The Somali-Canadian rapper will write and direct the dramatic series, “The Recruiters” while Bigelow and former HBO president Carolyn Strauss will be executive producers.
Minnesota City – Rapper and poet K’Naan Warsame will direct a new HBO series about jihadi recruitment alongside Oscar winning director, Kathryn Bigelow.
According to the Hollywood Reporter the series which is set in Minnesota, “will draw open an iron curtain behind which viewers will see the highly impenetrable world of Jihadi recruitment.”
The war on terror has become increasingly important in a post 9/11 world. By 2014, as many as 40 other young men from Minneapolis joined terrorist groups after they were recruited and radicalized by jihadists via social media.
War and its effects hasn’t escaped the attention of Warsame who is widely known for his 2009 hit single, Wavin Flag. In a 2012 New York Times piece he spoke of his need to explore social commentary in his music and the censorship his adult contemporary superstardom brought.
“I come with all the baggage of Somalia — of my grandfather’s poetry, of pounding rhythms, of the war, of being an immigrant, of being an artist, of needing to explain a few things. Even in the friendliest of melodies, something in my voice stirs up a well of history — of dark history, of loss’s victory,” he wrote.
A release date for the series has not yet been announced.
