Islam is ingrained in the number one American cultural export— hip-hop. Ever since the emergence of this art form, Islamic references have served as a religious as well as a non-Western cultural identity for many African American singers.

I was raised like a Muslim
Prayin to the East
    — Gang Starr, “Who’s Gonna Take the Weight?” Step in the Arena

How dare you try to deny Allah’s intelligence?
   — Wu-Tang Clan, “Jah World,” The W

In the name of jesus, in the name of allah, in the spirit of the ancestors, amen.
    — Common, in CD booklet for Be

Rappers find parallels in the verses of the Qur’an and the rhyming pattern and structure of rap lyrics. Both the Qur’an and hip-hop use rhymed declarative prose that delivers powerful messages quickly. Mos Def, an African American convert, says, “The entire Qur’an rhymes. Like, you don’t even notice it. Bismillah/ al-Rahma/ nir-Rahim. Al-hamdu/ lillahi/ rab-bil/ aala meen. It holds fast to your memory. And then you start to have a deeper relationship with it on recitation. You learn it and you recite it. Then one day you’re reciting it, and you start to understand! You be like, ‘Wow!’”18

Not all hip-hop artists are practicing Muslims, or belong to mainstream Islam, like Mos Def, Everlast or Freeway (who has done the Haj). It is difficult to tell which rappers are Muslim and which are not, given that many wear the kufi (Muslim skullcap) for fashion rather than as a statement of faith. Some belong to Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam (Chuck D and Ice Cube) and others to the Nation’s smaller offshoot, the Five Percent Nation (Busta Rhymes, Methodman, Rakim and Ghostface).19

Much of rap is un-Islamic or pseudo-Islamic — or just another sales gimmick. But overall, rap artists who call themselves Muslims credit Islam for turning their lives around.

Devout Islamic rappers — African American converts as well as the children of Muslim immigrants — include artists such as Kelly, Native Deen and Remarkable Current. Many perform only in drug-free and alcohol-free venues. Some have spoken out against both Muslim extremism and American wars on Muslim nations. Fredwreck, a Los Angeles-area rap producer, born Farid Nassar to Palestinian parents, urges fellow Muslims “to stand up and say, ‘That extremist stuff ain’t right.’ There’s nothing in the Qur’an that tells me to take it [violence] to innocent people.”

Rappers in Egypt, Lebanon and the Israeli Occupied Territories, and in the Muslim minority communities of Germany, France, England and elsewhere in Europe are using the medium the way it was conceived — as protest poetry.

“The Turkish-German rap is a copycat of American rap but, being German, is less explicit and less violent,” says Jana Simon, a German writer who specializes in intergenerational issues. She told me in 2005, “The Turkish kids here have developed their own dialect, a patois, and they are using it to communicate their alienation and the daily discrimination they encounter.”

Chapter 6

The Future