Rebel Music ─ Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture

"In this timely, revelatory study, Hisham Aidi examines the secular and religious movements that have recently emerged among Muslim youth in the West as a means of protest against the policies of the "War on Terror." He interviews artists and activists, and reports from music festivals and concerts. He explains how certain kinds of music--particularly hip hop, but also Jazz, gnawa, Andalusian, Judeo-Arabic, Latin and others--have come to represent a heightened racial identity and a Muslim consciousness that criss-crosses the globe. He describes how western governments--particularly the U.S. and England--use music in an attempt to deradicalize Muslim youth abroad. And he explores the increasing radicalization among Muslim youth in an historical context: looking back to the Civil Rights movement and to the words of Malcolm X which have inspired many American Muslims. In all, Aidi has written a riveting, eye-opening portrait of a growing, potentially radical segment of the global youth culture"--

HISHAM D. AIDI is a lecturer at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He was a George Soros OSI Fellow, a Carnegie Scholar, and coeditor of Black Routes to Islam with Manning Marable. He has been a columnist for Al Jazeera and also wrote for Africana.com based at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute. He lives in New York.