As a rapper, Denis Cuspert was a bit player, but as a propagandist for jihad he is a star in some circles. He has gained considerable prominence since 2010, when he transformed himself from a Berlin hip-hop artist named Deso Dogg into the Islamist Abu Malik.
Actually, not much has changed since he became a Salafist. He still makes music, and distributes it primarily through the Internet. But instead of performing rap songs like "Gangxta" and "Ich und mein Baby" ("Me and My Baby"), he releases so-called Anasheed, or Islamic vocal music in which he glorifies jihad.
Cuspert's songs have attained cult status among radical Islamists in Germany. At the request of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Berlin, three of his jihadist songs were labeled as being harmful to minors in early 2012.
Today, the ex-rapper is one of the most prominent German-speaking propagandists for jihad on the Internet. A new study by the Berlin-based Foundation for Science and Politics (SWP), which advises the German government, addresses the development of the Islamist scene on the Internet in detail for the first time. » | Christoph Sydow | Thursday, November 01, 2012
