The Grand (Hip-Hop) Chessboard
Race, Rap and Raison d’État
Hishaam Aidi
I
n November 2006, the film The Making of a Kamikaze by documentary-style footage purports to show “the making of ”
Nouri Bouzid, a respected Tunisian director, was screened the film itself. Abdelli asks why he, an up-and-coming actor, is
to great fanfare at the Carthage Film Festival. The film, a being told that dancing is haram and why his character is being
collaboration between the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs turned into a terrorist. “Where are you taking this film? You’re
and the Tunisian Ministries of Interior, Defense and Culture, using this film to attack Muslims.” Worried it will land him
examines the grievances of Tunisian youth through the story in trouble, he shouts, “I’m not your puppet!” Bouzid calmly
of a young hip-hopper named Chokri, better known by his explains his secular worldview—religion and politics should
b-boy moniker, Bahta. The film opens in a coastal town be kept separate—and Abdelli resumes his role.
where Bahta and his crew—made up of other unemployed It is unclear why Bouzid inserted these awkward snippets.
youths—roam the streets, hounded by baton-wielding police, Perhaps he did so to signal that he had little wiggle room in
looking for a spot to practice. The atmosphere is tense, the reflecting the Ben Ali regime’s secular outlook and the Culture
frustration palpable. The United States has just invaded Iraq, Ministry’s vision of hip-hop as a counter to jihadi thought.
and satellite-channel broadcasts in homes and cafés speak of The film went on to win the regime’s accolades, including the
occupation and resistance. A gangly, volatile youth, Bahta splits Golden Tanit at the Carthage exposition, which is put on by the
his time watching television, dancing and seeking a boat to state. Praised for its exposure of the “process of brainwashing”
smuggle him across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy. But due used by jihadi groups, Making would be shown in European
to the Iraq war, the Italians have tightened their naval patrols; and North African cities. The Pakistani Ministry of Culture
very few harraga (boat people) are getting across. As doors co-sponsored a screening at the Tunisian embassy in Islamabad.
close in his face, and police maltreatment increases, Bahta State officials and diplomats introducing the film reiterated
turns to petty crime, angry outbursts and wacky behavior, in the message that hip-hop is the antithesis of radical Islamism,
one scene moonwalking across a café floor in a stolen police perhaps even the antidote to it.
uniform, loudly promising all the patrons passports so they can What Making left out was not just the possibility of Islamist
travel legally. He eventually falls in with a crowd of Islamists, hip-hop, but also of youth music directed against the regime,
who drill him with sermons about the sinfulness of music, and it was precisely those two trends that rose to the fore as
democracy and the West, wooing him toward martyrdom. Ben Ali’s dominion began to crumble in late December 2010.
Making was mauled by French critics—“unconvincing,” The regime had long harassed dissident rappers, banning
“politically correct”—and not without reason: The characters Mohammed Jandoubi—aka Psycho M—an artist with Islamist
are caricatures, the break-dance scenes are routine and the pace sympathies, from the airwaves, in part for a track exhorting
plodding. The Islamists’ tirades, which aim to show precisely listeners to pick up Kalashnikovs and shoot Nouri Bouzid
how a suicide bomber is made, are in particular need of editing. for his negative depiction of Islam in Making. In December,
Finally, the film’s posing of hip-hop and Islamism as mutually Psycho M, who had a large following on Facebook, stirred
exclusive opposites is very simplistic, overlooking the dense more controversy with “Manipulation,” in which he angrily
relationship between the two countercultures: Islamists listen attacked Western imperialism, official Tunisian laïcité, the
to hip-hop, and rappers with Islamist—even jihadi—sympa- country’s personal status code (which bans the headscarf in
thies abound. The plot implies that both countercultures are schools) and a range of secular figures from Voltaire and Marx
a reaction to authoritarianism, but as the film was produced to Nasser and Atatürk. By the time mass protests spread in early
and marketed by organs of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s police January, other Tunisian rappers with varying political perspec-
state, the question arises whether the regime’s preferred tives—DJ Costa, Armada Bizerta, Laky—had posted tracks
counterculture—hip-hop—has become a mechanism of state on Facebook capturing the growing rage and memorializing
control. The most interesting parts of Making come when Lotfi Mohamed Bouazizi, the man who had set himself on fire. The
Abdelli, who plays Bahta, drops out of character and storms regime swiftly issued warnings to the artists and shut down
off the set to confront filmmaker Bouzid. The ensuing grainy, their Facebook pages. At 3 am on January 6, the police burst
Hishaam Aidi is contributing editor of Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Culture, into the home of Hamada Ben Amor, 22, the rapper known
Politics and Society at Columbia University’s Institute for Research in African American as El General. His track, “Mr. President” (Rais Lebled)—an
Studies. Aidi was a Carnegie Scholar in 2008–2009, and is currently a Fellow at the
Open Society Institute. open letter to Ben Ali excoriating the lack of freedom and
Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011 25
anti-veiling laws—had become the unofficial anthem of the Governments are also sending hip-hop culture to far-flung
revolt. Ben Amor was locked up for three days. The authorities corners of the globe. From its putative birthplace in the Bronx,
banned his song, blacked out his MySpace page and cut off hip-hop has traveled to become, at once, a means of protest
his cell phone service, but Al Jazeera had already snatched up and a tool of public diplomacy, counter-terrorism, democracy
the recording. It would resound from Tahrir Square in Egypt promotion and economic development. It is in the post-
to Pearl Circle in Bahrain. September 11 “war on terror” and in Western states’ dealings
Much has been said about the role of rappers in the Arab with Muslim-majority states and Muslims in Europe that
revolts. French media spoke of “le printemps des rappeurs,” and government mobilization of hip-hop is most noticeable. While
Time magazine gave the title “Rage, Rap and Revolution” to European states are using the genre to integrate and “moderate”
its cover story on the “Arab youthquake.” Time would go on their Muslim populations, the US has made hip-hop part of its
to name Ben Amor one of the “100 Most Influential People of outreach to the Muslim world. The very music blamed for a
2011,” ranking him higher than President Barack Obama. It is range of social ills at home—violence, misogyny, consumerism,
true that, as security forces rampaged in the streets, artists in academic underperformance—is being deployed abroad in the
Tunis, Cairo and Benghazi were writing lyrics and cobbling hopes of making America safer and better liked. The officials
together protest footage, beats and rhymes, which they behind the sundry hip-hop diplomacy initiatives invariably
uploaded to proxy servers. The impromptu songs were then point to the success of jazz diplomacy during the Cold War as
played at gatherings and solidarity marches in London, New evidence of the “smart power” potential of music.
York and Washington; exile opposition groups and Muslim
communities responded with musical tributes. Five Muslim “Sound Diplomacy”
American rappers fronted by Omar Offendum uploaded the
track “#jan25” in support of the Tahrir Square protesters After World War II, as French and British colonies gained their
on February 6; the song received 40,000 hits on YouTube independence, they found themselves courted by two super-
overnight. “I heard ‘em say the revolution won’t be televised,” powers eager to expand their spheres of influence. Forty such
Omar led off. “Al Jazeera proved ‘em wrong; Twitter has ‘em countries had become sovereign states by 1960, but Washington’s
paralyzed.” The “rap loop” between protesters and the Muslim efforts to attract them into its orbit were complicated by Soviet
diaspora galvanized youth on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, propaganda, which focused on racial discrimination and strife
but the role of music should not be exaggerated: Hip-hop did in the American South. Images of the killing of Emmett Till
not cause the revolts anymore than Twitter or Facebook did. and the violent backlash to Brown v. Board of Education were
The countries in the region with the most vibrant hip-hop broadcast around the world, and President Dwight Eisenhower,
scenes, Morocco and Algeria, have not seen revolts. Moreover, who had been rather complacent about civil rights, began to
the cross-border spread of popular movements is not a new see that, internationally, race was America’s Achilles’ heel. The
phenomenon in the Arab world; the uprisings of 1919, which State Department commenced organizing high-profile jazz
engulfed Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, occurred long before the tours to alter impressions. The tours were the brainchild of the
advent of the Internet, social media or rap.1 Democratic Congressman from Harlem, Adam Clayton Powell,
What is intriguing is that Arab states saw hip-hop as a who conceived of jazz as a Cold War weapon after attending the
threat, monitoring and censoring local rappers, long before Afro-Asian Conference of Non-Aligned Nations in Bandung,
the 2011 upheavals began. And they were not alone. In the Indonesia in 1955. Powell was repelled by claims that the Soviet
last decade, as hip-hop has emerged as a political force Union was more progressive on race than the US, as well as
among youth, regimes across the world have intervened to the Third Worldist rhetoric he heard at the conference. Upon
promote some sub-styles and sideline others, in an attempt returning, he proposed to the State Department that bands led
to press-gang the genre to disparate political ends. In 2002, by Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie and Louis Armstrong be sent
the Cuban Ministry of Culture founded the Cuban Rap abroad to improve America’s image. As Powell would explain
Agency, along with the magazine Movimiento, to create to Eisenhower, “One dark face from the US is of as much value
a “revolutionary” hip-hop sound that would give voice to as millions of dollars in economic aid.”
the “downtrodden of the world,” and to make sure tracks Top diplomats welcomed the idea. The main goals
suspected of “ideological deviation” were given no airtime. of the tours were to bolster alliances and persuade non-
In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez funds hip-hop schools around aligned states that the US was different from European
the country, and invites Bolivarian raperos onto his Sunday colonial powers and the Soviet Union. “Before long, jazz
television show, “Aló, Presidente.” In the US, Michael Steele will become an arm of this country’s foreign policy in such
has tried to give the Republican Party a “hip-hop makeover” places as the Far East, Middle East and Africa,” observed
to bring its ideas to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.” The the New York Times in November 1955. “Bands will go into
US Army, in partnership with The Source magazine, has used countries where communism has a foothold.” 3 In March
hip-hop culture in its “Taking It to the Streets” campaign to 1956, Dizzy Gillespie and his arranger, a young trum-
recruit African-American youth.2 peter named Quincy Jones, embarked on the first tour;
26 Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011
their first performance took
place in Iran, where three
years earlier a CIA-backed
coup had reinstalled the
Shah in power. With the
Sov i e t Un i o n e x p a n d i n g
into the Middle East and
an insolvent Britain unable
to keep troops in Greece,
the US assumed the role of
containing Communism
and protecting oil resources
in the region. Gillespie’s
18-piece band performed in
Iran before moving on to
Syria, Lebanon and Pakistan
and ending in Turkey, Greece
and Yugoslavia. The jazz
tours targeted areas where
Communism was gaining a
foothold, and zones rich in
oil and uranium; as Penny
Von Eschen writes in her
pioneering study Satchmo
Blows Up the World, the tours
often moved “in tandem with
cover t CIA operations.” 4
The “jambassadors” were
of t e n d i sp at ch ed a s f ir st
responders to trouble spots.
“They sent us to every post
where there were problems
and we got nothing but
raves: We were the black
k a m i k a z e b a n d ,” w r i t e s
Quincy Jones in his memoir.
“The American embassy in
Athens was getting its ass
kicked, being stoned by the
Cypriot students, so they
rushed us over there from Karen Hughes, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, dances with a Moroccan hip-hopper in Marrakesh in 2006.
A n k a r a , Tu rk e y, a n d t h e Jalil Bounhar/AP Photo
Greek people loved it.” 5 In
1958, John Foster Dulles extended a tour sending Dave embodiment of America’s liberal ideals, in its improvisational
Brubeck’s band into Iraq, the only Arab state in the anti- pluralism and its universal, race-transcending quality. The irony,
Communist Baghdad Pact, hoping that while the jazz of course, is that these black musicians were deployed to improve
ambassadors performed, US officials could help quell the country’s image and legitimate policies at a time when the
the discord within the Iraqi army’s ranks. US was still a Jim Crow nation. Vast swathes of the American
Integrated bands led by Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke public opposed the tours, in fact, leading the State Department
Ellington and Benny Goodman visited the Soviet Union and to disguise their full extent. Yet the tours, which ended in the
parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, their performances 1970s, are widely considered a success. Pianist Brubeck, for
aimed at generating good will and getting citizenries to identify instance, thinks the jazz ambassadors helped end the Cold War.
with “the American way of life.” The bands were intended to be In 2005, the jazz diplomacy initiative was revived in a
symbols of the triumph of democracy, with jazz serving as an program called Rhythm Road, a partnership of the State
Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011 27
Department, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Academy the relationship between Islam and hip-hop. In that golden
of Music and the Kennedy Center. Karen Hughes, the under- age of “politically conscious hip-hop,” Rakim and Public
secretary of state for public diplomacy, introduced the program Enemy peppered their rhymes with Arabic phrases invoking
after being appointed by President George W. Bush in the Islam—“al-hamdu lillah,” “al-salam ‘alaykum”—and excerpted
wake of Abu Ghraib and the resurgence of the Taliban. Since the speeches of Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad. As the
its inception, Rhythm Road has included jazz and “urban/ Five Percent Nation, an offshoot of the Nation of Islam,
hip-hop” music, recognizing hip-hop’s dominance and role as gained ascendancy in the 1990s, mostly among youth in the
a “global musical language.” The program today also invites Northeast, the movement’s wordplay found its way into the
bands of other genres to audition—bluegrass, country, gospel, lyrics of Gang Starr, Poor Righteous Teachers and Brand
Cajun, zydeco and folk—but the initiative still relies heavily Nubian. As hip-hop went global around the same time, these
on black music. allusions were transmitted around the world. In the 2000s,
In 2005, the State Department began sending “hip-hop Sunni Muslim artists—Mos Def, Lupe Fiasco, Busta Rhymes,
envoys”—rappers, dancers, DJs—to perform and speak in Q-Tip, Rhymefest and others—became popular, exposing
different parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Toni mainstream fans to Islamic references like salat (prayer), zakat
Blackman, a poet, was the first such “hip-hop ambas- (alms) and shahada (profession of Muslim faith). American
sador.” Other groups that have been sent are Chen Lo and hip-hop’s relationship to Islam is thus inextricably linked to
the Liberation Family, Legacy, the Vice Versa Alliance, the the century-long presence of Islam in the American inner city.
Reminders, Native Deen and Kokayi. The tours have covered References to Islam and Arabic terms are so legion that, for
the broad arc of the Muslim world, with performances taking many young Americans weaned on hip-hop, rap videos and
place in Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire, across North Africa, the lyrics provide regular exposure to Islam. And Muslim youth
Levant and Arabia, and extending to Mongolia, Pakistan and abroad are keenly aware that, as popular wisdom has it, “Islam
Indonesia. The artists stage performances and hold workshops; is hip-hop’s official religion,” and that Muslims like Busta
the hip-hop ambassadors who are Muslim talk to local media Rhymes and Mos Def are some of rap’s biggest players.
about being Muslim in America. State Department publications show that diplomats are
The choice of jazz, during the Cold War, was not simply aware of this “Muslim hip-hop” history and the kinship Muslim
due to its international appeal. As von Eschen suggests, the youth feel for these artists. The hip-hop ambassadors program
State Department felt African-American culture could convey fits into a larger effort to showcase America’s model integration
“a sense of shared suffering, as well as the conviction that of Muslims, to demonstrate, as the State Department book
equality could be gained under the American political system” Muslims in America (2009) says, “that Muslim Americans
to peoples who had suffered European colonialism.6 Similar are endowed by right with the same freedoms, privileges and
thinking underpins the “hip-hop diplomacy” initiative. The responsibilities as other Americans.” In late 2002, the State
choice of hip-hop, widely derided as libertine, to represent the Department began producing public service announcements—
US in a rather conservative part of the world is not self-evident. wherein Muslim American professionals spoke of the religious
Yet the State Department planners who are calling for “the tolerance in America—that were televised in Muslim-majority
leveraging of hip-hop” in US foreign policy lay stress on “the countries. The aim was to show that the “Muslim American
importance of Islam to the roots of hip-hop in America.”7 A population is an extraordinary mosaic,” that post-September
Brookings report authored by the program’s architects notes 11 “fears and suspicions” had dipped and that integration
that hip-hop began as “outsiders’ protest” against the American was proceeding. “Distinctions that possibly loomed larger
system, and now resonates among marginalized Muslim elsewhere are instead in America ‘diluted’ in the deep pool
youth worldwide; from the Parisian banlieues to Palestine to of pluralism that characterizes American society,” declares
Kyrgyzstan, “hip-hop reflects struggle against authority” and Muslims in America. African-American Muslims figure promi-
expresses a “pain” that transcends language barriers. Moreover, nently in the State Department’s public diplomacy initiatives in
note the authors, hip-hop’s pioneers were inner-city Muslims the Muslim world, because of their long presence in America
who “carry on an African-American Muslim tradition of protest and the broad appeal of their culture and history. Muslims in
against authority, most powerfully represented by Malcolm X.” America describes African-American Muslims as “indigenous,”
The report concludes by calling for a “greater exploitation of and comes with a “mini-poster” displaying mostly African-
this natural connector to the Muslim world.” American entertainers who are Muslim—comedian Dave
Islam’s central role in hip-hop has been amply documented. Chappelle, rappers Q-Tip, RZA of Wu Tang Clan and Mos
Islamic motifs and Arabic terms have threaded through the Def, pianist Ahmed Jamal and Ronald Bell of Kool and the
genre’s fabric since its genesis in 1973, when Afrika Bambaataa Gang. Not surprisingly, a significant number of the “hip-hop
founded the Zulu Nation, reflecting the range of Islamic ambassadors” sent to the Muslim world—like Native Deen
and quasi-Islamic ideologies and cultures that have coexisted and the Reminders—are African-American Muslims.
for decades in America’s urban centers.8 In March 1991, The The deployment of African-American Muslims to show how
Source magazine devoted an issue, titled “Islamic Summit,” to economically and politically integrated Muslims are in America
28 Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011
Louis Armstrong receives a triumphal welcome in Dusseldorf in 1952. Albert Gillhausen/AP Photo
is ironic on multiple levels: African-Americans constitute the the government from aiming propaganda at its own citizens,”
least affluent segment of the American Muslim community, as the Washington Post explains.9
and are geographically the most segregated, with significant
numbers concentrated in inner-city areas and prisons. This “Perception Management”
community—at least since Mike Wallace’s 1959 documentary,
The Hate That Hate Produced—has also been portrayed as The divergent attitudes of State Department liberals and
extremist, separatist, illiberal and “not really Muslim.” Yet Southern nativists toward Islam rose to the fore during the
over the last decade, diplomats have begun to celebrate the summer 2010 anti-mosque controversy. In May of that year,
“indigenous” African-American Muslims, perhaps in a realiza- a pipe bomb exploded at a mosque in northern Florida. It
tion that as with the jazz tours, what is maligned at home was the opening salvo of the Tea Party movement’s campaign
can yield dividends abroad. Adam Clayton Powell may have against the construction of mosques, which spread slowly
recoiled at the Third Worldism on display at Bandung, and was from Florida to Tennessee, Kentucky, Kansas and Texas. After
fully aware that a number of jazz musicians sympathized with President Obama spoke in support of the construction of an
it. Some had espoused Ahmadi Islam, and others, like Dizzy Islamic center in lower Manhattan, the anti-mosque campaign
Gillespie, were card-carrying members of the Communist Party. turned into a furor, reaching northern states. Republican
But Powell—and liberal internationalists in Foggy Bottom— leaders and radio personalities across the country denounced
believed jazz diplomacy could advance American interests and the president. Soon “Leaving Islam” ads began appearing
aid the civil rights struggle. So the jazz artists were dispatched, on buses and taxis in major cities (“Fatwa on your head? Is
while State Department officials at home scrambled to prevent your family threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got Questions?
images of the tours from reaching southern segregationists. In Get Answers.”) Agitators started showing up at mosques and
this task, ironically, they were aided by the 1948 Smith-Mundt proposed mosque sites—from Staten Island to San Diego—
Act, which barred the output of the US Information Agency often led by Tea Partiers or the activists of ACT! for America,
from distribution within the US. The legislation passed when a Florida-based outfit whose aim is to prevent the imposition
Congress suspected that the State Department was staffed with of shari‘a in America. The anti-mosque protests had familiar
Communists. It remains in effect, and prohibits media outlets themes: Members of a local Tea Party chapter would appear
financed by the US government—like the Arabic-language TV at Friday congregational prayers with picket signs that read
channel al-Hurra—from broadcasting at home, to “prevent “No Sharia in America,” bringing dogs along and blaring the
Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011 29
A 2009 concert by Minneapolis bluesman Bernard Allison in the old theater in Constantine, Algeria. Alfred de Montesquiou/AP Photo
song “Born in the USA” by Bruce Springsteen. The fever-pitch Ground, discovered in 1991 at Broadway and Reade Street, a
rhetoric soon morphed into violence, with pipe bombs tossed few blocks from the proposed mosque site, and recounted the
at mosques in Tennessee and upstate New York, worshippers story of Mohammah Baququa, a sailor and slave who in 1847
pelted with pork and headscarves yanked off women’s heads. escaped from a Brazilian ship docked in lower Manhattan, and
The outpouring of rancor against Muslims was worse than went on to write The Biography of Mahommah G. Baququa, an
what followed the September 11 attacks, when President Bush important slave narrative that begins with a description of his
had declared Islam “a religion of peace,” embraced Muslim Muslim upbringing in Bergoo (now northern Benin).
leaders and cautioned against scapegoating “our Muslim Muslim Americans of immigrant background have taken
neighbors.” The Republican Party of 2010 suddenly adopted a keen interest in the history of Muslim slaves in America,
an overtly harsh stance toward Islam, reflecting a shift of especially their written narratives, the Arabic texts that these
strategy. Gearing up for midterm elections, GOP candidates West Africans left behind. Until recently, it was historians of
sought to inject the mosque issue into their local races.10 The the antebellum South who studied these texts—the writings
Republicans’ new policy toward American Islam was also a of Ayub bin Suleyman (known as “Job the Son of Solomon”),
(delayed) reaction to the election of Obama, who had shifted Omar ibn Said of North Carolina, Bilali Mohamed of Sapelo
the “rhetorical framework” of American diplomacy and made Island—to understand the lives of Muslim slaves and how their
diplomatic overtures that infuriated the Republican base. In literacy and Muslim identity often challenged racial hierarchies
August 2010, 20 percent of the American public thought and ideologies.12 Today, the children of immigrant Muslims
Obama was Muslim, and 52 percent of Republicans believed are showcasing these marvelous parchments in Arabic script
he was planning to impose Islamic law on America.11 to underline that Islam was present at America’s founding
Since September 11, Muslim activists had focused their and hence is “indigenous.” The State Department has also
political energy on challenging state repression—policies of developed an interest in the history of Muslim slaves.
deportation, rendition, profiling, wiretapping—but the anti- In the midst of the mosque furor, Imam Faisal Abdulraouf,
mosque campaign, spearheaded by the Tea Party, the most then the leader of the Park 51 Center, was sent on a diplomatic
dynamic segment of the Republican base, led them to shift tour of the Persian Gulf to, in the White House’s words, bring
gears. They launched a campaign to raise awareness about “a moderate perspective to foreign audiences on what it’s like
the Muslim presence in America, starting with the history to be a practicing Muslim in the United States.” Raouf was
of Muslim slaves brought to the New World from the 1500s recruited in February 2006 by Karen Hughes and had traveled
onward. At the multiple rallies (and counter-rallies) at Ground widely in the Middle East and Asia, presenting conservative
Zero, a ubiquitous sign on the “pro-mosque” side showed a groups like Hizb al-Tahrir with his Sufi approach to Islam and
picture of an African in a white robe next to a sketch of a arguing that American liberalism accords with the fundamen-
slave ship, under large red letters, “Islam Has Been in New tals of shari‘a. Raouf, like other Muslim good will ambassadors,
York for 400 Years.” Activists pointed to the African Burial believed that patriotically representing the US overseas could
30 Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011
dampen anti-Muslim sentiment at home and build political valuable tool for opening up West Africa to US economic
support for his institution building. (Despite his diplomatic and religious interests. America’s African Muslims were seen
services, when the time came, Hughes asked the imam to as natural intermediaries in dealings with the Muslims and
move the mosque as a “sign of unity” and “courtesy.”) The pagans of the West African Coast; the Muslim slaves had (at
imam’s public diplomacy—and his mosque project—divided least nominally) embraced Christianity, were indebted to the
the Muslim American community, often along North-South US for their newfound freedom, and could help spread the
lines, with many disliking his overseas defense of American gospel and American civilization in Africa. As the repatria-
liberalism at a time of extreme political duress (partly fomented tion movement grew in influence, literate Muslim slaves and
by his project). Muslims in the South resented his insistence their narratives gained greater political significance in the
on building a center close to Ground Zero, when they, below US. Some would feign conversion to Christianity, and the
the Mason-Dixon line, were catching the brunt of the backlash. American Colonization Society (or the Royal Africa Company
While Imam Raouf was touring the Gulf, hip-hop envoys of England) would send them to Liberia and Sierra Leone
were visiting other parts of the Islamic world. In July 2010, bearing Arabic-language Bibles.14
State Department-sponsored break-dancers were doing shows Today, as the US is trying to consolidate its position across the
in Morocco and Algeria; in September, rappers Tyson and Saharan belt, the African-American Muslim is again emerging
Kumasi were performing in Indonesia. Along with these tours, as an intermediary. It is curious that Washington would adopt
films about Islam and hip-hop in America were screened at this policy at a time when numerous Americans suspect that
US embassies in Asia and Africa. The film New Muslim Cool the country’s first black president is a secret Muslim and join
about a Puerto Rican rapper who embraces Islam popped up campaigns to ban shari‘a in American cities and restrict the
at US embassies in Jordan, Iraq, Angola and Bahrain. Another building of mosques and Islamic schools. As with the jazz tours
film shown in Senegal, Gambia and Bangladesh was Prince of the 1950s, the conservatives warning of “creeping sharia” today
Among Slaves, which tells the extraordinary story of Ibrahima would probably be displeased to know that the State Department
Abdal Rahman, who was born in 1762 to the king of Timbo, is exhibiting Arabic slave narratives to show that Muslims have
ruler of the Fulbe people in today’s Guinea. The prince rose existed in America since the sixteenth century, or that photographs
to take command of his father’s army, when at the age of 26, of the Wu Tang Clan grace State Department brochures. And the
he was captured in war and hauled across the Atlantic, ending idea of the African-American as intermediary with the Muslim
up on an auction block in Natchez, Mississippi. His royal world is not limited to public diplomacy. “African-Americans are
background and literacy would lead to his manumission in emerging in popular culture as leaders of the American nation
1828, whereupon he traveled north and spoke to large audi- and empire,” writes the literary critic Moustafa Bayoumi, noting
ences about his conversion to Christianity, writing in Arabic a sub-genre of films—The Siege, The Kingdom, The Traitor and
script for fascinated Northerners to raise money to buy his the HBO series Sleeper Cell—that portray “blacks at the helm” of
children’s freedom. In addition to films, the actual narratives a liberal American imperium, people who, because of their past
of Muslims enslaved in America are exhibited at diplomatic suffering, can achieve a level of human communication with Arabs
outposts. US embassies in Nigeria and Qatar have displayed and Muslims that whites cannot.15
the 13-page Arabic text written by Bilali Muhammad in 1829, European governments are also sending their Muslim citi-
a leather-bound collection of sheets in North African Arabic zens on diplomatic missions. The British Home Office sends
script, while the US mission at the UN has showcased Omar young British Muslim professionals and former extremists (who
ibn Said’s text from 1836. have been “de-radicalized”) on tours to Pakistan and Egypt to
Ironically, the last time these writings drew government speak to young audiences about the successes and freedoms of
attention was in the mid-nineteenth century, when the young Muslims in Britain. European states have also started sending
American republic sought to make inroads into the Muslim their Muslim hip-hop artists to perform in Muslim-majority
parts of Africa, specifically the Barbary Coast and the area that countries. The French and German embassies in Yemen
would become Liberia. Ibrahima, the aforementioned Fulbe have sponsored festivals and workshops (called “Common
prince, would gain his freedom because President John Quincy Beats”) that bring French-Muslim and German-Muslim
Adams, Secretary of State Henry Clay and the American rappers together with their Yemeni counterparts. The British
Colonization Society (which took up his cause) thought his Council twice dispatched the hip-hop duo, Mecca2Medina, to
manumission could further US interests. Clay believed that perform in northern Nigeria, an area of high sectarian tensions.
Ibrahima, once freed, could be “returned” to Morocco (his Following a 2007 performance in Kano, one of 12 Nigerian
Arabic script apparently betrayed North African influence) and states under shari‘a law, the head of the morality police who
used as a bargaining chip to release Americans held captive scour the streets for “un-Islamic” behavior, publicly praised
by Sultan ‘Abd al-Rahman II.13 The American Colonization the rap duo for being Western yet pious. The British Council
Society’s interest in Muslim slaves is fascinating. This organi- also began organizing hip-hop workshops in Tripoli, and
zation, founded by Clay in 1817 to “repatriate” African slaves sponsoring Electric Steps, “Libya’s only hip-hop band,” as a
to Liberia, saw Muslim slaves with their Arabic literacy as a way to promote political reform in that country.
Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011 31
focusing on “at-risk” youth to help “raise the standard of
dialogue on extremism and promote understanding between
Britain’s Muslim and non-Muslim communities.”
The embassy also organized cultural activities, including
the “Ramadan Festival” (first held by the US embassy in
Amsterdam), to highlight the diversity of British Muslims and
invited various American Muslim artists. The cables stressed
the importance of performances by American Muslims. “The
message their performance would send—of American Muslims,
proud to be both ‘American’ and ‘Muslim’—is a powerful
message that would open British Muslim eyes to American
cultural and religious diversity,” notes one missive, “as well
as encourage reflection on the part of the British Muslim
community in a positive, self-defining direction.” Explaining
why the US-based “Allah Made Me Funny” comedy troupe
should be invited, an officer says its “positive messages” would
likely reach “thousand[s] of British Muslims, including the
disproportionately high youth population.” The integration
of American Muslims—contrasted with the segregation of
Muslims in Europe—is offered as evidence that America is
not at war with Islam.
The London cables also describe the embassy’s efforts to
reach “moderate” Muslim communities that “lack the institu-
tional infrastructure to actively mobilize against radicalizing
influences.” There is little agreement, however, on what
“moderate” means. The British press was unhappy with the
embassy’s “secret campaign” to de-radicalize British Muslims,
and especially with the embassy’s outreach to mosques consid-
ered “radical” in Britain, such as the Finsbury Park mosque in
In front of the Martin Luther King grade school in Villiers-le-Bel. Sipa via AP Images
northern London, frequented by both Moussaoui and Reid.16
In Europe, however, more than for diplomacy, governments In December 2010, Ambassador Louis Susman drew criticism
are using hip-hop to integrate their Muslim minorities, and in from conservative Britons and secular British Muslims for
so doing, they are bumping up against US hip-hop initiatives. visiting and expressing his “great admiration” for the East
London Mosque (a mosque that allegedly hosted Anwar
Uncle Sam in the Banlieues al-Awlaqi some years ago), and inviting its youth to participate
in embassy-funded trips to the US.17 Dispatches from the US
The Wikileaks cables that probably stirred the most anger embassy in Amsterdam describe similar displeasure by Dutch
in European capitals were those wherein US diplomats officials and Dutch Muslim leaders worried that the embassy’s
castigated allies—France, Britain, Holland—for mistreating outreach programs see European Muslims as a “collective
their Muslim minorities. Since the arrests of “twentieth problem” and “associate the integration of European Muslims
hijacker” Zacarias Moussaoui and “shoe bomber” Richard primarily with efforts to counter radicalization.”
Reid, US officials have been concerned about the alienation But it is, perhaps not surprisingly, in France that the State
of European Muslims, which they fear may seep across the Department’s activities have triggered the most outrage. The
Atlantic. The cables show diplomats generally unimpressed dispatches from Paris are blunt in their appraisal: “The French
with European efforts to combat this “new threat,” and reveal have a well-known problem with discrimination against
that US embassies were funding Muslim groups in various minorities.” Some cables read like descriptions of pre-civil
European cities. In August 2006, the US embassy in London rights America: “The French media remains overwhelmingly
sent a cable to Washington stating that “little progress” had white.... Among French elite educational institutions, we are
been made in combating extremism and warning of rising only aware that Sciences Po has taken serious steps to integrate.”
tensions between the Muslim community and the govern- The thrust of the correspondence argues that the French
ment. Follow-up reports stressed that while Muslims make approach to assimilation has not worked, because of an “official
up only 3 to 4 percent of Britain’s population, outreach blindness to all racial and ethnic differences.” Institutions
to this audience is vital to US interests. The US embassy are “insufficiently flexible,” unable to reflect the country’s
subsequently established a project called “Reverse Radicalism,” changing complexion. And the fear is not only that young
32 Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011
French Muslims will gravitate toward extremism—Washington French journalists expressed anger at this exercise in US
“takes seriously the potentially global threat of disenfranchised “soft power,” saying that the “head-hunting” of future Muslim
and disadvantaged minorities in France”—but that ethnic and leaders constituted “direct interference” that was infringing on
racial conflict will weaken France. “We believe that if France, French sovereignty and undermining the authority of French
over the long term, does not succeed in improving prospects institutions. When the US ambassador, Charles Rivkin, a
for its minorities and give them true political representation, former Hollywood executive, brought actor Samuel L. Jackson
it could become weaker, more divided and perhaps inclined to visit a community center in the banlieue of Bondy, and
toward crises…and a less effective ally as a result.” Jackson, addressing a group of youth, compared their struggle
The US embassy staff acknowledge France’s reluctance to the hardships of his childhood in segregated Tennessee,
to accept the American model of integration or to “partner” French media resented the comparison. Another awkward
with the embassy, but the cables describe numerous outreach moment came at the unveiling of a painted mural for the civil
projects involving exchange programs, tours, festivals, confer- rights leader Martin Luther King at the Collège Martin Luther
ences and media appearances to raise awareness among state King in Villiers-le-Bel, another restive Parisian suburb, when a
and non-state actors about America’s civil rights movement group of African and Arab children stood around Ambassador
(“sharing of our American experiences in managing diversity”). Rivkin and sang “We Shall Overcome.”
Through such efforts, and by pressing the French government But it is the embassy’s efforts to empower “moderate”
and NGOs to improve the lot of French Muslims, the embassy Muslim voices that have infuriated the French, for again,
has tried to alter French Muslim perceptions of the US, to show one state’s “moderate” is another state’s “extremist.” One of
that America respects Islam and “is engaged for good in the the Muslim organizations supported by the embassy was the
Arab-Muslim worlds.” By explaining how America manages online magazine Oumma.com, described by the ambassador as
diversity, the embassy’s outreach aims to inspire “a workable a “remarkable website.” French conservatives, who see the site
French model for addressing ethnic conflict” and help France as extremist because of its alleged sympathies for the Muslim
live up to its egalitarian ideals. “While direct development Brothers, charged that the American right and French Muslims
assistance…is not likely to be available for France,” notes one were allying to undermine French laïcité. The embassy’s
cable, there should be funds available “to address the conse- hip-hop diplomacy program, whereby French rappers are flown
quences of discrimination and minority exclusion in France” to the US, to spend time in Harlem and meet with artists and
through exchange programs, grants and media intervention. civil rights activists, has also raised hackles.18 One of the artists
The author underscores that, given France’s self-image, “such invited by the State Department was rapper Ekoué Labitey of
an effort will continue to require considerable discretion, La Rumeur, one of the groups that Nicolas Sarkozy, as minister
sensitivity and tact on our part.” of interior, had sued for libel for their lyrics about the brutality
These depictions of France as a prejudiced country in need and impunity of French police.
of American aid and tutelage were not well received. France
has long viewed itself as being immune to American-style “Jihadi Cool”
racial politics, priding itself on providing refuge, since the late
nineteenth century, to African-Americans fleeing discrimi- One of the odder phenomena of the last decade is hearing
nation. The cable that drew the most indignant response national security elites, terrorism experts and career diplomats
from French state officials was written by then Ambassador discuss the finer points of “flow,” “bling” and the “politics
Craig Stephenson, at the height of the Parisian civil unrest of cool.” American and European terrorism experts have
in November 2005: “The real problem is the failure of white increasingly expressed concerns over “anti-American hip-hop,”
Christian France to view its dark-skinned and Muslim compa- accenting the radicalizing influence of the genre. Noting that
triots as citizens in their own rights.” Speaking on a television the Shabaab, the Somali-based Islamist group, uses “jihad
show, former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin scoffed, rap” in its recruitment videos, Jessica Stern writes in Foreign
“This [cable] shows the limits of American diplomacy.” He Affairs, “The first- and second-generation Muslim children I
added that US diplomats were wrongly reading the banlieues interviewed for a study of the sources of radicalization in the
crisis through their own history, and viewing France’s urban Netherlands seemed to think that talking about jihad was
crisis through a religious prism. The French media, in turn, cool, in the same way that listening to gangster rap is in some
was riled by revelations that the US had since 2003 been youth circles.”19 Others have advocated mobilizing certain sub-
deeply involved in the integration process—pushing to shift styles of hip-hop against “jihadi cool.” Warning that Osama
the media discourse, to get French leaders to rethink their bin Laden’s associate Abu Yahya al-Libi has made al-Qaeda
“terminology” and “intellectual frameworks” regarding minority look “cool,” one terrorism expert recommends that the US
inclusion, to generate public debate about “affirmative action,” respond “with one of America’s coolest exports: hip-hop,”
“multiculturalism” and hyphenated identity, to reform French specifically with a “subgroup” thereof. “Muslim hip-hop is
history curricula and to encourage French museums to exhibit Muslim poetry set to drum beats,” he explains. “Add in the
the contributions of minorities. emotional parallels between the plight of African-Americans
Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011 33
French rapper Abd Al Malik, right, after winning the best male artist award at the Victoires de la Musique, Paris, 2008. Francois Mori/AP Photo
and, for example, impoverished Algerians living in ghettos cover depicting the Statue of Liberty hooded and wired like an
outside of Paris or Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Abu Ghraib prisoner, and a song (“Che Bin Pt 2”) comparing
the analogy becomes even clearer.”20 But it is unclear how bin Laden to Che Guevara. Two MPs called for his arrest.21
“Muslim hip-hop” will exert a moderating influence: Will a Realizing the influence of hip-hop, when in April 2007 the
performance by an African-American Muslim group trigger a Home Office introduced PREVENT, an initiative to stop British
particular calming “affect” pushing young Muslim men away Muslim youth from being lured into violent extremism, it made
from extremist ideas? Nor is it clear what constitutes “Muslim sure that hip-hop figured prominently. Muslim organizations
hip-hop”: Does the fact that Busta Rhymes is a Sunni Muslim in Britain receive PREVENT funding to organize “Spittin’
make his music “Islamic”? Light” hip-hop shows, where American and British Muslim
In Europe, hip-hop is being enlisted in a broad ideological rappers with “mainstream interpretations” of Islam parade their
offensive to counter domestic extremism. As in America, some talents. The initiative is directed at younger Muslims, who may
of the biggest stars on the European hip-hop scene are Muslim, not be associated with mosques or other religious institutions.
the children of immigrants and/or converts, a number of whom PREVENT’s advocates claim that “art and culture can provide
have been embroiled in controversies about freedom of expres- Muslims with an acceptable outlet for strong emotions.”
sion, national identity and extremism. Britain became the first Other European governments are worrying about hip-hop
country to deal with the issue of “Muslim hate rap,” when, in and extremism. In Berlin, the Tunisian-German rap star
2004, the song “Dirty Kuffar” was released online by rap group Bushido, who has won awards from MTV, angered many with
Sheikh Terra and the Soul Salah Crew. The video, splicing the verse, “I am a Taliban…. I have set your city on fire.” In the
together images from Iraq, Palestine and Chechnya, praises Netherlands, the government is at a loss over what kind of rap
Osama bin Laden and denounces Bush, Tony Blair, Ariel to support. In 2007, there was a controversy surrounding the
Sharon, Husni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia’s King ‘Abdallah as Dutch-Moroccan star Salah Eddin and his video “Het Land
“dirty infidels.” The track drew the attention of the Home Office Van” (“This Country Of ”), in which he describes being Muslim
and Labor MPs, who saw the lyrics and imagery as advocating in an increasingly conservative country and lists what he likes
violence. In 2006, Aki Nawaz of the popular hip-hop-techno and does not like about the Netherlands. Among other things,
group Fun-Da-Mental released an album “All Is War,” with a he does not like racial profiling and the red-light district—“this
34 Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011
land that sells women behind window panes.” The rapper first in hip-hop partly in an effort to recognize marginalized cultures
appears clean-shaven in a plaid shirt; as the video progresses, and identities and partly to foster a hip-hop conducive to
his facial hair grows longer until, by the end, he is wearing integration. Yet the question is what kind of hip-hop best aids
a scraggly beard and an orange Guantánamo jumpsuit. The integration, and which rappers to invite to the Grand Palais.
uproar was not only about this content, but the fact that Salah As sociologist Loïc Lafargue de Grangeneuve notes, “hip-hop
Eddin had received a grant from the Dutch Ministry of Culture policy” in France tries to discover artists and promote them as
for the video’s production. Voters complained that their tax role models for the banlieusards, yet successful hip-hop artists
money was underwriting radicalism, and government officials rarely appreciate being held up by politicians as models of
felt duped: They had given Salah Eddin a grant thinking he was successful integration, often because government validation
“moderate,” but he turned out to be “radical.” (A right-wing separates them from their base. Moreover, as he notes, the
media watchdog in the US has leveled a similar critique at the “instrumentalization” of hip-hop culture risks emptying the
State Department after studying the lyrics of Chen Lo, one genre of its political power and generating a different kind of
of the “hip-hop envoys,” and finding his patriotism wanting.) contestation23—between rappers validated by the state and
European officials (along with US embassy officials) are those who are not. Precisely this process is occurring in France,
scrutinizing hip-hop practices in their cities’ immigrant neigh- as seen in the interplay between Abd Al Malik and Médine.
borhoods, trying to decide which Muslim hip-hop artists to Probably the most celebrated French hip-hop artist of the
legitimate and which to push aside. The debate over hip-hop, last decade is French-Congolese rapper Abd Al Malik. A former
Europe’s dominant youth culture, stands in for a much larger street hustler raised in a housing project outside of Strasbourg,
debate about race, immigration and national identity. With he embraced Islam as a teenager, joining the Islamist Tablighi
many of the biggest stars being Muslim, the disputes over Jama‘at. He then achieved some notoriety with his rap group
which Muslim hip-hop artists are “moderate” or “radical” are New African Poets, before embracing Sufism and shifting from
also disagreements over what kind of Islam to allow into the gangsta rap to spoken word poetry (le slam). Malik’s poetry,
public space. This debate is playing out most poignantly in accompanied by riffs of jazz and la chanson française, speaks
France, the country with the largest Muslim community in of the value of hard work, education and the power of “spiri-
Europe, the second largest hip-hop market in the world and a tuality.” In his music and his autobiography, May Allah Bless
place whose traditions of laïcité aggressively restrict expressions France (Qu’Allah benisse la France), Malik extols the Republic’s
of religion in the public sphere. values—liberté, egalité, fraternité—saying they should be
reinvigorated. He says the notion of laïcité is broad enough
“Hamdoulah Ça Va” to include an Islamic spirituality. Malik has won all kinds of
artistic and non-artistic plaudits; he is raved about by elites
Hip-hop has long encapsulated France’s anxieties about as a Muslim role model and a symbol of a new multicultural
both American domination and Islam. In the 1990s, fear of France, la France pluriel.24 In January 2008, the Ministry of
Americanization, and the introduction of English words and Culture awarded Malik the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres,
phrases through music, led to the establishment of national one of France’s most prestigious cultural honors. As hip-hop
quotas to protect the French language. The 1994 Carignon gains public acceptance and rises to the level of high culture,
media law required that a minimum of 40 percent of musical French cultural and political elites are carefully monitoring the
programming on radio stations be by French musicians kind of Islam that is being diffused over the rap airwaves, and
and 20 percent by contemporary French artists. This quota Malik’s music embodies the kind of Islamic piety that can be
actually encouraged the growth and commercialization of permitted into the French public square.
French hip-hop, as FM mega-stations shifted their playlists If Malik’s music makes no political demands, his would-be
from Anglophone-dominated pop and rock to rap, where rival, Médine, a popular “undergound” hip-hop artist, hits all
they thought the French-language quotas could be met more the issues that the Sufi poet evades: the social exclusion of non-
easily. French record labels began expanding their hip-hop white French youth, conditions in the banlieues and Western
portfolios and sending scouts into the banlieues looking for depredations in the Third World. Sporting a bald dome and
talent.22 Thus, ironically, a law designed to protect the “French fierce beard, Médine raps in harsh, halting tones over hard-core
identity” from Americanization, helped promote the French instrumentals, about colonialism, Malcolm X, Afghanistan, the
form of an American genre, one that now amplifies the voices PATRIOT Act, police brutality and segregation. His videos
of religious and ethnic minorities seen as a domestic threat to show graphic images of war, street protests and waterboarding.
national identity. His critiques of the French model of integration are blunt and
As part of its cultural policy, the French government has forceful, the gist being that France’s urban and youth crisis
actively promoted hip-hop, at the local and national level, must be understood in light of the country’s colonial past
bringing rappers onto the stage of the National Opera of and Western imperialism in general. Médine, unlike Malik,
Bordeaux, sponsoring concerts and funding local institutions in is not particularly vocal about his own religiosity, speaking
troubled neighborhoods. The French government has invested more about rights for Muslims. Yet the mainstream media
Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011 35
has largely ignored him, and some radio stations boycott him, compatriots’ allegiance. If European Muslims are often accused
saying he promotes a Muslim communautarisme. The more of being loyal to their land of origin or some transnational
overtly pious Malik is celebrated, in part because he declares Islamic movement, now they are suspected of being a fifth
his love for the Republic, sees Islamic identity as compatible column of the United States (just as religious minorities in
with the Republic’s values and, while he refers to the country’s the Muslim world are). French right-wingers are warning of
colonial past, is not enraged at the French state. Médine’s a Muslim “Trojan horse,” comparing the State Department-
confrontational manner, however, resonates more widely with sponsored trips taken by young French Muslims to the US to
France’s disaffected youth than does Malik’s approach. The the Soviet-sponsored trips of the 1920s and 1930s that took
more praise showered upon the clean-shaven Sufi poet, the French intellectuals to Russia to experience the benefits of
less appeal Malik’s brand of flow and Islam has, with critics socialism firsthand.27 Overheated as such rhetoric may be, it
speaking of the rise of “lackey” hip-hop and “good Muslim” seems true that the US counterinsurgency initiatives in Iraq,
rappers versus “bad Muslim” rappers.25 Somalia and Afghanistan now have a kinder, gentler corollary
US embassies have slowly inserted themselves into this directed at Western Europe’s urban periphery.
delicate dance between European governments and their And the US embassies are not the only ones pursuing Muslim
hip-hop counter-publics. The Wikileaks cables released thus outreach strategies. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and
far do not explicitly speak of hip-hop diplomacy, or rap a host of Arab states are also monitoring their diasporas in
as a tool for de-radicalization. One dispatch from the US Europe, assertively promoting interpretations of Islam and
embassy in London describes the arts as “an important way trying to win the support of Europe’s Muslim populations.
to reach potentially hostile audiences” and recommends the The Great Game of the twenty-first century—the ideological
screening of two films, New Muslim Cool and Deen Tight, both and geopolitical tussles centered around post-colonial Africa
of which describe minority converts who discovered Islam and the Middle East—is increasingly playing out in Europe’s
through hip-hop. But hip-hop is at the heart of US embassies’ immigrant neighborhoods.
outreach to Muslim communities. Farah Pandith, the State
Department’s special representative to Muslim communities, “Soundtrack to the Struggle”?
has agued that hip-hop can convey a “different narrative” to
counter the foreign “violent ideology” that youth are exposed Following a rap crew’s 2010 performance in Damascus, Hillary
to.26 Muslim American rap artists are invited to perform at Clinton was asked about hip-hop diplomacy. “Hip-hop is
embassies in Europe. Local artists are invited to the embassy. America,” she said, noting that rap and other musical forms
The ambassador to France has sponsored hip-hop conferences, can help “rebuild the image” of America. “You know it may be
inviting rappers to his residence, including the controversial a little bit hopeful, because I can’t point to a change in Syrian
K.ommando Toxik (who at the US embassy performed a policy because Chen Lo and the Liberation Family showed
tribute to two boys who were killed by the French police in up. But I think we have to use every tool at our disposal.”
November 2007, an incident that triggered a wave of riots). The hip-hop diplomacy programs launched by the US and
Western states have a long history of intervening in the European governments aim to rebrand their states and push
Muslim world to protect and empower religious minorities. In Muslim youth away from extremism, but the US initiative is
the nineteenth century, the French sheltered the Maronites, the more ambitious, trying to promote democracy, development
Russians patronized the Orthodox Christians and American and even alter the behavior of other states. Unlike the European
missionaries in Syria courted the Druze. The great powers states who promote certain kinds of hip-hop over others, the
assumed the protection of these religious minorities in part to US government’s approach to hip-hop at home is mostly laissez
expand their influence in the region. This practice continues, faire. But at the international level, US hip-hop diplomacy is
in different forms, to this day, but it is unprecedented for allied more interventionist. “You have to bet at the end of the day,
Western states to court each other’s minorities. And yet the US people will choose freedom over tyranny if they’re given a
is spending millions of dollars to win the hearts and minds of choice,” Clinton observed, stating that cultural diplomacy is a
Europe’s disaffected Muslim communities, often vying with complex game of “multidimensional chess.” “Hip-hop can be
European states’ own local outreach efforts. If the aim was a chess piece?” asked the interviewer. “Absolutely!” responded
to create positive impressions of the US, the effort seems to the secretary of state.
be working: European Muslim activists appreciate the brutal Liberal analysts see the jazz tours of the 1950s and 1960s
candor of the cables. In France, in particular, perhaps because as a success. By showcasing racial progress, jazz diplomacy, it
of the country’s contentious alliance with the US, positive is argued, countered Soviet propaganda and created positive
opinion of the US has risen sharply since 2008. But the State impressions of the United States. But hip-hop is not jazz; the rap
Department’s outreach to Muslims, conceived in response to stars of today are not the jazz greats of the 1950s and 1960s; and,
Europe’s “nativist surge,” seems to be further inflaming the for all the parallels drawn, the “war on terror” is not the Cold
right, who see Washington’s rap-infused initiatives as infringing War. The jazz tours resonated with people across Africa, the
on their sovereignty and are even more chary of their Muslim Middle East and South Asia because the post-war US was seen
36 Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011
as an anti-colonial power, a counterweight to French, British in war-torn Muslim societies. The point is that not all Islam-
and Italian dominance. Indeed, the US did parry European alluding hip-hop resonates with Muslim youth. Those hip-hop
colonial thrusts in Libya in 1950 and the Suez Canal Zone in stars—Lupe Fiasco, Mos Def, Rakim—who are beloved among
1956. Moreover, the civil rights struggle resounded globally; the Muslim youth are appreciated because they work their Muslim
black freedom movement was seen as an ally of the decolonized identity into their art and because they forthrightly criticize
world. Its sounds—jazz, in particular—had a powerful moral US foreign policy. On his latest album, Lupe raps: “Gaza Strip
appeal, as jazz musicians, influenced by the Afro-Asian unity was getting burned; Obama didn’t say shit.” But none of these
discourse of Bandung and the Nation of Islam, wrote composi- gentlemen are likely to be invited on a State Department tour.
tions like “Uhuru Afrika” and “Freedom Now Suite” linking The Cold War jazz tours were never popular among progres-
the civil rights movement with anti-colonial struggles in Asia sive black intellectuals. Frantz Fanon and the Guyanese
and Africa. But the honeymoon with America slowly came to historian Walter Rodney both resented how Louis Armstrong
an end as Cold War politics led to myriad interventions and and others were used as “emissaries of the Voice of America,”
proxy wars, and the US gradually became, along with France how the music of “oppressed black people” was transformed
and Britain, the backer of a repressive state system extending into “propaganda.”28 Similar charges are leveled at the hip-hop
from the Barbary Coast to Pakistan. As the US relationship diplomacy program today—though they are laced, in some
to the region changed, and the Vietnam war wore on, the jazz cases, with ad hominem attacks upon the artists themselves.
ambassadors would find themselves increasingly challenged by The artists, it should be noted, have assumed some personal
local audiences on their role in the American foreign policy risk. In July 2007, as part of the Rhythm Road program, Toni
establishment. Von Eschen describes an incident in Algiers in Blackman was driven in an armored vehicle, flanked by a
April 1967, when young Algerians asked jazz ambassadors how convoy of trucks carrying UN blue helmets, to perform in the
they, as African-Americans, could represent a country that was largely Muslim, rebel-held north of Cote d’Ivoire. In January
“committing atrocities” in Vietnam. 2006, she was performing for an outdoor audience in Medan,
The jazz tours would continue in the Soviet bloc, as did Voice Indonesia, when a throng of men on motorbikes carrying
of America broadcasts of jazz behind the Iron Curtain. And what the New York Times described as “anti-American banners”
black internationalism did not lose its appeal in the Muslim drove into the concert area, clambered onto the stage, shoved
world. Through the 1970s, Africans and Asians languishing Blackman aside and began shouting anti-American statements
under authoritarian rule appreciated the statements of into the microphone. The concerts are often seen as an attempt
solidarity from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating to sugarcoat unpopular policies, and African-American rap
Committee, TransAfrica, the Black Panthers, Jesse Jackson, artists are asked about their newfound role as good will ambas-
Randall Robinson and other black leaders. Ordinary people sadors. The Muslim hip-hop envoys are particularly aware of
fasted ahead of Muhammad Ali’s big fights. As hip-hop the way they are perceived overseas. One member of Native
emerged, its beats and lyrics, as the public diplomacy experts Deen expressed the ambivalence he felt when first approached
correctly note, would quickly resound with Muslim youth. by the State Department: “‘Should we do it?’ ‘Should we not
But the best-loved music was the politically “conscious,” do it?’ Some people were saying, ‘Y’all are going to be puppets,
Afrocentric hip-hop of the 1980s and early 1990s that paid going over there saying: Everything’s OK. We’re bombing your
tribute to Africa, Asia and Islam. At some point in the mid- country, but we have Muslims, too!’”29
1990s—critics debate the precise date—“conscious” hip-hop Realists have little illusion about the role that hip-hop
would be sidelined by commercial rap, a form more concerned can play in power politics. Samuel Huntington, 15 years ago,
with the acquisition of wealth than solidarity with the post- cautioned policymakers not to put too much faith in “cultural
colonial world. fads”: “Somewhere in the Middle East a half-dozen young men
And while references to Islam remain legion, they are not could well be dressed in jeans, drinking Coke, listening to rap,
necessarily political or flattering. In December 2002, Lil and, between their bows to Mecca, putting together a bomb
Kim appeared on the cover of OneWorld magazine wearing a to blow up an American airliner.” As with the jazz tours, it
burka and a bikini, saying “Fuck Afghanistan.” 50 Cent’s track is the liberal internationalists who believe in the geostrategic
“Ghetto Quran” is about dealing drugs and “snitchin’.” Foxy potential of music. US embassies across the developing
Brown charmed some and infuriated others with her song “Hot world are reaching out to hip-hop groups, supporting artistic
Spot,” saying, “MCs wanna eat me but it’s Ramadan.” More communities as a development strategy, which is causing fric-
disturbing was the video “Hard” released in late 2009 by the tion between US-backed artists and “independent” artists. In
diva Rihanna, in which she appears decked out in military garb, Bolivia, for instance, following the protests of October 2003
heavily armed and straddling a tank’s gun turret in a Middle against water privatization and a gas export scheme, the US
Eastern war setting. An Arabic tattoo beneath her bronze bra embassy and various development agencies began supporting
reads, “Freedom Through Christ”; on a wall is the Qur’anic indigenous hip-hop groups in the restive city of El Alto, in
verse, “We belong to God, and to Him we shall return,” recited competition with the Cuban and Venezuelan embassies, which
to honor the dead, and not an uncommon wall inscription were also reaching out to rappers. Claims that the US Agency
Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011 37
concerned about how to protect their music
from corporate power, but now that the music
is being used in diplomacy and counter-
Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times/Redux
terrorism, the conversation is shifting. “Hip-
hop at its best has exposed power, challenged
power, it hasn’t served power,” says the London-
based “underground” rapper Lowkey. “When
the US government loves the same rappers you
love, whose interests are those rappers serving?”
These clashing visions of hip-hop are playing
out in Third World cities like Tunis and El Alto,
and in immigrant neighborhoods in the West.
Hip-hop NGOs that use music for pedagogy,
anti-war activism, neighborhood stabilization
and “grassroots diplomacy,” institutions like
Gangway Beatz of Berlin, the Brooklyn-based
Native Deen (from left, Naeem Muhammad, Joshua Salaam and Abdul-Malik Ahmad). Existence is Resistance and the Rebel Diaz Arts
Collective in the South Bronx, all of whom
for International Development was funding some rap groups invite artists and youth from similarly marginalized neighbor-
to prevent another “Octubre” exacerbated long-standing hoods in other countries, operate in the same areas where local
tensions between that organization and the Bolivian state, authorities and foreign embassies are pushing their own hip-hop
leading analysts to speak of the “geopolitics of Andean rap.”30 initiatives. The Rebel Diaz Arts Collective, the Bronx’s first “hip-
Most curious is the claim that just as jazz embodied and hop community center,” advocates for immigrants, organizes
disseminated democratic values, hip-hop diplomacy in the Islamic workshops and leads anti-war protests, for instance staging
world is promoting democracy and fostering dissent because the a rap concert outside the School of the Americas in Georgia.
music expresses a tradition of African-American Muslim protest, Rebel Diaz receives some money from Citgo, the Venezuelan
represented by Malcolm X. By all accounts, the hip-hop envoys oil company, which provides subsidized oil to the Bronx. Not
avoid political issues in their embassy performances; local authori- too far from the collective is the Bronx Museum, whose State
ties will often carefully comb through lyrics ahead of time. Yet Department-funded “smARTpower” initiative sends cultural
Maura Pally, assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural ambassadors to countries, among them Venezuela, to improve
affairs, contends that when Yemeni youth enter the gates of the America’s image.
embassy in Sanaa and witness a hip-hop show, the experience is The debate about hip-hop and US “soft power” has not
“opening minds” and altering perceptions. The critics retort that, led to a backlash against the genre, just to more criticism of
after the show, the youngsters are still aware that US power is fully American hip-hop and the increasingly frequent claim that
behind the dictatorship under which they live. And this is the crux non-American rappers are rap’s true standard bearers. In the
of the growing debate over hip-hop diplomacy: Proponents claim Arab world, Islamists and others have long denounced hip-hop
that hip-hop can have the same liberating and rebranding effect as foreign and corrupting, but in 2011, local hip-hoppers have
as jazz did in the 1950s, somehow overlooking Washington’s close been embraced and celebrated for their role in the revolts. After
alliances with the authoritarian regimes of North Africa and the Ben Ali’s ouster, Tunisian rappers—then only known online—
Middle East. The Cold War is not the “war on terror.” The US were invited on television. The Popular Democratic Party, an
could use jazz to “sell” America behind the Iron Curtain and foster opposition group that joined the new Tunisian government,
dissent in Soviet-backed regimes, but can American “soft power” organized a massive concert for these rap heroes. Following
liberate people in US-backed tyrannies? The hip-hop initiatives Mubarak’s departure in Egypt, Hamada Ben Amor was invited
may be more successful in generating good will in Europe, where to perform in Tahrir Square, but he could not travel because he
Muslims are marginalized, but do enjoy some rights, or in a did not have a passport. Meanwhile, no less a figure than Chuck
non-allied dictatorship like Burma, where rap artists are heavily D, the iconic headman of Public Enemy, has lent support to the
censored, than in authoritarian regimes backed by US hard power. argument that “international” hip-hoppers are more faithful
The hip-hop diplomacy initiatives have sparked a heated to the music’s mission than their American counterparts. In
debate over the purpose of hip-hop: whether it is “protest music” January, while visiting South Africa, “the godfather of hip-hop”
or “party music”; whether it is the “soundtrack to the struggle,” wrote a scathing open letter to American hip-hoppers, blasting
as the immensely popular Lowkey titled his latest album, or to its ruling elite for their materialism, arrogance and lack of
American unipolarity; whether to accept embassy assistance or commitment to community, noting that the balance of power
not; and what it means that states—not just corporations—have had shifted. “The world has parity now and have [sic] surpassed
entered the hip-hop game. Hip-hop activists have long been the USA in all of the basic fundamentals of hip-hop.”
38 Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011
Hip-hop today is everywhere, unlike jazz in the 1960s. It is made to Mic Righteous’ freestyle to ensure that impartiality
readily available over the Internet, and there are rich hip-hop was maintained.”30 Given the purported role of rap in the Arab
scenes in cities worldwide. As a result, American hip-hop emis- revolts, hip-hop diplomacy will continue to be used as a bridge
saries do not draw the crowds that the “jambassadors” did. The to the democratic youth movements. It is too soon to tell if the
officials organizing the hip-hop tours will concede that Kokayi revolts will usher in a new era in relations between the US and
and the Vice Versa Alliance do not have the star power of the Arab world, or between Europe and North Africa. Hopes
Gillespie, Armstrong and Ellington, but they insist that the artists that the Libya intervention presaged a realignment of US power
are portraying an unseen side of America and that the diversity away from the oppressor to the oppressed are increasingly
they embody can alter perceptions. Diversity is the buzzword of giving way to the resigned realization that the 2011 tumult
hip-hop diplomacy, encountered again and again in reports and may very well produce a softer, but still compliant authori-
speeches. For State Department officials, the hip-hop initiatives tarianism. If the latter, perceptions will remain poor, and no
in Europe and in Muslim-majority states exhibit the diversity dose of black music or “diversity talk” will change that. ■
and integration of post-civil rights America. The multi-hued
hip-hop acts sent overseas represent a post-racial or post-racist Endnotes
American dream, and exhibit the achievements of the civil rights 1 Lisa Anderson, “Demystifying the Arab Spring,” Foreign Affairs (May/June 2011).
movement, a uniquely American moment that European leaders 2 Whitney Joiner, “The Army Be Thuggin’ It,” Salon.com, October 17, 2003.
and others can learn from. 3 New York Times, November 18, 1955.
But it is unclear how persuasive this racialized imagery 4 Penny von Eschen, Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), p. 5.
is. Muslims do not resent the US for its lack of diversity. 5 Quincy Jones, The Autobiography of Quincy Jones (New York: Doubleday, 2001), p. 14.
Where perceptions are poor, it is because of foreign policy as, 6 Von Eschen, p. 77.
well as, increasingly, domestic policies that target Muslims. 7 Cynthia Schneider and Kristina Nelson, Mightier than the Sword: Arts and Culture in the
US-Muslim World Relationship (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, June 2008), pp. 48, 57.
Perhaps the greatest irony of the State Department’s efforts to 8 See Zaheer Ali’s documentary project, “Beats and Risalahs,” which premiered on PBS on
June 23, 2009.
showcase the model integration of American Muslims, and
9 Washington Post, June 23, 2008.
to deploy the moral and symbolic capital of the civil rights 10 Politico, August 15, 2010.
movement, is that these tours—as with the jazz tours—are 11 Washington Post, August 31, 2010.
occurring against a backdrop of unfavorable (and racialized) 12 See, for instance, Allan D. Austin, African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic
Stories and Spiritual Struggles (London: Routledge, 1997). Historian Michael Gomez argues that
media images of Qur’an burnings, anti-mosque rallies and “the most lasting [and] most salient impact” of Islam in colonial and antebellum America “was its
role in the process of social stratification within the larger African-American society.” Michael
accusatory Congressional hearings, as one of most alarming Gomez, Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial
waves of nativism in recent American history surges north- and Antebellum South (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), p. 60.
13 Terry Alford, Prince Among Slaves (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
ward. The anti-mosque movement has now morphed into a 14 See Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, A History of Islam in America: From the New World to the New
larger “anti-sharia” movement, says the Southern Poverty Law World Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Center. Thirteen states from South Carolina to Arizona to 15 Moustafa Bayoumi, “The Race Is On: Muslims and Arabs in the American Imagination,”
Middle East Report Online (March 2010).
Alaska have introduced bills banning Islamic law. The Texas 16 Telegraph, February 4, 2011.
Board of Education passed a resolution rejecting high-school 17 Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2010.
textbooks that are “pro-Islam [and] anti-Christian,” and a 18 Le Figaro, March 4, 2010.
19 Jessica Stern, “Mind Over Martyr: How to Deradicalize Islamist Extremists,” Foreign
similar campaign is underway in Florida. American Muslims Affairs (January/February 2010).
are also facing a rising tide of discrimination and a hostile 20 Jeffry Halverson, “Rap Is Da Bomb for Defeating Abu Yahya,” COMOPS Journal,
September 14, 2009.
media climate that will no doubt worsen as the 2012 presi- 21 Ted Swedenburg, “Fundamental’s Jihad Rap” in Asef Bayat and Linda Herrera, eds., Being
dential campaign kicks off. As for the Democrats, maybe it is Young and Muslim (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
politically easier to be photographed with Muslims in Paris 22 Paul Silverstein, “Guerilla Capitalism and Ghettocentric Cosmopolitanism on the French
Urban Periphery” in Melissa S. Fischer et al, eds., Frontiers of Capital: Ethnographic Reflections
singing “We Shall Overcome” than to challenge the organized on the New Economy (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006).
23 Loïc Lafargue de Grangeneuve, Politique du hip-hop: Action publique et cultures urbaines
bigotry brewing at home. (Paris: Presses Universitaires Mirail, 2008), p. 226.
At any rate, the chessboard is convulsing. The revolts in 24 Jeanette Jouili, “Rapping the Republic: Who Should Muslim Youth Listen To in Secular
France?” unpublished paper presented at the Amsterdam School of Social Research, University
Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have rippled across the Mediterranean, of Amsterdam, October 2010.
stirring Muslim enclaves in European cities—self-immolations 25 Faycal Riad, “Un truc de malade: Abd Al Malik, ou la pétainisation du slam,” Les Mots
Sont Importants (January 2009).
have occurred in Amsterdam, Palermo and Marseilles—and 26 Farah Pandith, “Muslim Engagement in the Twenty-First Century,” speech at the Atlantic
rattling European governments and far-right parties that fear a Council’s South Asia Center, April 21, 2010.
flood of refugees. Western states, scrambling to calibrate their 27 Erwan Ruty, “Etats-Unis: à quand le retour du (vrai) plan Marshall pour les banlieues,”
Presse et Cité, July 8, 2010.
foreign policies and public diplomacy, are concerned with the 28 See Frantz Fanon, “This Africa to Come” in Fanon, Toward the African Revolution (New
York: Grove Press, 1967), p. 178; and Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
flow of peoples across the Mediterranean, but increasingly with (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 2009), p. 26.
musical flows, and the possible impact of North Africa’s revo- 29 New York Times, July 22, 2011.
lutionary lyricists on Europe. Twice in 2011 to date, to much 30 Johana Kunin, “El rap político boliviano,” iDebate (May 2009).
31 Asked why the BBC plays the classic reggae tune “The Israelites” without edits, a BBC
protest, BBC Radio1 Xtra tuned out the words “Free Palestine” spokesperson said: “Drekker’s 1969 track ‘Israelites’ was an apolitical song about Rastafarianism
in a song by the rapper Mic Righteous, saying that “an edit was which has not been played in the stations for years.” The Muslim News (London), May 27, 2011.
Middle East Report 260 ■ Fall 2011 39