Tackling the threat of Islamic State is one of the most complex political problems of our age. And yet with 650 elected MPs in our House of Commons, not one has taken the obvious step and asked for help from the guy who wrote Boombastic.
“Isis can go fuck themselves, that’s some crazy shit what they’re doing,” pop reggae star Shaggy recently told the Miami New Times, while revealing that his new song Go Fuck Yourself (GFY) was aimed specifically at them. The man who once sang “If me a the rice well you a the peas” then went on to outline his plan to tackle the self-proclaimed caliphate. Unsurprisingly, said plan involved listening to records by Shaggy: “If you’re able to cut a man’s head off, you’re sick. But right, music evokes emotion. So if they’re listening to Shaggy music or reggae music, they’re not going to want to cut somebody’s head off.”
Shaggy is not the only musician who has felt in a suitable position to comment on Salafi jihadism.
Earlier this year, the Who’s Pete Townshend told Rolling Stone that he wasn’t “particularly politically well-grounded” while ploughing on regardless to advocate an arms race in response to the Isis threat: “I do think it’s very important that we keep our ammunition ready. I do feel there is nothing to worry about as long as we’re willing to protect ourselves.”
Townshend went on to draw parallels between Isis and the Nazis, Isis and his former bandmates and - most impressively of all - Isis and any members of the Sea Scouts who used to give him a hard time (“I grew up with bullies,” he recalled).
Bandmate Roger Daltrey had his own thoughts on the terror state, asking in the Mail on Sunday: “Where are the artists writing with any real sense of angst and purpose? There are no movements at the moment: we had mod and then there was punk, but it’s so hard to start a movement now. Unless it’s Isis.”
Of course, tackling global terrorism is a multi-faceted problem unlikely to ever be solved by the likes of Shaggy or Pete Townshend. Which is no doubt why Ringo Starr decided to throw his hat into the ring.
“It’s bullshit!” he told the Evening Standard, referring to the fact British jihadis such as Jihadi John had been given nicknames based on the four Beatles members. “What they are doing out there is against everything the Beatles stood for … if we stood for anything, we never stood for that.”
So now you know: the Beatles did not stand for viral beheadings, and All You Need Is Love is not, as many had originally assumed, a call for the immediate imposition of Sharia law.
But hold your horses if you think that pop stars are the last people you want mouthing off about Isis. Because while some of our favourite musicians and Shaggy are talking the misinformed talk, Kurdish singer Helly Luv appears to be walking the walk. Not only did she once go on a mission to deliver food and water to Iraqi troops, she also recently released a video allegedly filmed less than two miles from Isis battlefields in which she lipsticks the words “revolution” on to a tank shell and fires it at them. Boombastic, indeed.
