Can a Muslim work in the music industry and keep their faith?

that first hit of like weed brownie is gonna just be the best high of all time right i'm gonna i'll probably go i'll probably die for my first bite i have to say people before we went live i tried to tempt lupe into breaking this fast i said i said have you got a drink do you want to go get a drink and i'll look at the sun but he passed the test that was me lucifer trying to

yeah you know lupe the whole with the faith thing and the industry i mean that just seems worlds apart but yet you know you've you've obviously navigated through that industry you've worked with like you know bleeding artists within that how has that been then how has has it been uh as as a muslim i mean is it just you know people there's this thing that these kind of industries you they take your soul or this kind of you know there's this kind of notion out there and um how has that been as as a muslim as an you know as a distinguished

artist that's kind of gone through very successful being yeah um i mean i always i get combative you know sometimes and i when when people come to me and it becomes like man you're in the music business yeah you're surrounded by all of this fitness and uh jen's and just and i was like all right all right um what what's the difference right you go to this madrasa right you're just madrasa you become the huffis and you're doing the the hafez bop right and you're learning all the hadith you know i beat my heart right and like everything is that right right and then you get on up

you you you get uh you get uh hyped up to go on a bus and stab 80 people right or but you had a gleaming example of you could probably win quran competitions and like all this other old stuff but you directed your whole life literally your life uh into hurting and harming other people right and maybe even some muslims in the midst of that right yeah like what the madrasa industry might be a little bit more dangerous you know a little bit more evil i agree with you if it's turning out folks that are yeah venomous you know committing acts around the world but they're probably someone they could

probably you know pray they could probably they probably i say that to say that the the scholastic aspect of islam right and all of that deep uh scholarly aspect of it if you ain't gonna do nothing but use that as energy to go oppress someone or to blow something up not saying that that's the the the norm but that's a part of it you know and there's people who sit on the edge of that and and look at the world through the lens of of a madrasso out the window of a mosque um and it's like that's not the world you know the world is filled with people um who are trying to figure things out trying to find themselves

even in the music business trying to figure out their voice the stories that they want to tell that are kind of being influenced and forced um or are running from situations where it's like look that kid could actually be in the streets killing people right literally being the streets like selling drugs being the streets robbing people um but he's he's taken a step out to like turn it into a song right and then it becomes like okay well what's the next step well maybe he's not finished he's in the midst of his his or her journey with that said there's muslims all through the music business you know of all different walks of life um from all different points of view who came into islam from all

different angles from prisons um from immigrants from having from from genuinely being they might be the most ruthless killer that you've ever seen um but something about the koran has softened that person right but when they're in the streets they're in the streets right the quran is like in the back because i have to go kill this dude if he looks at me the wrong way type situation but i'ma make sure that i kill him in time that i can go do you know my good right so that something to like the you know how much do we want people or industries to be reflective of the of the religious connotations and

context in which they're in or we want them to be so i mean but with that said i mean it's a lot of things that go against every religion right there's things that go against buddhism there's things that go against uh christianity there's things that go against judaism and these are folks who are in the business who are jews folks in the business who are muslims folks in the business who are christians folks who are who are you know faithful practicing in the in the in the path that they follow go to church prac do easter do this do that and they'll they have no problem putting out the most violent vile record that you've ever heard you know and and support it and and figure out ways to sell more records and

then make a t-shirt out of it and then do this and do that um so i've seen you know i don't i try not to judge the capacity of a person based off the religion that they follow right because sometimes they use you would it i think religion needs to be separated from the actions of man right because if you use man to kind of judge the capacity and validity of a religion is always going to look crazy because if the religion was so strong this person should be doing this the person shouldn't be doing that and i think it's more the question of like who is that person you know what are their what are their what are their whether what are their capacities how do they deal with society what was their origin story and what are they trying to complete

where are they trying to go in life um no matter what industry they're in so somebody going into the music business versus might come out the other side of better for the world you know be able to build a a school and have a philanthropic effort and feed a bunch of kids and do all this other stuff with that person who chose to go to the mosque um they're just waiting on iftar right they're just leeching off the mosque right and i've had circumstances like that where i've met brothers at the mosque and kind of been duped into certain situations and found myself feeding somebody's what i thought was their drug habit you know or feeding somebody's really weird thing but it's presented as like oh that guy was an angel like i was in

my mind literally like oh this dude had me and i found myself like why do i have to keep giving this angel money like if you're an angel like you should be able to just you know just generate some money um and you come to these conclusions that everything isn't everything that in the mosque everything that's in the mosque um isn't halal yeah wow no that's that's incredibly profound and it's so it's so uh hard hitting in its reality lupe that just you know the way you're saying because i i feel that that is the struggle that a lot of regular people have in

you see the religion or faith or just the you know it's allocation it's it's it's buildings let's say the masks and these don't reflect a reality to them it's too you know it's almost like artif it's i don't mean it's artificial but it's almost like it's artificial it's not real it's not like like they go to a mosque okay they pray but that's not the real world they don't see that and and this is why they can't relate sometimes to whether it's going to be imams or whether it's going to be because they they think well come on but in the real world this all this happens and you know that's

so you or another people who are let's who are putting words together putting poetry and music and and inspiring people uh making them kind of reflect but in a way that they can relate is so much more powerful than just somebody saying well you know i i know you should just go to the mosque and pray or just saying you know just just be good it doesn't quite cut it it's not real yeah i was i was i was uh reading i use ramen i use ramadan to kind of just study uh religion

um and i came upon um interested in poets and it was weird every time when i was when i was when i was younger and even now not so much now because i kind of gave myself a break when i was younger when i read the quran i thought god was talking to me it was like you're the poet and i'm when i'm i'ma see you in hell boy don't worry about it i know what you did last week right i was like yo i can't read this book because it's scary right but i say that to say i always i always try to use use ramadan to get into you know the nooks and crannies in the context of religion i actually bumped into this uh this piece about poets um during the time of of prophet muhammad