Muslim Rapper Challenges Stereotypes Through Hip-Hop, Activism and Love

Mona Haydar is many things—rapper, poet, activist, scholar, mother. A voice for the marginalized, she serves as a bridge between cultures—a relentless advocate for healing in a world often consumed by division.

Whether she’s spitting verses about feminism and white supremacy or traveling the historic Route 66 to uncover untold stories of American Muslims, Haydar approaches everything she does with purpose, passion and an unwavering commitment to justice. 

Born to Syrian immigrants in Flint, Michigan, Haydar’s journey has been one of self-discovery, resilience and unapologetic truth-telling. Through her music, activism and storytelling, she challenges stereotypes, confronts oppression, and reminds the world of the power of love. 

Haydar’s path to music was anything but conventional. She began as a spoken word artist, falling in love with slam poetry at just 14 years of age. “I always knew I was an artist,” she said in a 2019 interview with Flaunt, a Los Angeles-based fashion and culture magazine. “It was just a matter of finding that.” Her poetry became a tool for expression, a valuable way to navigate her identity as a Syrian American Muslim woman growing up in post-9/11 America. 

Eventually, poetry led to rap—an art form where she found her voice and was able to reach even more people with her message. The transition wasn’t easy. “People were hesitant, like a yellow light, thinking I shouldn’t do it,” she recalled. But for Haydar, silence was never an option, and she launched her rapping career in 2015, with a single titled Hijabi (Wrap my Hijab).

She said in the Flaunt interview, “I felt that we had to try to put out as much love as they were putting out hate. That’s what I’m trying to accomplish as an artist.” 

Her 2018 EP, Barbarican, is a powerful testament to her humanitarian mission. The title, a fusion of “barbarian” and “American,” reflects her refusal to be placed in a box. “As a young girl, I’d go to Syria and be labeled the ‘American,’ and here in the U.S., I was always the ‘Arab girl,’” she explained. “I’m at a point in my life where I don’t have time for that. I’m unconditionally myself, without borders, labels, or ticked boxes.” 

Her track “Miss Me,” featuring fellow Syrian-American rapper Omar Offendum, takes direct aim at white supremacy, turning oppression into something she can “laugh at and reject.” The attitude highlights Haydar’s approach to music as both an escape and a form of resistance. “We live in an intense time, and there’s a lot of pain and suffering in the world,” she said. “Music can be an escape from that, but while we’re escaping, we may as well be healing at the same time.” 

Haydar’s exploration of identity and belonging took a different form when she and her husband, Sebastian Robins, embarked on a 2,500-mile journey down Route 66 for a three-part PBS documentary titled The Great Muslim American Road Trip.

What began as a road trip to reconnect as a couple after the stress of the pandemic became a profound exploration of what it means to be Muslim in contemporary America. 

Along the way, the couple met a diverse cast of characters, from Bosnian refugees running a beloved St. Louis restaurant to a jazz musician in Tulsa who schooled them on the long history of Muslim contributions to jazz.

“I always had a sense that Muslims were very active within the arts community,” Haydar says in the documentary. “I was so blessed to grow up in Flint, Michigan, where there was a vibrant artist community. So the legacy of that is still very strong in a place like Flint.”

One of the most powerful moments came when Haydar and Robins learned about Estevanico, a North African Muslim who was one of the first explorers of North America in the 1500s. “This is amazing history that very few of us have heard about,” Robins reflected. “One of the first people to come in [to America] was this enslaved African Muslim.” 

For Haydar, the trip reinforced the deep roots of Muslim presence in America—roots often erased from mainstream narratives. It was a reminder that her story, along with the stories of millions of other American Muslims, are as much a part of the country’s fabric as any other. 

Despite her many roles—artist, activist, scholar, wife, mother—Haydar resists being confined to any one identity. “I’m just a person, and I feel like there’s space for all of us,” she said in her interview with Flaunt. “I care about the world my children are growing up in and I care that they grow up in a better world than what exists right now.” 

That desire fuels her work beyond music. She’s in the process of launching a nonprofit focused on refugee support, as well as a sustainable clothing line rooted in ethical production. “It will be basics with the advantage of knowing who made the clothes, where [they] came from, and the good karma that surrounds [them],” she said, “so that we don’t walk around obliviously supporting oppression.” 

For Haydar, every project—whether an album, a documentary, or a social initiative—is part of a larger mission: to heal, to uplift and to connect. 

“I hope people come away from my work being able to laugh a little bit and also learning the way that we learned, you know, by opening our hearts to different people’s stories,” she said in the PBS documentary. After all, love, Haydar emphasized in the Flaunt interview, is “the only real work in the world; everything else is just noise.”

Image credits: Mona Haydar Rapper (modified, enlarged) by Y3t4r5 via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.