The Narcicyst Is a Citizen of the World

Photo courtesy of Nisran

Yassin Alsalman is Narcy to his friends, professor Alsalman to his students, and The Narcicyst to fans. Chiefly, he’s the most prominent voice in Canadian hip-hop to address the complexities of being young, Arab and Muslim in a post-9/11 world. He’s penned op-eds for CNN, released songs in solidarity with Arab Spring protesters, produced music videos condemning Abu Ghraib, taught a university class about hip-hop history, and written a book (The Diatribes of a Dying Tribe) about North America’s nascent Arab hip-hop movement.

To me, he remains the same outspoken and astute rapper-activist-journalist I first met nearly a decade ago when we were both enrolled in the Communication Studies program at Concordia University. During those very dark days leading up to the George W. Bush administration’s disastrous Iraq invasion, Alsalman and his now-defunct Iraqi-Canadian hip-hop group Euphrates quickly became big men on campus, dismantling the media pigeonholing they were subjected to through experimental beats, incendiary rhymes and gutsy live performances. “All of us were learning media literacy at Concordia as the world was getting really fucked up, so we were coming to these realizations about our positioning as these quote-unquote peaceful Iraqi-Canadians,” a reflective Alsalman tells me when we catch up in his Saint-Henri stomping grounds. We could devote an entire Wikipedia entry to what transpired in the intervening decade, both in terms of Narcy soaring to new career heights as well as the soaring Islamophobia he’s had to confront head-on (he coined the tagline “Iraq is the new Black” to describe the sentiment on his track P.H.A.T.W.A.) Suffice it to say that dropping his debut solo LP in 2009, becoming a father and temporarily relocating to Dubai all impacted his desire to rage against the geopolitical machine.

The payoff to all this creative commotion? His sophomore LP World War Free Now, set to drop May 26, which finds the rapper moving away from overtly political narratives in favour of a more intimate musical snapshot. “With this album, it wasn’t about what was happening in the world, but rather a look at my everyday reality,” he explains, adding that he became disillusioned with the short-lived impact of shouting out political slogans. “I feel like they quickly become hashtags or fleeting online statements, like, ‘fuck Bush’ or ‘free Palestine’. I still say those things, but differently. I just realized that if I can use my art to collect funds or have an interaction with a kid in a refugee camp, that’s more impactful.” World War Free Now remains rooted in the sonic signature Narcy has refined over the years – hard-hitting lyrical content, a seamless flow, a sweet dichotomy of Western/Eastern percussive influences and soaring hooks. But on the whole, this latest effort features more in the way of surprisingly optimistic, soulful storytelling. Alsalman chalks up that positivity to imagining a world where war would be downright illegal (hence the album title). “It’s about the microcosm and the macrocosm of war, and just finding a way to get rid of all that. It’s also about the individual war – all the self-doubt – we fight internally on a daily basis. I’ve found clarity through writing that I didn’t have before.”

In other words, less raging against the machine, more raging against the Yassin. Nevertheless, songs like album standout “Tourist” – bookended by powerful anti-violent statements from Angela Davis and John Lennon – tap into the Arab diaspora’s existential malaise, wondering aloud: “Who have we become? / How will I return to where I am from / when it’s ruled by the gun?” Perhaps unintentionally, Alsalman has become a spokesperson for a new generation of Arabs living abroad. His rising profile even led to the inclusion of his 2009 single “Hamdulillah” in the latest installment to high-octane Hollywood franchise Furious 7. So… might the mainstream finally be ready to embrace Arab culture presented in a celebratory way? He’s less than certain. “I think it’s scary to them, because you turn on the TV, and you see all these dudes chopping heads off, bombs going off, Saudi Arabia going to war with Yemen and all this fucked up inner beef. Even watching our revolutions felt judgmental from this part of the world. It was like, ‘look at these barbarians.’ It’s never from a positive perspective.”

Hoping to shift the conversation and produce more nuanced depictions of Arabs in art, Alsalman and a crew of 13 like-minded visual artists hailing from the four corners of the world (Dubai, Tunis, Doha, Los Angeles) recently launched their own collaborative endeavour, We Are The Medium. “Who’s going to open the lane for that story, if not us,” wonders Alsalman rhetorically. “Whenever you see Arab culture presented in pop music, it’s mocking it. Take DJ Snake’s video for “Get Low”: he’s wearing a dishdasha with a headwrap and throwing money at booty bitches. They’re presenting a very particular chunk of the Gulf experience in the Arab world. They’re not showing you a celebratory presence of our culture, so we decided to make it happen, as 14 cats who are all Othered in society. You bring people together and you create your own lane.”

If you’ve ever come across the rapper’s videos or album art, you know aesthetics have always been a prime passion of his. World War Free Now is no different, with Alsalman tapping into We Are The Medium’s creative pool and reaching out to acclaimed London-based portraitist Hassan Hajjaj for the album’s striking iconography. “The way he presents our culture is phenomenal,” gushes Narcy. “They call him the Andy Warhol of the Middle East because of the way he takes people who are talked about and creates a visceral, colourful pop culture moment out of it.” Ever rooted in the traditions of Middle Eastern culture, the suit Alsalman wears on the Hajjaj-shot cover is made out of Islamic prayer rugs. “It carries a lineage that you can respect, but it’s beautiful at the same time. It’s this culture jamming that really hasn’t been done before. I’d hang that shit on my wall.”

Photo courtesy of Hassan Hajjaj

A companion piece to the forthcoming album, Narcy will also be releasing a limited-edition comic book illustrated by Ashraf Ghori, which further explores this concept of a futuristic realm where peace is strictly enforced, and people’s differences embraced as commonalities. Although Narcy’s characters aren’t endowed with any superpowers, he still credits a particular legion of legendary mutants with turning him on to the genre as a kid. “The thing that spoke to me the loudest was X-Men, because they were outcast by society, fighting all the evil shit that people were throwing at them. They were the minorities. I didn’t know it at the time, but growing up reading them gave me the confidence to stand up against many injustices.”

Listening to “Free”, a song in which Alsalman talks of “immigrant youth/ North American roots/ supernatural proof/ international truth”, I’m reminded of the oft-repeated affirmation that runs through his entire discography: he’s a citizen of the world. A totally legitimate take on modern life, and of younger generations who wrestle with living somewhere, being rooted elsewhere, and not really knowing what to make of it all. “You ask yourself, what is a Canadian? What is an Iraqi who didn’t grow up in Iraq? A person born in the UAE who could never identify as an Emirati? That’s why I always say we have internationality. We don’t belong to any country. The world owns us.”

Narcy's World War Free Now drops May 26.

Michael-Oliver Harding belongs to the Republic of Montréal. Follow him on Twitter - @olivermtl