The world has been awoken to the realization that there is a possibility that dominant cultures are getting fused together with the subordinate ones and that there is emerging a significant shift that is best described as the politics of difference. In the article What Is This “Black” in Black Popular Culture? Stuart Hall seeks to show how Black forms of popular culture have been seamlessly fused into mainstream culture and have been incorporated into the dominant Western or European culture. What that means is that there is a new spurt of intellectual consciousness that have included new conceptions that contain a different way of thinking and doing things that are seemingly inclusive of black culture. Perhaps one of the most critical ways of looking at how black culture has been embraced is by looking at the culture of popular music. Hall says that black culture is displayed, "in the figures and the repertoires on which popular culture draws the experiences that stand behind them. In its expressivity, its musicality, its orality, in its rich, deep, and varied attention to speech.” (Hall 109). That only means that black popular culture has found its way into the mainstream popular culture and is being invented along the diversity, multiplicity as well as heterogeneity of preserved modes that are recognizing how unavoidable it is, young Muslims have not been left behind either because they are also getting accustomed to hip hop as a way of airing their grievances against white dominance.
One thing that is most common with the cultural politics of difference is the fact that the wider culture develops a desire to adopt or align itself with the new and upcoming culture of the marginalized so as to make the people feel as though they are important (Hall, 111). That happens in popular culture as seen through hip hop. As a genre of music, hip-hop was not widely accepted because it was associated with poverty stricken uneducated African Americans, up until this rebellious music found its way into the American way of living. Blacks might have wanted to use it as a tool of leverage, and it bore fruits. Hall says that there is no guarantee that society will reach a certain level of racial identity and conformity and that everything else will be “mutually liberating and progressive on all the other dimensions” (112). But in jazz and hip hop, Americans found a way of culturally accommodating each other and spreading American philosophies far and wide.
Hip hop music and culture that was invented by the youth of the Bronx in the 1970s is today appreciated worldwide. Amazingly, this music traces its roots to black experiences, impoverished conditions of inner city life. In the documentary The Hip Hop Years, it is apparent that hip-hop is currently a worldwide phenomenon that has become widely acknowledged by all races and that only means that even whites accept it (Upshal 2013: 56). What is more, despite it being censored, the wider society became accustomed to it as it kept reinventing itself. This music that epitomized pain and suffering spread across the United States to become a symbol of the blossoming black culture. It is against this backdrop that black forms of popular culture have been created within the context of cultural hegemony and cultural politics of difference so as black culture is accommodated in American popular culture. At the same time, it is important to note that the music was used as a tool to bring blacks on board just like Muslim youth of the 21st century are beginning to get wooed by hip hop as a way of preventing their radicalization within and outside of the boarders of the United States.
The globalization of hip hop has had a huge impact on the lives of youths from across the world and more so Muslim young people who are struggling to get to understand themselves and their culture in a society that has always painted them as bad. It is widely known that Islam is touted as a violent religion, and all eyes are on its adherents who are often branded as dangerous. That is more or less the same attitude that was expressed towards African Americans when they were regarded as lesser human beings or subordinates of the white majority. But what happens in likening the African American experience to that of Muslim youth who are already tired of this branding! Many of them are finding solace in the rebellious hip hop. Some of them are not turning to the Middle East, the hotbed of their religion but seem to borrow a leaf from the black history that is best told through music. In the book Hisham, Aidi, in his book Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture perhaps capture the attitudes of Muslim Youth from around the world regarding this issue. He says, many of these young people draw a lot of inspiration from “The rise of Barrack Obama, a leader of African and Muslim ancestry” (Aidi, 2014: xii). Many of them showed support for him during his campaigns not because he was the best candidate but he was seen as the liberator they needed.
Muslim youth from around the world would incline more to black popular culture because in that culture they have a shared experience when it comes to them being marginalized. What hip hop did was attack mainstream American culture which marginalized a section of the population, but now it has been redefined. The 9/11 attacks put all Muslims on the wrong side of the American culture because everyone became scared of them. They were the epitomes of violence, terror and all the negative energy that day elicits (Weinberg, 1996: 64). But then young Muslims are not ready to be branded and are out in search for a society that looks at them beyond their race and religion. The Muslim world is reaching out to the people of Brazil because it embraces “black consciousness”. At the same time, the country passes for “a country where immigrants are always welcome, seen as saviors who, in the words of one 1940s state official, would make the nation ‘bigger, stronger, and more respected’” (Aidi, 2014:7). That is the kind of space a repressed group looks for, and it is not surprising that most young Muslims are headed there, “westward toward the black Atlantic, and the cultures and movements of the African diaspora” (Aidi, 2014: xv). The black population and culture are prevalent in the country, and that makes it hospitable for them. More importantly, these young Muslim men and women want to experience a culture that reassures them of not only achieving their goals but commanding respect from the rest of the Americans and the world.
Cultural diplomacy is not a new phenomenon because it has been exercised in the United States for a very long time. For instance, in the mid 20th century, musicians like Louis Armstrong were used by the U. S. State Department to spread American goodwill to many parts of the world. And within the borders of the United States, Jazz music was used as a way of popularizing the American culture and way of life to the people of all racial backgrounds. Aidi says this form of music had “become an arm of this country’s foreign policy” (2014: 105). It needs to be remembered that the cold war was going on, and the United States was keen on reaching out to the world and offering a different approach to solving the war problems that dominated the world at the time. In more recent years, the country has also used hip-hop as a way of popularizing American diversity to other minority groups such as Muslims as a way of showing how cultural exclusivity has been gained through the cultural politics of difference as well as cultural hegemony. It needs to be remembered that racial polarization has its roots in the American society, and not that through hip hop the problem will be contained, but it will be used to tame Muslim youths
As for the way that is appealing to the Muslim youth, this is a social group that feels as though it is targeted for all the wrong reasons. Muslims are branded as terrorists, and the American Society is always. These young Muslim youth find solace and comfort in hip hop, and the United States is selling it to them as a way of preventing the rise of Islamic militants (Aidi, 2014: 56). May of these young people who move into the country face financial hardship, and that will be a recipe for them becoming aggressive and regrouping themselves to join terrorist gangs. There are those Muslim immigrants who might become radicalized, but if they are saved from that early enough they will be prevented from becoming a dangerous force that might threaten the stability of the country from within and outside of American borders.
There has been official policy to endorse Islamic rap, and in due course, it will become popular among Islamic youth. Hip hop was a tool that helped in reaching out to the young black population in the poor neighborhoods of the 1980s. It gave them a sense of appreciation and that made them feel appreciated by the majority white American population because they appreciated their music. As long as the Islamic Youth will use hip-hop as a way of expressing their grievances, it is believed that they might not regroup into militant groups or gangs (Herding 2014: 44). And the good thing is that these young Muslim youth are responding positively to this form of diplomacy, and are comfortable indulging in music as a way of raising issues such as police brutality, joblessness and racial challenges that face them in their everyday lives.
Works Cited
Ahrendt, Rebekah., Ferraguto, Mark & Mahiet, Damien. Music and Diplomacy from the Early Era to the Present. New York: Palgrave, 2014. Print
Aidi, Hisham. Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture. New York: Vintage, 2014. Print
Hall, Stuart. What Is This “Black” in Black Popular Culture? PDF File
Herding, Maruta. Inventing the Muslim Cool: Islamic Youth Culture in Western Europe. Bielefeld: Vertlag, 2014. Print
Upshal, David. “The Hip Hop Years.” A History of Rap. How We Got On. 16th May 2013.
Weinberg, Meyer. Racism in Contemporary America. Westport: Greenwood, 1996. Print
