Amun Bains Journalist

*This article has been amended since first publication*

Kareem Dennis, better known as Lowkey is about to tour the UK. I consider him to be one of the most intelligent, principled and interesting people in politics today and I admire him greatly but there are reservations.

He is a musician with streams and concerts but much more than that. He has collaborated with Noam Chomsky, George Galloway, Jeremy Corbyn, Akala and appeared on the Guardian, the BBC, Piers Morgan Uncensored and is prominent on Double Down News; a genuinely influential political figure.

The likes of Matt Kennard, Roger Waters, Immortal Technique, Cornell West have all spoken to or about him. He is also prominent of MintPressNews. On X he has 418,000 followers.

He is one of the world’s biggest pro Palestine voices. Right now he is probably best known for this and this has been his focus for his whole life but particularly now after October 7 and the subsequent Israeli response.

If Kareem ever reads this, I want him to know despite my criticisms of him I respect him as a man greatly, I just think it is important to also mention people’s flaws especially when they are public figures.

This article will be split into the good and the reservations of Lowkey.

Background – Who is he?

Born Kareem Dennis on 23 May 1986 in London, he is a British-Iraqi rapper known for his politically charged lyrics and advocacy for social justice, particularly around issues such as imperialism, racism, and Palestine.

His first mixtape, Key to the Game Vol. 1, was released in 2003, followed by his first album Dear Listener, in 2008, after touring Europe and collaborating with artists like Immortal Technique and Canibus.

He formed the supergroup Mongrel with members of Arctic Monkeys, Babyshambles, and Reverend and the Makers, releasing Better Than Heavy in 2009.

Soundtrack to the Struggle (2011) became his breakthrough, entering the UK Albums Chart at #57.

He announced a hiatus in 2012 to focus on his studies, completing a Masters in Near and Middle Eastern Studies at SOAS before returning to music in 2016 with new singles and the album Soundtrack to the Struggle 2 (2019), which featured guests like Noam Chomsky, Frankie Boyle, and Ken Loach.

In 2024, he released Soundtrack to the Struggle 3.

The good – His music, his integrity, his journalism on Double Down News and defending smears against him

I don’t recall when I first discovered Lowkey. I just remember, as someone who is very politically engaged, that he was always around then one day I thought I would listen to his whole work.

His music is not only enjoyable but also genuinely educational and all politically charged and somewhat impactful. Musicians have a history of changing politics; Bob Marley, John Lennon and I’d put him and Akala in that bracket by the time they die – I really would.

This is just a selection of my favourites. It is hard to review 15 years of music in an article so these songs meant to most to me.

Dear Listener, released in 2008, is amazing for a debut album. Alphabet Assassin is one of the most impressive songs I have heard in my life – a 4 and a half minute continuous rhyming A to Z with the whole song rhyming and flowing despite restricting himself to using (mostly) words beginning with one letter in each verse (A to Z – so 26 verses).

As he notes, if he was American he’d be bigger. That song alone is incredible; as impressive as anything by written by intelligent rappers such as Eminem or Slick Rick etc.

But that was just him showing off. The best song, for me, is Relatives. Relatives is a sonic picture of the Iraq War from two sides; one from a guilty, duped working class British soldier sent to kill and the other from the point of view of an Iraqi child.

I’ll let people listen to the song for themselves to find out what happens but it is genius and gets you thinking about war and the victims it makes on all sides.

His song Wake Up was written in 2007 but the fact the themes resonate now is sad but also inspiring in a dark way. Essentially an awareness song, he essentially paints how capitalism enforces global poverty – quoting UNICEF and mentioning child slavery he makes the point that even down to what we wear everyday is made by the blood of children in dire poverty.

Soundtrack to the Struggle, 2011, is where he comes into his own: Voices of the Voiceless with Immortal Technique is delightful but it’s Hand on your Gun, Terrorist and Obama Nation which are the big ones.

Hand on Your Gun points the finger at weapons companies like BAE Systems for creating the killing machines behind massacres thousands of miles away. I have seen BAE Systems in the UK; he is right. Now in 2025 we are seeing these places targeted by Palestine Action because they create weapons for Israel.

Terrorist? essentially makes the point that we call Arabs and Muslims individual suicide bombers terrorists but ignore Western state terrorism such as in Nagasaki, Afghanistan, Iraq etc.

Obama Nation is his magnum opus and has 4.9 million views on YouTube. I think people should just listen to it themselves as a short explanation does a discredit.

Soundtrack to the Struggle 2, 2019, starts with a skit with Noam Chomsky. That is how I came to know Chomsky.

Ahmed paints a picture of a child asylum seeker affected and displaced by the wars of adults who dies at sea.

McDonald Trump attacks the orange maniac in the middle of his first term who, sadly, won again as I write this.

Children of Diaspora , along with Wake Up, is the most inspirational to me personally. He excellently portrays how life is more diaspora minorities in the UK; the racism built on a legacy of colonial white supremacy, the feeling of being split from two cultures and also inspiring. This feeling and phenomenon is only known by people like us.

Heroes of Human History is inspirational to me too. All non Western history is tainted by the lies of the colonialist. They simply don’t teach non White European history in UK schools correctly if it all.

If people knew this history, racism would be chipped away at. White supremacy is built on the idea White people are just better; they created everything great and the rest of us are inferior intellectually. If people knew about the pre European history of the colonised world, none of that adds up.

Letter to the 1% is similar to Wake Up ; a portrayal of global inequality but this targeting the people responsible; the economic 1%.

Soundtrack to the Struggle 4 is his latest release, 2024. Genocide Joe was featured on Double Down News and takes aim at Biden for his role in Gaza’s slaughter.

The Killing of Corbynism, a man he endorsed and where his politics lies (which is part of my criticism of him), laments how Corbyn lost the election and is now a side-lined figure.

His pro Palestinian activism has touched the hearts of millions and made a real difference and he even got attacked for it in attempts to remove him on Spotify.

His X account is fascinating and I would recommend people to follow it.

He has done excellent videos on Double Down News exposing the money behind Tommy Robinson and his take on the Afghanistan war which are, in my opinion, excellent.

He understands the world we live in and is not an armchair activist or a professional talking head like so many.

He has genuinely committed to his principles and I know this because his actions have led him to be “cancelled” multiple times. He is not seen on the mainstream media, Guardian op-ed columns or Novara Media. He goes down and dirty such as taking on the likes of Yaxley Lennon; things most “progressive” British activists or journalists don’t dare to do.

According to his own words, he has had shows cancelled across Europe by the Israel lobby for his views. Whilst rappers like Stormzy sell out for a McDonalds so they can keep their money and fame, I have so much respect for that.

Indeed he made this exact point on Obama Nation regarding Jay-Z cosying up to Obama as a man who continued American imperialism and then again recently about American-Palestinian rapper DJ Khaled.

The reason I know his cancellations have been on spurious grounds are the comical ways they have gone after him. I have listened to every song he has on Spotify, not once does he say anything antisemitic.

No, he actually condemns the Holocaust and far-right politics. Listen to his music, its on Spotify. A nightmare for the Israel lobby who desperately want a reason to take him on.

Despite this, there were attempts to remove from the platform.

On effort was in 2011 in which he was accused of being antisemitic for saying the phrase “cosa nostra” on Letter to the 1% which was deliberately misconstrued as saying “kosher nostra”. No, I am not joking.

Anyone can listen to the song – he clearly says “cosa nostra” in the context of talking about billionaires as similar to gangsters. Not to mention nobody in history has ever said “kosher nostra” because the phrase doesn’t exist. The same Jewish Chronicle is full of farcical and racist smears against people who are pro-Palestine (which for the first time ever I am confident in saying is the opinion of most of humankind).

To be clear, there are many Jewish people who condemn Zionism and Israel so neither Lowkey nor myself are antisemitic and attempts to paint it this way is both factually and morally wrong.

The reservations – Galloway, Russia, Uyghurs and MintPress

Lowkey has endorsed the deplorable anti LGBT, pro Russian, serial turncoat George Galloway and appeared on his TV show more than once.

Lowkey tweets about politics but barely mentions Russia/Ukraine. When he did he called it “NATOs war in Russia”.

I believe his reasoning is he believes the Ukraine-Russia war was stoked by the West to make arms for arms companies.

There were also his bizarre inability to call out the Uyghur genocide.

I don’t think he is paid by Russia or China, I suspect this is his actual belief system based on all of his career’s worth of music and social media output because I truly believe he has enough integrity to not take foreign money. Maybe I’m naive but I don’t think you can fake the emotion he puts into his work and I’d be shocked if I was wrong.

But he does work for MintPressNews which has been accused of being pro Russian, pro Assad and effectively just so anti Western and conspiratorial to the point of spreading fake news and lies. Their Wikipedia entry is …. not great.

I will endorse Lowkey but not his friends Galloway and MintPress. If I were being generous I would say these are marriages of convenience for him because he is so pro Palestine and the Western media is hostile, rather than endorsing literally everything his friends say. But it still is disappointing.

However, searching for perfection from a working class rapper when the mass media is owned by oligarchs and journalists and politicians lie to us everyday is not what I would like to do; overall I am extremely grateful for Lowkey and I am very glad he exists.