The Message

In 2002, she released her first album, Dunya or Deen–the title suggests, via Arabic, a choice between “world” or “faith”. Her first album was a low budget, self-funded venture sold on the internet where it slowly picked up a following amongst the already growing community of Islamic hip-hop fans on the net. After that the novelty of a female Muslim hip-hop artist brought on the interviews, the press, the BBC radio specials, and in 2004 a contract with the hugely successful independent Muslim record label, Dawa Media.

The London-based Mecca2Media, perhaps the most popular artists of the Islamic hip hop scene, founded Dawah Media in 2002, and have attempted to capitalize on a growing industry. As a label exclusively dedicated to Muslim Hip Hop acts, Dawah Media is essentially the sole distributor of Islamic rap music in the US and Europe. With the growth of the genre, the past few years have seen both a rise in listeners and a wider selection of Muslim artists. Besides Miss Undastood, other artists on the label include Nomadic Poet and Blind Alphabetz, both out of London. A growing interest from the news media means Muslim artists have been popping up in documentaries and local programming.

“I turned on the TV the other day,” Shannon says, “and Native Deen was on Channel 2!”

Websites like muslimhiphop.com along with MySpace have made the music available online to listeners around the world. And the founding in the US and UK of Islamic record labels like Remarkable Current in 1999 and more recently Dawah Media helped to bring more artists to the forefront of the growing movement.

Islamic hip-hop devotee Istfan Abdul-Hakim Levell, who’s 29 and lives in Baltimore, says Miss Undastood’s upfront, honest approach to hip-hop has set her apart from other Muslim hip-hop artists.

“She’s not afraid to go into more taboo subjects,” he says. “Her music has a dark side, and she can talk about negativity, but then she goes into the moral of the story.” Istafan refers to subjects in Miss Undastood’s lyrics-like ungodly temptations ranging from drinking to premarital sex.

The song “Co-Wife” shows the complexity of her message. Miss Undastood comes down hard on Muslim men who have multiple wives but don’t support their families financially: “Why take 2 or 3 when you know you ain’t got it?/Keep ‘em on welfare and living in the projects.” Yet in another verse she points out the benefits of polygamy for women: “She don’t want to be bothered 24/7 anyway/She doesn’t have to cook and clean every day.”

Her gender has set Miss Undastood apart from her peers. While women in hip-hop are few and far between, Miss Undastood stands out as one of the only women in Islamic hip-hop, something that at times has created a challenge for her. “I want to be a voice for Muslim women,” she says, “a voice for the woman’s perspective in Islam.” This is something she has clearly been working hard to do through her lyrics, but not everyone has been appreciative of her honest, up-front nature, or of her role as a strong female figure in the Muslim community. “Some guys don’t appreciate the whole feminist empowerment thing I’m doing,” she says. For instance, she cites one occasion when a parent sent his son up to a stage where she was performing to tell her to “shut up”. And some women give her a hard time too. “I sold a CD to a woman’s husband and she got angry my face was on the cover,” she says.

Baltimore fan Levell notes one song in particular where she discusses Muslim women being attracted to non-Muslim men, something that is inherently un-Islamic, and he speculates there are a lot of people who would rather turn their backs than discuss or hear about that subject. He says people like this see her music as controversial and negative, but, in his opinion, “Discussing negativity is important as long as you don’t glorify it.”

In addition to the controversial perspective that being female in Islamic rap brings to her music, her image as a street-smart Muslim woman who is very much in the public eye has affected Shannon’s personal life as well. She says she’s begun to realize that if she ever does want to settle down, it may mean leaving her music career. “Some men are intimidated by a strong Muslim woman,” she says, “and they don’t like the idea of a woman being so public.”

But Miss Undastood is just one face in the growing trend of Islamic hip-hop. Kyra Gaunt, a professor of hip-hop music at Baruch College in Manhattan, suggests that part of the phenomenon of Islamic hip-hop may just be a drive to sell records. “Islam is a news peg right now,” she says. “It is politically and socially salient. When you boil it down, people are just trying to sell records, because without selling records, they don’t get heard.” However, while Miss Undastood has sold records, most of her listeners find her music for free on the Internet, or on her MySpace page where she keeps close contact with her fans. And, she says, a good majority of the shows she does are for charity.

Professor Gaunt also suggests that the Muslim hip hop trend makes complete sense in the context of African American history. “Hip-hop is full of trying on identities,” says Gaunt, “African-Americans are always looking for the present in the past, and Islam is another well to tap.” Prof. Gaunt explains that the emerging Islamic rap phenomenon may very well be an extension of what hip-hop has always tried to do, which is to examine and try to solve the problems plaguing the communities where the music originates. Says Gaunt, “People are looking to older value systems, like religion, to try and correct what is wrong in the world today.”