In this op-ed for The Guardian, journalist Urmee Khan makes the case for pop-idol Zayn Malik writing that “Muslim teenagers lack icons. Yet in Zayn, they have a kindred spirit. He’s a local boy done good. We all love rags to riches stories, and it doesn’t get better than Zayn.”
He continues, “Working class, second generation Muslim kids are aspirational. They’ve seen how hard their parents have tried to integrate and want to make them proud, yet at the same time want to carve out their own identity. Zayn’s album, Mind of Mine, for instance, features lovely Qawwali-style tracks such as Intermission: Flower, which celebrate his cultural heritage while mixing it up with pedestrian R&B tunes that we can all get behind.”
