“We’ve secluded ourselves and we close the door on ourselves a lot of the time…I just want to be able to preach to a wider audience and not be so secluded.”
“We’ve secluded ourselves and we close the door on ourselves a lot of the time…I just want to be able to preach to a wider audience and not be so secluded.”
On this week’s TMV Podcast, Chief Editor Salim Kassam spoke to Ali, known by his stage name The Soulful Poet, on hip-hop and Islam, the power of the creative arts, and how spoken word and rap can all tie into helping creative people express their faith and identity.
Listen to the full podcast below:
Explaining his own personal growth as a creative artist and spoken word poet, Ali spoke on the power of simply opening up one’s emotion to the wider world – especially when it comes to faith and belief. Ali believes that sometimes rather than a heavy lecture of theology or jurisprudence, sometimes all one needs is an honest and pure outpouring of emotion through poetry or art to touch the hearts of others.
I wanted to write on topics that were directly felt, rather than directly heard or believed…I wanted to bring up the emotion. There is definately [room for] hip-hop in Islam.”
Describing the Holy Quran as a miraculous compilation of God’s Words in the form of the world’s most beautiful poetry, Ali’s description of the connection between poetry and the Quran is refreshingly new and powerful. Explaining that the Holy Quran is filled with incredible examples of literary devices, poetic beauty, and un-replicable forms of art, Ali hopes that many continue to find inspiration and a renewed source of faith from understanding the Quran through this perspective as well.
Inspired by the Quran’s own poetic perfection, Ali believes that hip-hop, spoken word, and poetry all fall under ways of creatively expressing one’s belief, identity, and even struggles. While the wide-range of hip-hop means that some of the negative influences of mainstream hip-hop and rap can get in the way, there are still ways to truly appreciate the essence of hip-hop in its most pure form.
Hip-hop was built on solving problems, on raising awareness…and is one of the most accepting and diverse [music] genres out there. It’s meant to bring people together.”
Touching on the subject of how the Muslim community can often shun or stigmatize those involved with hip-hop or creatively expressing themselves through poetry or spoken word, Ali hopes that the wider Muslim community will become more open and accepting to the true essence of hip-hop: bringing people together to share in struggle, faith, and hope.
We’ve secluded ourselves and we close the door on ourselves a lot of the time…I just want to be able to preach to a wider audience and not be so secluded. At the end of the day, hip-hop is just storytelling.”
To listen to the rest of this fascinating podcast, click below!
