotion. So, when they were not carrying out muggings, extortion rackets, or dealing drugs, they were targeting rivals perceived to be encroaching on their area for beatings and “tagging” — using graffiti to stamp the name of their gang on local landmarks. As a gang or “crew,” as they called themselves, they produced rap songs and videos about their exploits. By linking actions and communications– making their criminal exploits the focus of their rap songs – they were extremely effective in the way they projected their power to rivals and authorities. There are similarities with the way IS seamlessly integrates its media efforts and its military activities.
But what the gang was missing was a big vision beyond local turf wars. A few weeks before I met them, they had decided to convert as a whole to “Islam,” which they were drawn to because they understood it to be the enemy of the “system,” as they also saw themselves to be. Crucially, they were attracted to the idea that this “Islam” would allow them to continue carrying out street robberies, break-ins and extortion of other local gangs with the added benefit of association with a movement that was fighting Western forces on the world stage. The money their activities brought in was used to buy time in recording studios to further their ambitions to become rap artists.
Their worldview was a mashup of what they called “thug life,” gleaned from the music of their U.S. gangsta-rap heroes along with selective borrowings from classic left wing and race-based conspiracy theories. It promoted a do-anything approach to accumulating money and getting ahead, with a focus on violence and intimidation. The title of rapper 50 Cent’s debut album “Get Rich, or Die Tryin’” was regarded as an article of faith. Al Qaeda offered a bridge that allowed this intensely local worldview to connect with the grand narratives of global war. They already saw themselves as soldiers in an endless urban conflict. Now, they could become warriors in an epic, global struggle. Bin Laden would have struggled to recognize their views as Islamic, even accordingly to his own warped definition. But the twisted genius of his ideological creation was that they did not need his approval to sign up.
On the face of it, it’s difficult to imagine two lifestyles more diametrically opposed than rap and Islamism. On one side is the “bling” culture of ostentatious consumption, alcohol, drugs and easy sex. On the other is an austere and unforgiving worldview that seeks to recreate seventh-century Arabia. What is frightening is that the Islamic State has been able to bridge these two very different worlds because of the ideology it inherited from al Qaeda, which is uses to attract young men motivated by a vague sense of injustice and anger at the West.
In many ways, the world of hip hop runs parallel to and mirrors the place of Islam in many urban communities in the Western world. Hip hop provides a cultural frame of reference that allows followers to share social experiences they feel are not appreciated by wider society—whether that is poverty, racism, discrimination or dysfunction within their own community. It is, in some ways, the most significant social-protest music of our era. At the same time, followers develop and appropriate language, interactions and dress codes – whether traditional Pakistani tribal attire or low-riding jeans and bandanas of urban East Coast America — that they feel are more in keeping with an “authentic” expression of their identities. Both are often forces for good. But at the same time, both have extremes. Hip hop and genuine Islam can help people find community and direction in a confusing world; in some ways hip hop is the modern descendent of the social protest music of the past. Gangsta rap and Islamist extremism, on the other hand, are both a dark reflection of their respective mainstream expressions.
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