Pioneering Iraqi-Canadian rapper Yassin ‘Narcy’ Al Salman is a founding member of WeAreTheMedium, an international multi-media artist collective of Arab, African, and Indigenous artists and creators. ‘Text Messages’ is his survival guide, a multi-media collection about finding one’s self in the anxious intersections of a post-9/11 world, through a combination of poetry, rap verse, short stories and comic book illustrations. Text Messages is multi-form written exploration of the imminent crisis in technology, the pressures of self-awareness, and the meaning of Judgement Day. 

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Yassin 'Narcy' Al Salman, formerly known as the Narcicyst, is a musician, actor, professor and multi-media artist based out of Montreal, Canada. He was a pioneer of the Arab Hip-Hop movement through his Iraqi trio Euphrates in the early 2000s. He is a founding member of the international multi-media arts collective WeAreTheMedium, and currently teaches one of Canada's only Hip-Hop courses at Concordia University in Montreal, where he blends performance with education, media with literacy andcreativity with cultural heritage. 

"Yassin ‘Narcy’ Al Salman is a one-of-a-kind artist. He is transcendental, he is pop, he is the Muslim, he is the poet. Through his questioning of the tides of time, and the world's disregard of the Arab, he writes lyrics as anthem, providing a source material for a part of the world that is so often misunderstood and forgotten. This book is exciting in its futurity. It is punchy in its enthusiasm. I am grateful for this book's aliveness."—Fariha Róisín, author, How To Cure a Ghost
"Yassin Al Salman's writing weaves through the epic struggles of people to get free, enduring and resisting brutality, dictatorship, war, and occupation. As a hip-hop artist, he was forged in the rubble of 9/11 and the ensuing war against Muslims, emerging as one of the most creative and sharp artists chronicling the crimes of the powerful and giving voice to people’s uprisings. Text Messages is a potent book rooted in the poetry and art of Al Salman’s Iraqi ancestors, translated in a global language for the urgency of the times in which we now live."
—Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept and author of Blackwater and Dirty Wars