What do Al Quaida listen to?

Woebot

Well-known member
Listening to Desi the other day, the thought struck me.

Do they listen to pop? Do they favour, say Afghani's indigenous folk music?

What about the foreign operatives?

I harbour a suspicion that they probably like tunes like Mud's "Tiger Feet", T'Pau's "China in My Hand" Paul McCartney's "Mull of Kintyre" soft rock like Bonnie Tyler and stuff.
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
dunno but there's a good bit of arabic pop on breaking ranks which i stuck on a cd for you, too. a lot of shaabi is seen as immoral and scummy by the posh end of arab society, a bit like dancehall in jamaica. also look at islamic art, even pictorial representations of the body are banned, and this stuff is incredibly visceral at its best so i doubt any of them would fess up to liking it. whether it would get their feet tapping when no one's watching is another matter.
 

Randy Watson

Well-known member
I bet the quasi-facist stomp of "We Will Rock You" and the Glitter Band go down well at the regular knees- up in and around South Waziristan. The Quo, obviously. ;)

IIRC the taliban took a fairly dim view of all music, not just western or western influenced pop. On the other hand, music is a part of tribal culture in central asia and a vital part of the oral tradition so, yes, Afghan folk was tolerated.

In Ladakh (the closest I've got to that area) Euro-House versions of soft-rock classics seemed en vogue, Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart stays with me for some reason :(
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Imagine if one of us were holed up in Tora Bora for the next few years- what music would you use to pass the hours/years? The entire Blue Note archive? Several 60s German vinyls of the Ring Cycle, which you could endlessly compare the fidelity of? Three skips full of Jamaican 7"s?

It's tricky, isn't it.
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
if i wanted something that would make me completely disdainful of infidel culture and angry enough to really fuck up the occupying forces, i'd probably listen to nothing but robbie williams.
 

rewch

Well-known member
err...wahhabi muslims tend to consider music satanic, so i suspect that the answer is nothing...other than what is produced with the human in an unmelodic manner (by which circuitous route i am trying to say that chanting is allowed)...on the other hand when i lived in yemen there were a large number of lionel richie fans though they tended not to be wahhabis but zaidis...but i have read somewhere that when osama lived in sudan (i think) & went out in the evening, when the music came on he went home...(unnamed sources)
 

rewch

Well-known member
& just to illustrate that there is a story of abdullah philby (kim philby's arabist dad) having tea with one (probly second one) king of saudi when they heard a shepherd boy singing as he tended his flock...whichever king it was was so shocked that he had the boy brought before him & had his tongue cut out...
 

hint

party record with a siren
according to certain sources, some of them are currently being forced to listen to barney the dinosaur, aren't they?
 
D

droid

Guest
Ive picked up quite a few compilations from Palestine over the last year... 'music of the intifada' being the most memorable. There was also an iraqi tune that made it onto the web last year supporting the Falluja resistance, Now Id be the first to point out that there is no definite connection between the Palestinian/Iraqi resistance movements and Al Qaidea.. but i reckon similar kinds of arabic 'rebel music' are big with these guys.. there was also that tabloid-baiting track 'Great britain' that came out last year... it featured an asian rapper (whose name i cant remember) saying nasty things about the queen over some horrendous UK hip-hop beats...
 

sufi

lala
HMGovt said:
That's someone doing a bad impression of Sacha Baron-Cohen's Borat, right?
no it's for real (ie Borat is a bad impression of this!) :p
i got it fwd from a friend of a friend of a friend whose with the un in kabul,
 

sufi

lala
droid said:
...featured an asian rapper (whose name i cant remember) saying nasty things about the queen over some horrendous UK hip-hop beats...
dunno but maybe this un, which i blogged up way back:
DIRTY KUFFAR
there's also a video i think
 
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