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

A groundbreaking investigation into the Muslim youth movements that have emerged in cities around the world in the years since 9/11, and in the wake of the Arab Spring, that illuminates the unexpected connections between urban marginality, music, and political mobilization.
 
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 crisscrosses 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 a historical context: looking back to the Civil Rights movement and to the words of Malcolm X that 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.