ISIS uses rap music to recruit members

Sarah Wahid

British-Egyptian jihadist Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, who is an ISIS rapper, was arrested on April 22. The arrest of Abdel Bary raises a number of questions about the relation between rap music and terrorism.

Over the past few years, a number of well-known rappers joined the terrorist organization ISIS, aka Daesh. The killing of Sally Jones, a former British rapper who joined ISIS in 2014, in October 2017 in a US raid, triggered debate, as she was one of the world’s famous rappers in Europe.

Other rappers like Denis Cuspert, who joined ISIS in 2014, was the first to join ISIS. American rapper Douglas McCain also joined Daesh along with model Kimberly Miners, who was among the most famous women who joined the terrorist organization.

Moroccan researcher Hisham Aidi said in a book on the relation between music and political activity of Muslim youth that rap music and terrorism are so close. Aidi cited an article by Harvard scholar Jessica Stern, who found that Muslim children in the Netherlands thought that Jihad was as cool as listening to rap music.

In 2016, the Italian newspaper Il Giornale revealed in a report the growth of Islamic rap in Europe, which is the art that many singers use to express many social issues. The report said rap music attracts people who are isolated from society.

The newspaper’s report said that rap music is has a sense of rebellion among the young people, who suffer from societal marginalization. The newspaper stressed that European countries have become like fertile soil for takfiri organizations, i.e. ISIS, which uses Islamic rap to conceal their endeavors to recruit new members.

Sociologists told the Italian newspaper that rappers join takfiri organizations to satisfy their lust for power, the use of arms and their need to be members of a group that offers them stability and coexistence.