Cyrus “the Raskol Khan” McGoldrick is an artist and community activist, an American Muslim of Iranian and Irish descent. A recent graduate of Columbia University in New York City, he is the Civil Rights Manager at the NY chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and serves on the Board of Directors for Getting Out & Staying Out, a program dedicated to helping young men coming out of prison to stay out of prison. As an independent world/hip-hop musician specializing in voice, beats and live instruments (tenor sax, violin, piano), he has been performing since 2004 with various groups around the country. The Raskol now records and performs his own songs for international audiences, often with the live collective The Fuego 7tet, blending live-band reggae and jazz melodies with hip-hop lyrics, social justice and Islamic activism. We got a chance to speak with Cyrus. Here’s what he had to say:
Can you tell us a little bit about your educational background as well as professional career?
I came to New York six years ago to attend Columbia University and alhamdulilah I graduated last year. I really love New York and my NY family and I’ve been so blessed by every opportunity and relationship alhamdulilah. At school I studied Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures and politics.
When I graduated, I took a position at CAIR-New York, a move I didn’t expect but made with my heart. I’m the only staff member these days, but I have 17 amazing interns that do brilliant work masha’Allah, and we’re blessed by the grace of God to have the support and trust of the community, so we’re building quickly! We try to, for one, protect the civil rights of the people that call and, two, then defend those rights more proactively, combining grassroots mobilization and education with advocacy in media and government. My current musical projects are in that vein as well, trying to bring Islam and activism and even confidence into our lives through art, entertainment and education.
What interested you to get into music, more importantly reggae?
I’ve always loved and had a deep connection with music, listening to it, writing it, performing it. Before singing and rapping, I played a few instruments—saxophone, violin, piano, etc—and while performing hip-hop, reggae, ska, funk and jazz for 10 years I was writing songs, realizing I needed words to communicate my ideas, that melody was important but not always enough. I love reggae, and was always moved by certain artists’ spirituality and ability to manifest it in that distinctive sound. Other than Mishary Al-Afasy I’ve listened to exclusively reggae and some jazz and hip-hop for 7 years. After two mixtapes of hard, lyrical hip-hop, when I started working out my melodic ideas within my admittedly limited range, it was a matter of course that I felt them on a guitar chop and drum drop, and the content became more and more spiritual and political as I progressed in faith and activism. I think my recorded work will be very illustrative of my recent and ongoing development as an artist and as a man insha’Allah, and the Raskol Khan’s story, sometimes spicy, contentious, is a lens through which the traveler sees his reflection and learns from it.
How does your background of being Iranian, Irish and Muslim make your music unique? How does it help your perspective?
I thank Allah for the family I was given, and among the countless things I must thank my parents for is that I was never forced—or even allowed—to inherit prejudice from its many agents in my life. I see real value in multicultural and multiracial families and communities and encourage my generation to build them. But also, the fact that I did not inherit my religion from either side of my family allowed me to find my own balance of identities in shaping not only my art but my character. Even though most of my mother’s family is Muslim, my process for understanding and implementing my Islam was independent—or at least informed by diverse sources—and therefore led me to different and, I hope, more authentic practices than if I had accepted wholesale the cultivated biases of just one of the Muslim communities I was a part of. I try through my music to connect personal, local, global and cosmological issues, and I’ve learned along the way that practicing empathy can be as easy or difficult as changing your assumptions.
What are you currently working on? And what else can we expect?
CAIR-New York and speaking and recording and performing have me working all the time, so with God’s will I’ll keep doing all of that. At CAIR-New York we’re running “Know Your Rights” workshops, youth activism and leadership programs, letter writing campaigns, even self-defense seminars for sisters. I’m speaking and performing at some schools and conferences insha’Allah. I’m also very excited that after two and a half years since my last album, I’ve started releasing a song on every day ending in 5 (starting July 5, July 15, July 25, August 5, etc), for the next 5 months. I have a lot of material that I’ve been writing, even performing for years, so I’ve been recording and getting ready to release them for play and distribution. Other than those 15 songs, which will, piece by piece, form a retrospective album “Past to Present,” Freddy Fuego has me on four tracks of his master live-band producer project “The New York Chapter” to be released August 27.
Who is your favorite artist?
Allah, the One and Only.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
All inspiration is from God, but I am so motivated by the love of my family, friends and community. I really do get a lot of my spirit directly from the community, from the energy, from the feeling of family I have with my brothers and sisters, the people I love. Walking down the street and seeing people I know and people I don’t, brothers with thowb, kufi and beard, mothers and sisters and daughters in hejab, getting salaams on Fulton, hugs on Atlantic, handshakes on 116th St and halal wings on 125th. Vendors and cab drivers and poets and fashion designers. Imams and businessmen and uncles and bums. I really do love people, especially when people show love.
If you had only three words to describe your music what three words would you choose?
Imaginative. Hopeful. True.
What does your family think of your success?
I think they’re glad I’m staying out of trouble. Or at least they hope I am.
Link: http://www.theraskolkhan.com
Twitter: @CyrusMcGoldrick
Image by: Ariane Moshayedi
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