The Role of Islam in Hip-Hops in the USA and Europe - Essay Example

THE ROLE OF ISLAM IN HIP-HOP SPREAD ACROSS EUROPE AND THE USA by Sur 19 April Increasing intensity of immigration of population from Islamic states, such as Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, affects the society the immigrants come to, and the effects of this influence are, as of any phenomenon, positive and negative. The reasons why people leave their homelands are various and special for each of them, but the general one is, as a rule, searching for better life in terms of financial situation, employment possibility and better conditions of living. The main directions the immigrants choose are, obviously, states with high living standards, good financial state of affairs, and tolerance to the others considered to be aliens to the local society. The immigrants create their own cultural identity in places they stay in as a result of immigration. This often may be done by means of synthesis of their traditional cultural features and the local ones, which are observed in music, particularly in hip-hop. Introduction I believe everyone has ever heard the word ‘hip-hop’ and samples of songs of this music direction. But I reckon that it is necessary to state that hip-hop is not only music, but also a separate culture with its own features. It is a rather popular phenomenon both in terms of musical and cultural aspect and it has become so habitual that it is often not remembered what hip-hop is. In this paper, I will concern myself with such an aspect in hip-hop history as the role of Islamic tradition in hip-hop development in the societies which the representatives of the Islamic religion have chosen as their new residency – the countries of Europe and the USA. I believe that is will be easier to investigate into this topic under such structure: a brief introduction into the historical background of hip-hop development, hip-hop and Islam in Europe, and hip-hop and Islam in the USA. A Brief Historical Background of Hip-Hop Development “A product of cross-cultural integration, rap is deeply rooted within ancient African culture and oral tradition. Hip-hop is believed to have originated in the Bronx by a Jamaican DJ named Kool Herc.” (Adaso, 2015). Hip-hop music is also referred to as rap music, hip-hop or hip hop music, and it is defined as a form of popular music which comprises four key elements: breakdancing, graffiti spraying, deejaying and emceeing, however, it can also contain sampling. (Adaso, 2015). As music and culture, hip-hop emerged in the 1970s in the New York City, particularly in Bronx, where the block parties were extremely popular among the youth of African-American origin. (Dyson, 2007, 6). The 1980s brought the breaking point in development of the hip-hop music – use of sampling, which gave a significant impulse for increase of population and further development of the hip-hop culture. The period of time from 1986 to 1993 is referred to as the ‘golden age’ of hip-hop music because this is when hip-hop reaches the top of its quality, diversity, influence and innovation. During this period, addition of new techniques and approaches, rethinking of the sounding contributed to acquisition of new audience and emerging of new talented hip-hoppers. The end of the ‘golden age’ period of hip-hop music is defined by the time between the years 1992 and 1993, when the West Coast music dominated in competence with the East Coast of the rappers from Los Angeles (West) and New York (East). The main event of the next period of the hip-hop music development, the 1990s, is the very well-known East Coast-West Coast rivalry, that is, as it comes from the name, the rivalry between the rappers of the East Coast, New York, represented by The Notorious B.I.G., and the West Coast, Los Angeles, represented by 2Pac – Tupac Shakur. This time is characterized by contradictions between the two mentioned hip-hop scenes and conflicts of the most prominent labels – Bad Boy Records and Death Row Records. (Adaso, 2015). The information mentioned above may lead to conclusion that hip-hop music exists only in the USA, but this is not right. Hip-hop culture and music are also rich in European countries, and Islam influence added many positive features to it, which I will describe further. Hip-Hop and Islam in Europe European countries are ones of the most economically well-off in today’s world, being rivals of the USA and Japan, because of the standards and conditions of living. This is an attractive factor for people who search for better life, that is, the immigrants. Besides many people coming here from the non-EU countries of the continental Europe and many immigrants from the EU new members with poor economic development, such as Romania, Bulgaria, Baltic countries, the number of immigrants from Islamic world – North Africa, the Persian Gulf, the inhabitants of the UK, Germany, France and Italy are demonstrating now negative attitude to both of these groups, and the nationalist right-wing movements appealing to the ‘Islamic threat’ have become today extremely popular. I believe that this is, of course, a point of concern because the racial or national discrimination is unacceptable, but the position of the locals is more than clear because they feel deprived of their own space and must share their country’s funds, accomodations, jobs with the newcomers. France today is the European country with the biggest share of Arab population – people from its former colonies Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Germany suffers from increase of the Turkish immigration, and Italians now feel the need to limit any immigration to their land. Keeping those facts in mind, it is still necessary to recognize immigrants living in those countries, and, logically, they affect the life of the local society. This is also correct for the cultural aspect, and I will investigate into how the Islamic representatives influence the hip-hop culture of the mentioned European countries. Germany. This country is reasonably reckoned as the most developed and dominating in Europe and one of the most prominent in the world. This makes it a target of immigration which increases significantly year by year, and local society shows signs of being irritated by this fact. The fall of the Berlin Wall meant not only unification of the two parts of the country, but also made the Western Europeans to reconsider their identity. The previous ‘division’ of the world could be described by the formulae East-West, Communism-Capitalism, Democracy-Totalitarianism, and the evolution of this phenomenon gave the formula Christendom-Islam. (Gross et al., 1992, 11). Elflein provides information of the year 1994 which to some extent justifies such division. As of the year 1994, the numbers of German immigrants made around 7 million people. “97 per cent of all immigrants were resident in the western part of the country, which meant that in the former Federal Republic of Germany and in West Berlin every tenth citizen was a foreigner.” (Elflein, 1998, 255). The major part of the immigrants constituted the Turks with the population of about 2 million people. I believe that the fact that half of that number were people aged 25 to 45 is very important for the topic of my paper, because it is the youth who develops the mainstream culture directions. (Elflein, 1998, 255). The first mentioning of the information about hip-hop in Germany was in such films as ‘Beat Street’ and ‘Wild Style’. Namely these movies made an image of hip-hop as not only a music direction, but also a separate culture. It is also very important that information about hip-hop reached both parts of the country – Federal Republic of Germany, the Western part, and German Democratic Republic, the Eastern part, almost simultaneously. (Elflein, 1998, 256). The German hip-hop was oriented both vocally and musically oriented to role models of American type. “The first record by a West German hip-hop crew, Use the Posse, was released in 1988 by the West Berlin based Rock Da Most. Their DJ, Derezone, later became a crucial figure in the development of what is now called oriental hip-hop.” (Elflein, 1998, 256). The fall of the Berlin Wall caused rise of nationalism and national identity of not only the Germans, but also of the Turks living in Germany, and this effect on the hip-hop scene was characterized by national coding of the youth culture. In 1991, the first album with the songs in Turkish was released – ‘Bir Yabancimin Hayati’, or ‘The Life of the Stranger,’ and it was done by the crew from Nuremberg named King Size Terror. This was the first possibility for the youngsters to raise the problem of the strangers in Germany, that is, the immigrants, and what is at all meant to be a foreigner in this country. Another important player in Turkish hip-hop in Germany is the band ‘Cartel’ originated in 1995. The album of the band released under the same name had a thought-provoking cover design: its ground colour was red, the ornamented letter C for Cartel very similar to the crescent of Islam, which is an obvious association with the national flag of Turkey. The album has no commercial success in Germany with only 20,000 copies of the album sold there, but even though the band was popular. This album was aimed primarily at one million of young Turkish people of Germany, and the official release note informed that the target of the album was rebelling against discrimination by means of hip-hop as an instrument of speaking up the problems. (Elflein, 1998, 256). I believe this is the right way to motivate people’s identity forming, because this is the best way to influence the minds of the youngsters who are usually not concerned with such serious issues. France. As I already mentioned above, France is now the EU country with the biggest part of the Arab immigrants, and this situation makes the native French irritated by the ‘Islamic threat’. In 1991, the survey conducted by the French government demonstrated that 71 per cent of the French inhabitants thought that the number of Arabs in the country was too big, and more than 30 per cent supported the idea of expulsion of the immigrants provided by the nationalist parties. The fact that this irritation is supported by today’s right-wing parties, such as FN, or the National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen, and was supported in the past by the president of the republic Francois Mitterand who told that France “…had gone “beyond the threshold of tolerance” (Gross et al., 1992, 12) creates the same favourable ground for the hip-hop representatives to struggle against nationalists’ discrimination by means of their music. One of the most prominent types of music created by the French immigrants is Rai music originated in the 1920s in Algeria. In the 1930s-1960s time Rai singers sang about actual social problems, for example, national liberation movements. The breaking moment in Rai development was in 1979, when the President of Algeria Benjedid loosened moral limitations. “… Rai emerged from the shadows and gained national popularity as its sounds, recording techniques and instrumentation were modernized” (Gross et al., 1992, 13). This breaking of constraints lead to raising the problems that used to be prohibited. In France “pop” Rai became one of the primary means of the Islamic minority’s cultural expression of the struggle against racial discrimination of the unfriendly environment. (Gross et al., 1992, 13). One of the most prominent Rai singers was Cheb Khaled, who sang about such usually tabooed in the Islamic society things as alcohol and women. The audience perceived his songs well, no matter if he started with the song about the Prophet Muhammad or came to alcohol later on, and this indicated tolerance of the society. In the middle of the 1980s Rai was significant as a means of Franco-Arab racism struggle. Multicultural Rai concerts were sponsored by SOS-Racisme, a anti-racist multiethnic organization founded in 1985 to resist the increasing violence against the Arabs. (Gross et al., 13). One more significant player of the Islam hip-hop of France is the band IAM from Marseille. The band participants have chosen the Egyptian pharaohs’ names as their nicknames in order to show their Afrocentrism and its prominence in terms of the African people’s struggle against colonialists. (Whidden, 2007, 1010). The concept of this band is to bypass negative perception of the North African people caused by economic uncertainties and rise of Islamic radical fundamentalism (Swedenburg, 2012, 1). The songs of this band concern themselves with the problem of religious politicization by such important figures in Islamic political world as Saddam Hussein, former Iraq dictator, and Iranian ayatollahs. (Swedenburg, 2012, 3). Turkey. Turkey, one of the most prominent players in the Islamic world, has its own traditions of hip-hop development. “While rap continues to be a major genre in the music markets of the United States and European countries such as France and Germany, rap as a whole, and especially Turkish-language rap, represents a minuscule part of the total music market in Turkey.” (Solomon, 2005, 7). This promotes development of underground hip-hop music, that is, composed but not market-released. The Turkish rap started not in Turkey, but in Germany where it was practiced by the ‘Gastarbeiters’, that is, guestworkers, immigrants. As it was already mentioned, in Germany Turkish rappers appeal to the problems of the immigrants’ self-identity, whereas the original Turkish rappers concern themselves with the local problems of Turkey. Hip-Hop and Islam in the USA As it was already mentioned, hip-hop originated in the USA. It is necessary to mention that development of black nationalism in the SU, that is, national identity of the African-American population in the 1960s-1970s, was more than beneficial ground of hip-hop use to appeal to the problems of racial discrimination. The lyrics of the rappers of this direction narrate about difficulties of being an African-American and intolerable living conditions of these people. (Watkins, 2001, 4). Such organizations as the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam contribute to establishment of the black nationalism, as well as its component – hip-hop nationalism, when the African-Americans started expressing Afrocentrism as a feature of their self-identity. (Decker, 1993, 55). I believe that it is obvious that Islam prescribes total male control over female activity. Anaya McMurray, however, states that black Muslim women in the US are free to listen to the music, and they choose hip-hop as a means to both concern themselves with the important problems and to improvise themselves. (McMurray, 2008, 75). The US is considered a tolerant society, and everyone is free to do anything he or she wants provided that this does not contradict the applied legislation and does not hurt the others. As Islam is not so strictly controlled here, it influences hip-hop in terms of spreading among certain representatives of the society. Conclusion The information given above investigates into the Islam influence on hip-hop spread worldwide, particularly in Europe and the US. Islam has added to hip-hop such features as appealing to the problems of national identity in case of the immigrants, like in France and Germany, and to the rise of the black nationalism, like in the USA. Islamic tradition has played a significant role in the hip-hop spread because numerous communities of the immigrants have used it as a means of self-expression and struggle against discrimination. References Adaso, H., 2015. A Brief History of Hip-Hop. [Online] (updated 2015) Available at: [Accessed 19 Apr. 2015]. Adaso, H., 2015. The History of Hip-Hop. [Online] (updated 2015) Available at: [Accessed 19 Apr. 2015]. Decker, J., 1993. The State of Rap: Time and Place in Hip Hop Nationalism. Duke University Press, 53-84. Dyson, M., 2007. Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip-Hop. Basic Civitas Books, 6. Elflein, D., 1998. From Krauts with Attitudes to Turks with Attitudes: Some Aspects of Hip­Hop History in Germany. Popular Music, 17(03), 255-265. Gross, J., McMurray, D., Swedenburg, T., 1992. Rai, Rap, and Ramadan Nights: Franco-Maghribi Cultural Identities. Middle East Report, 178, 11-16. McMurray, A., 2008. Hotep and Hip-Hop: Can Black Muslim Women Be Doum with Hip-Hop? Meridians, 8(1), 74-92. Solomon, T., 2005. ‘Living Underground is Tough’: Authenticity and Locality in the Hip-Hop Community in Istanbul, Turkey. Popular Music, 24(1), 1-20. Swedenburg, T., 2012. Islamic Hip-Hop vs. Islamophobia: Aki Nawaz, Natacha Atlas, Akhenaton. [Online] (updated 4 Mar. 2012) Available at: [Accessed 19 Apr. 2015]. Watkins, S., 2001. A Nation of Millions: Hip Hop Culture and the Legacy of Black Nationalism. The Communication Review, 4:3, 373-398. Whidden, S., 2007. French Rap music Going Global: IAM, They Were, We Are. The French Review, 80(5), 1008-1023. Read More