Rhythms of resilience with Jaleel Abdul-Adil: How does music support mental health and trauma recovery?

Welcome to “This is UIC,” the official podcast of the University of Illinois, Chicago. I’m Grace Khachaturian, and with each episode, we delve into the stories that drive us to impact our most compelling questions as Chicago’s only public research university. UIC is leading the way to create and inspire a better world. 

In this episode, we’re joined by Jaleel Abdul-Adil, co-director of the Urban Youth Trauma Center at UIC and founder of Hip-Hop H.E.A.L.S!—a trauma-informed prevention and intervention program that uses rap and hip-hop culture to help urban youth. He’s a true force for good in the Chicago community. His upbringing, faith and love of music offer a wealth of insights on mental health and trauma. I know this conversation will be as compelling as it is powerful. 

Grace Khachaturian  00:06 

Welcome Jaleel, so glad to have you on the podcast today. 

Jaleel Abdul-Adil  00:24 

Thank you for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here.  

Grace Khachaturian  00:29 

Yes, absolutely. So I am really excited for our topic today, rhythms of resilience. How does music support mental health and trauma recovery? I think this is such a valuable topic to unpack before we dive into that curiosity, I would love to first put your story in context. What’s your why? What personal experience or story in your life has inspired the work that you’re doing now? 

Jaleel Abdul-Adil  00:55 

Well, I think it’s a combination of growing up in a culturally sensitive, culturally fluid context. That showed me you have to pay attention to hidden resources in communities that you can uncover valuable gems. So, you know, I had the pleasure of being a native New Yorker. That’s not New York you have to pronounce that New Yorker. 

Grace Khachaturian 01:22 

Oh, I don’t know if I could say like that.  

Jaleel Abdul-Adil  01:25 

Yes, that’s, that’s us New Yorkers. We were particular about how our city is talked about and discussed, right?  

You know how they say, you can tell a New Yorker anywhere, you just can’t tell them anything. So I actually grew up in Long Island in New York, and I was exposed to a multicultural background in the city. You know, New York is cosmopolitan, is so many different types of people, and we all got along. So I always knew the beauty of listening to the distinctions in how people see the world, how they move through the world, and their own particular things.  

As someone who’s born in an African American family, but my mother’s family came from Cuba, so there was Spanish throughout the house, just exposed to so many different things that were beautiful that we always took for granted, and then I had the pleasure of getting into trouble. When I was in public school, I was usually very bored in class, and I used to like to talk and socialize. And so my teacher started saying, you know, this, this kid is trouble. And so my parents said, Okay, we’ll, we’ll move him out of the public school, which is a privilege, into this private school, and they sent me to this place called the United Nations International School. 

I was one of probably about five Americans in that whole K through six, and you had to speak, you know, at least two other languages. It was almost like that ride at Disney World, where it’s a small world, but I kind of lived it for real, and I brought that then to the next phase, which kind of kicked off the, you know, cross cultural understanding, which we moved from New York down to Florida, and we moved to Florida into a very and I’m sorry to say, but this is the reality, very racist, classist environment. I was one of the only African American families for like, 10 square miles.  And so it was a very distinct contrast to appreciating and embracing all the beauty of the flowering of humanity and all this cultures to a very homogeneous, hateful environment.  

But I’m just I’ll say, from my spiritual perspective as a Muslim, though, from my perspective, I was blessed, because, see, no matter how hostile it got people used to gang up on me and fights and just all this crazy stuff used to go on. It’s very horrible experience on certain levels. But see, I never thought ever to hate back, and my parents never, ever said a word about well, see, that’s how they are. And we’re going to move from it’s like, no, You never lose faith in humanity. And so from my perspective, I said, well, I don’t care how bad it gets, I know it can be better than this. And in that situation, what do you do when you’re alone a lot? Listen to music. Music keeps you company. So, you know, music started to become the medicine from an early age now to compliment that, and this is kind of part of story, how we got here with Hip-Hop H.E.A.L.S! today, is that I always had a big family, and I was, like one of the little cousins who used to tag along a certain things. And so they, you know, if my cousins went they were older than me as, like teenagers, and I was a little shorty, little itty bitty as we say, they would bring me along. 

 So believe it or not, I was brought to all those early concerts in the 70s when it was Motown and it was funk. I’m seeing all of those famous artists, and I’m seeing them in person. And so there’s an appreciation for music as a recreation as well as a healer. And it also gave me a historical frame to be able to understand contemporary music. So for me, rap was the latest transition.  

Now here’s, you know, where it comes to career. I was also coming to Chicago in fall ‘89 for graduate school. d I come here and I’m like, Okay, I’m coming and I dive right into what were the communities that were the most underserved, unserved. And I’ll suggest you miss served by mainstream services, which are, you know, black and brown youth, African you know, youth and families and communities from African American and Latinx descent. No, not that others weren’t served, but those were ones who seem to be under the most stress and oppression in Chicago. So like, Alright, let me see, can I help? Because in my world and for my background, like, well, everybody deserves the opportunity to flourish. I know there’s strengths in all communities, including the one I’m from.  

I get to Chicago, I’m working with some of the most oppressed and stressed communities. The young people are listening to these sounds. I was like, Well, I have to listen to stuff to know what they’re listening to, to get a grip, because this is part of the context here, this music. Then I started studying, and I come to find out that, oh, there are a few of these songs that actually sang the same thing that I’m saying, the same thing that mainstream mental health is saying. They’re just saying it a much more engaging and rhythmic way.  

I was like, Okay, well, despite my Motown background and all, I’m going to dig into this musical culture, because I can get the ear to youth, and I can also impact their mind, and we can talk in a way that addresses in an inspirational style. Some of the same mental health messages that I’m trying to get across. Now, remember, remember at this time, like early 90s, there was no such thing as child trauma, right? People knew things are going but there was no language, there was no funding, there was no research, there was no scholarly, you know, support. I was like, but something’s going on. These are not just thugs. These are not just gang bangers. They’ve gone through stress, and we have to be creative in addressing that stress and affirming that the validity of that experience, while we craft programs which meet that complexity and that culture sensitivity that’s necessary to really connect the dots. So that’s what got me started on working with music. And the first program that kind of crystallized that, as I work with my chair, Doctor Rod Watson DePaul, university, when I was, you know, when I got in a doctoral program, was the Young Warriors. So I was like, why Young Warriors? You’re going to want to want to deal with gangs, this is not the only group I work with, but those are the main recipients of most of the services. And I crafted a lot around violence prevention, because those were the neighborhoods and the situations that I was most called in to do service. And he was like, why would you want to talk about war and warriors, and this I was like, because one for this particular cultural context and for this service delivery situation, strength is important, very important. Now, strength can be distorted into unproductive aggression, but strength is also a necessary component for safety and survival. So we’re going to have to talk about that in a complicated way. 

 And see if you can at least go in and acknowledge that you have the same concerns for success and safety that the young people do. They’re just using the available means that they think work best. And then they might listen to what you have to say. But if you go in and just say, well, you’re just no an idiot for being violent. What’s wrong with you? And see, I had lived through too many contextual transitions to everything, it’d be that simple. So you see how these come together? So I thank the United Nations International School. I thank my parents for giving me that experience, because I’m still drawing from that today. I used it to navigate those situations. 

Skipping ahead to my partnership, you know, at UIC with Doctor Lisa Suarez, when she joined the faculty, we were able to, you know, we were very fortunate to be able to get funding to join the National Child Traumatic Stress Network in 2009 as part of the Urban Youth Trauma Center, and it kind of took off from there. I was in Oakland, actually, and one of the attendees said, “You know what, your face really lights up when you start talking about rapping, hip hop. You know, I think you really should start doing that more.” And I was like, it was an epiphany. I was like, Yeah, I guess I am holding on to the goods. Well, let me, let me bring so I didn’t want to bring in Young Warriors. I wanted something that was a little bit more amenable to, immediately amenable to a trauma-informed context that was about sensitivity, not trying to trigger people see Young Warriors. I had to come busting through the door. I had to kick it in like I’m coming in with strength. And now that we’ve established that, now we can talk about the sensitivity, right? It was almost the opposite process of I’m coming in with sensitivity, and let’s assert some strength. So that’s where Hip Hop H.E.A.L.S! came in, and it expanded on the Young Warriors experiences by taking that trauma lens on top of what it already been doing.  

Grace Khachaturian  11:38 

It’s pretty amazing how much of your life it feels like has woven together to the work that you’re currently doing. Like it’s remarkable. It’s also inspiring how you have pulled from so many life experiences that you’ve had, from your upbringing, to more recent, to inspire the work that you’re doing. There are a couple things you touched on, so many gems that it’s like, Okay, let me unpack a few of these. So you mentioned about the spiritual perspective that you had. At what point did that enter the picture, and what difference did that have on the perspective?  

Jaleel Abdul-Adil  12:05 

Very good follow up. And thank you for that. Because I was like, I didn’t even mention one of the main things. So many things. So, you know, in 1990 after long consideration, I decided to convert to Islam. There was a sense of, really, the global mission is not just a nice thing to do now it’s mandatory. It’s like you gotta change the world, and you have to admit, you have to do that and see it also brought that there’s more to this life than just even being successful doing this. It like it has to make a fundamental, systemic impact, and if I’m not doing that, it’s a problem. You may or may not have success, but you better be 100% invested in putting all of your efforts toward helping those, especially the people or the communities or the situations where other people feel hopeless. You’re supposed to be hopeful and see, that’s what pushed me. I’m like, no, no, we can do better, because, see, at the end of the day, I’m still like, we’re all humans created with that capacity. Some of us get off track, some of us have it interrupted, some of us have it corrupted, right, that trajectory, but we all have that inherent capacity for good. 

And you have to have the courage in my in my world, you have to have the courage to do what’s different. So see, converting to something when all of my family it’s Southern Baptist Christian, that took a lot, and I had to have a vision, and I had to stay committed. And, you know, our family tested me. They, you know, it was new. I mean, they, they just like, What? What is this? But I was like, No, this needs to happen. And that sense of personal conviction and commitment is the same thing you can bring when you’re developing programs.  

I can’t sit back and watch people suffer silently. And I can’t be scared to go into places where people are shooting. I can’t be scared of working with youth who are so called violent gang members, like, For the grace of God, there go I. I mean, it could easily been me. Again, I had trouble in public school my earlier days. If I hadn’t had parents looking out for me, I may have been on the other side of that glass. So these are all things which did contribute, and certainly, faith was a key component and became the overarching motivation for why I needed to engage in, you know, these type of services, and be creative, and try to do things different, and just do what you know is right. And I’ve just been placed in a position where I’ve decided that I guess I’m going to be one of them, somebody’s who tries to help. 

Grace Khachaturian  14:48 

So good. I mean, it’s very evident that your whole thought of never losing faith in humanity, and that spiritual perspective, has played such a role and impact in the way that you carry yourself and the way that you serve and see people. It’s truly inspiring. We’ve mentioned music to a great depth, but I want to tie in that mental health perspective. Before you really dive into that, can you just define trauma? 

Jaleel Abdul-Adil  15:18 

Well, I guess you could say that trauma isn’t just what happens to you, it’s what happens inside of you because of what happened to you. So, trauma is really an extremely stressful event, and we talk about traumatic stress, so there’s general stress, which we all experience on a day-to-day basis. Then there’s a heightened stress, which is not just day to day, but it’s also certain kind of unique experiences that’s worse than the norm. So having a hard day at work is very different from having someone try to break into your house, right? And that’s stressful, and for some people, it’s traumatic. And for some people, even after their body recovers, their mind and their heart doesn’t. They’re always what we call triggered.  

And so triggers are reminders of that traumatic situation, that extreme situation that is considered to be abnormal. Now a paradox here is you do have and these are some of the young people and families and communities I deal with. They may be so used to community violence or shootings in the neighborhood and these extreme situations they consider to be quote, unquote, normal. We’ll see from the Urban Trauma Center perspective, it’s not normal. It might be common, but it is not normal as a big difference, because you want to say, no, those are situations that we would understand, that you don’t just bounce back from, you don’t just shake off, you don’t just move past. You’re not supposed to just get over it, right? That requires a type of insight, healing and support from others to really recover from that. And if it’s happening a lot, it’s still not normal. It just means you need a lot more support.  

 And you know, I use music to address this 

Let’s see if there is some alternatives that you may not have tried yet, or you maybe even tried and didn’t work. Just try them again, maybe with a new style or a new method. To see, can we expand beyond just the survival to get back to thriving? And you have to instill hope and see this comes from my spiritual perspective. I’m like, I don’t care who you are, I bet you got a gift. That’s actually a staple of our program. I always say, what’s your gift? And I said that from the beginning, you can have, you have to have some gift, some insight, some thought, some lyric. You can write something about you is special, and we’re going to work on developing that while we reduce the risky behaviors and the risky situations that you’re in, because we want your gift to emerge. Then, you know, from the hip hop cultural perspective, I’ll bring those examples which are inspirational to them, and I use movies, sports, whatever, you know, video game, whatever has the attention of the youth.  

Grace Khachaturian  18:08 

I loved what you mentioned earlier, too, that we’re created with this capacity for hope and for never losing faith in humanity. And I also want to touch on, and I know you’ve mentioned this a little bit with the coping mechanisms as well as the triggers being reminders of our situations. But what are the effects of trauma on someone’s life and health?  

Jaleel Abdul-Adil  18:33 

Sure, and so how does trauma affect our lives? And in many ways, it’s not just in our mind. It’s in our hearts. It’s in your body, physically, it’s in our relationships, because when we’re traumatized, we can’t even regulate ourselves and have healthy relationships, because it distorts how we see the world and how we conduct ourselves, and it’s in our communities, because the trauma which impacts one impacts all, that’s how I look at it which is why we all want to play a role in that.  

So if you haven’t processed your trauma, you can have situations which are mental health conditions, like anxiety, because to you the world doesn’t feel safe. You’re wondering when the next thing is going to happen, and so it makes you anxious, like it’s healthy to be aware, but it’s unhealthy to be anxious, especially when that anxiety stops you from capitalizing on your gift. It can lead to depression.  

 You don’t have the same energy to pursue your goals.  You don’t think school is really going to get you anywhere, because you live in this almost alternate reality where nothing is normal, right? Then it can lead to other things like substance use and abuse. It could be physically escaping, like running away from home, becoming homeless or becoming truant. And these are things that younger and younger people are doing because they’re trying to escape from the unprocessed and untreated trauma. You also lose your social connections.  

So you’re losing all of this capacity. And so it’s having mental, physical, emotional, relational, community, impacts, if it’s untreated. Now I do want to say, even when you treat, it’s a process. So one of the beauties of a trauma informed lens is you ask the question, not just what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you. And then there’s a collective responsibility for healing, not just, hey, this individual needs to pull herself up by their bootstraps and get it together. Or another, unfortunately, popular, yet I think incorrect saying, which is where I went through it. You go through it.  See, that’s incorrect, because other people have gone through common experiences. But I’m the only me. So the issue is finding the right technique for that individual not saying what’s wrong with you? Why are you not responding? You just need to work harder. 

Grace Khachaturian  20:53 

That trauma informed lens, I think, is so valuable to carry with you, it just reminds me of what you said earlier. We all deserve to flourish. I know music has been a huge tie throughout this conversation, so I want to piece it all together here. How can music support mental health and trauma? 

Jaleel Abdul-Adil  21:16 

So music can support mental health and trauma by enriching the evidence-based practices we have and tailoring them to the cultural context in a way that engages and inspires and instructs our young people. So if you find the right song that illustrates those themes, those practices and is inspiring for them, because you’re picking the musical artists that they’re most interested in or listening to, then it’s a real win-win situation. And also affirms their perspective when they’re entering treatment.  and it just changes the whole conversation. So music is medicine, and music is often the medicine that they started using before they met us, because they’ve always typically listened to music.  

Now I’ve dealt with international audiences. Sometimes it’s spoken word, sometimes it’s a particular type of ethnic music in different languages, but see, I work with people who speak those languages from those areas, so we, we map that same approach by picking the songs that reflect the services from their backgrounds. I had a situation at one of the schools we work with in Chicago, where it was a program for newly arriving immigrants from Spanish speaking countries. And, you know, I didn’t know I was picking the right song, but we picked the song that talked about affirming the Spanish speaking identity, the Latinx identity. And it was a real, you know, celebration, lot of colors, a lot of music. And it was a phrase in there that I don’t know it, so I don’t know it, so I won’t even try to recreate. But there was a phrase in there that was  from a dialect that was from, I think it’s a Dominican Republic. And we noticed that it was an uplifting song, and they said there were like, three adolescent girls who teared up. And it was, you know, the facilitator noticed, because everybody else was kind of happy and bouncing, but these three teared up. And so they followed up, and they found out that these were three sisters who had just arrived. And that phrase that was used in that song was a reflection of the dialect from their neighborhood in the region that they came from. And they just felt like they started missing home a whole lot. They said they were happy that they had a piece of home brought within the mainstream structure, because that addressed some of their, you know, I guess we could say homesickness, and they’re like, wow, these folks understand and honestly, because, you know, I keep it real. I had no idea that that was those three young women’s experiences. But what I did know is you have to respect and reflect the context that people are coming from. And so I you know, the probabilities of success with that song is a lot higher than if I would have played, you know, the Beatles, not picking on the Beatles. So, you know, they made their contribution. It’s all good. But you know what I’m saying.  

Grace Khachaturian  24:46 

Yes, absolutely. It’s so cool how music really can be medicine. I know that I even have a playlist, and it’s just my processing playlist. It’s literally called processing, and it’s when I need the type of music that will give me the space. Mental and emotional space, to just sit and process something, but it’s amazing how music can be such a resource, but also all those other things that you mentioned, the media components and mediums that we have available to us that can be a place that we draw common ground, but also lean into for whatever we need. So those that have leaned into music as their resource, but they maybe haven’t reached out for any professional support or leaned into any community resources. How can we best care for our mental health as we navigate something like trauma? 

Jaleel Abdul-Adil   25:33 

I think if you want something, you can count on, you can count on yourself with some self-help skills. I encourage you and anyone to always find peer to peer support. I mean, sometimes, I’ll say, often times, there’s no substitute for being able to connect to someone who either has a similar lived experience or has served that experience, because there’s certain things you just cannot describe.  

You know, once you’re a parent and someone walks in after a rough night and they say, oh, my baby was sick, you don’t have to explain a word after that, not to another parent. Because we have all been there, done that. You cannot describe that completely. What it’s like being up with a sick kid all night when you didn’t sleep, unless you have lived through that, right? So, there’s a sense of you need to connect to peer support. And I guess with my particular populations, especially my young folks who are involved with gangs or exposed to them, being vulnerable doesn’t mean you’re being weak. And so being able to confirm the seeking out support. 

So finding the right type of healthy, positive support is important, and you’re always around you. So have some things in your toolkit that you can count on. You have to depend on others. So, like you mentioned, a playlist that represents a mood list, and being in touch with your emotions, to know which type of music will soothe you at the time is very important. It’s not a solution for everything, but it’s a help. That might be the difference between you snapping off, getting into a violent confrontation versus making a rough night a tolerable one. 

Grace Khachaturian  27:25 

 I really appreciate what you said about vulnerability. I’ve always thought vulnerability invites vulnerability. And if you’ve walked and traversed that ground before, and someone is going through the same thing, you could have a tool in your toolkit that they don’t yet have. 

Jaleel Abdul-Adil  27:39 

Nowadays, which is very different when I first started doing these types of programs, but nowadays you have multimedia access on a whole other level. So I can have a playlist. I can also have a movie clip list. I can go to YouTube, I have so many mechanisms that I can tap into finding the material that I need at the time. And like I talk about, not only rap music, but hip hop culture. So you have the rappers. So we talked about songs, spoken word, poems, all those types of things. This also extends into theater, then you have dance. Just having the physical component of healing and health is critical…Then you got beatboxing… And then the last one is graffiti art. And you think about how many times I might not rhyme my way out of pain, but I could draw my way out of pain. So hip hop culture as a whole is something that’s helpful to make sure you don’t stop at the music. That’s just where you start the conversation of elements you can use. 

Grace Khachaturian  28:49 

Yeah, and it’s amazing how those elements can help that gift emerge that you’re mentioning earlier, that can all play into that. When someone has been processing through a lot, how do you know when it’s time for professional support versus that independent or peer to peer support? 

Jaleel Abdul-Adil  29:06 

Sure, I think when it becomes an obstruction to your day to day functioning, then it’s time to get some additional support, which is a source of strength to recognize and then act to get services. That’s when you really need some services.  

So you think about with trauma, when it starts getting in the way of you functioning, or you’re concerned for your safety, or you start hearing from people you care about who are close to you, or, you know, friends and family that hey, you know you look like you’re on edge, or a little bit more down and used to be, or, Why are you snapping off? Listen to the people around you, and you do your own self-check. Think about doing a physical every year. You’re checking in because you’re trying to catch things before they become a big deal, because they’re easier to manage and fix than if they become chronic and they become catastrophic.  There’s nothing wrong with coming to get a check in. 

Grace Khachaturian  30:05 

It was that prevention focus that you mentioned earlier, even just catching it in the midst of it. 

This conversation has been nothing short of powerful. We’ve talked about the influence of faith and upbringing, never losing faith in humanity and unpacking the role music can have in navigating mental health and trauma – I’m so grateful for the wisdom you’ve offered us today – just so much to lean into.  

 Jaleel, we love to end here on a fun note, and it’s one that you’re going to be very comfortable with. Speaking of music, if you were to pick a song that best represents your story, what would it be? 

Jaleel Abdul-Adil  30:40 

It’s a tough call, because you’re talking about not just the last few years of rapid hip hop. I’ve been around since the beginning of it, and I studied it the last 35 or almost 40 years. So if I had to pick one, it was, I’m gonna give you the close second, and I’ll tell you which one. So the close second was KRS One, Boogie Down Productions “Blackman in Effect…” 

[play music: KRS One, Boogie Down Productions “Blackman in Effect] 

Because I played that at one of my first presentations ever at a psychology conference, and you can hear a pin drop when it was over. People were shocked that four minute rap song could have that much information, inspiration and impact on youth, potentially, especially as they mapped on a mental health program.  

But if I had to go my ultimate all time song, it would be Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power.”  

[play music: Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”] 

And it’s ironic, because that is the group I refused to go see in college, but that is a group when I started studying potential of rap. That’s the first one that caught my eye about, oh my gosh, look how powerful this can be. And the themes of resistance, resilience, and ultimately, even some of the political icons in the video of Malcolm X and others about revolution that spoke to me about the need for a comprehensive and concrete revolution of mind, heart, body and society. And I said that really just summarizes everything.  

But see for me, healing is power, and you have to use that healing power to combat relentlessly. Oppression, discrimination, institutional neglect and all the related problems that result from the systemic inequities. You need that power, you need that commitment, and you need that fight to be able to actually overturn some of these long-term problems.  

But again, you know, I’ll end as I began. But see, I always have hope. You know, I talk about some of the worst, systemic injustices, and, you know, hate crimes, and you know, violence that we do to each other’s people sometimes because we’ve internalized our oppression, and so we mistreat each other because we’ve been mistreated systemically, and, you know, on a society level. But see, for me, I still see that beauty in people. I still have that hope. So I guess I could say that fighting the power is not always or should not be misunderstood, that it’s limited to just being angry, you know, fist in the air. It’s actually a very peaceful, gentle persistence to make sure that every human has the choice and chances that they deserve. Regardless of how they walk in the door, they need to be embraced and supported the same way I would want to be embraced and supported, and I assume you’d want to be embraced and supported. 

Grace Khachaturian  34:10 

What a fantastic way to close out this conversation. This has been such a hope infused time with you today. I’m feeling inspired and your hope in people, in our world and your faith in humanity, and I’m sure everyone listening will feel the same too. Jaleel, thank you so much for your time here today. 

Jaleel Abdul-Adil  34:30 

Well, thank you so much for having me, and I want to say that I’m also inspired as we, you know, mutually reinforce each other to go out and try the best we can to make the world a better place than it is right now. 

Grace Khachaturian  34:41 

So good. Thank you. To find out more about Jaleel and the Urban Youth Trauma Center at UIC visit the show notes for this episode at today.uic.edu. 

[play music: Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”]