In her rap music

The Muslim, female emcee starts off her interview as a self-proclaimed emcee wide-eyed, mentioning, “that always gets a good laugh.” She challenges stereotypes on all sides fiercely.

She’s up against the Muslim community, the rap community, the vast online commentary community, and probably more. She explains that when people see her and when they think of rap music, they can’t process the two ideas, already established in their minds, melding together.

When somebody refuses to absorb new information because it challenges what they already know, it’s called cognitive dissonance, and it does nobody any good, anywhere.

Haydar grew up in Flint, Michigan and fell in love with the hip hop that she grew up hearing. She mentions some artists who inspired her like Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu.

It is understandable that she finds the shock and awe toward her talents and her tastes offensive. It’s important to understand that being so quick to judge someone’s appearance or being eager to put them in a small, easy to comprehend category or expressing shock that people from all walks of life experience tremendous variation of American culture is aggressive and is part of a big problem.

Her EP is called “American” which powerfully expresses that individuals have intersecting identities to be proud of. There is no doubt she will be inspiring others to be who they are and to do what they want to do—not what they are told.