This post was written by guest contributor Yasmin N. Ali. The sounds of violin spun around an increasingly frenzied melody of sitar, tabla and the loud, confident vocals of the lead singer.  He danced and spun around his band mates, all of whom were jumping to the steady beats pouring from the drummer.  The result […]

East meets West and pop meets soul in the latest album from Dutch international music star, Rajae El Mouhandiz, released this past Saturday. But of all the words to describe Hand of Fatima, Sufi-inspired might be the most fitting. The album is a musical meander through the life and times of Rajae, a 30-year-old North […]

Sophie Ashraf, also known as The Burkha Rapper, is an Indian Muslim female rapper for whom Muslim identity seems central to her art. This comes across clearly in her following statement on the Blind Boys website: Its like when you really like a band, you wear T-shirts of that band, Well we really, really like […]

The internet is abuzz with talk about an all new rock band, The Accolade. Nothing special, you would think, until you realize that not only are the members all women, but all Saudi women. On the day the band made the front page of The New York Times (NYT), their ‘friends’ on their MySpace page […]

A few months ago, my mother gave me the CD of a Muslimah who she saw rapping at a masjid in Philadelphia. The CD is titled Muslimas with Attitude and the artist is Miss Undastood (link to her MySpace page here). She’s still a relatively new rapper who has released a few mixed-track CDs. Listening […]