CONTENT MACHINE MUSIC

It’s a classic story. A young Arab Minnesotan-American, born in Cairo but raised in the same town where Hüsker Du had their first practice space, goes to college and discovers Vampire Weekend, moves to the big city, starts a novelty rock band heavily influenced by the Strokes, drops the novelty (but keeps the Strokes), and eventually achieves massive success on YouTube and Instagram interviewing celebrities and citizens alike as they ride the subway.

Anyone with an algorithm and a heart has probably already seen Subway Takes, either intentionally or because they’ve trained themselves to click on anything but thirst traps on Instagram. Kareem Rahma’s show, where he uses an MTA MetroCard attached to a mic to get his subjects’ hottest takes, has a viewership in the millions, with guests ranging from David Byrne to Zohran Mamdani. As CREEM’s focus is music, this would normally be outside our purview, but it so happens that our guy is also the frontman for the appropriately named Kareem Rahma & Tiny Gun. Like his day-job success, the path to rock was circuitous.