The Whole Muslim Featuring Slum Prophecy!

Shehla: This episode contains strong language and discusses subjects that may be inappropriate for sensitive listeners and children. Listener discretion is advised.

 

[music]

 

Shehla: Hi, everyone. May peace be on you all. And welcome to another episode, the very first episode of my Season 8. And let's just clarify, I've not been on the air for eight years. I've just taken eight very long gaps, and I just call it a season because I can and it's my show. [laughs] But it is the very first episode. And unlike previous seasons, I started this one a little differently. It's usually a solo as my very first episode, but I don't have one, but two guests for the whole Muslim segment. Yes, the segment in which I feature Muslims doing very extraordinary things. 

 

One of them is a returning guest. Let me reintroduce, Professor Ware, Rudolph Ware, as I've introduced him before. He is a Historian of Africa and Islam, and he is an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Has written several books, including The Walking Qur'an and Jihad of the Pen. And I could go on and on, but again, I only have one hour. Welcome back, Professor.

 

Rudolph: Glad to be here.

 

Shehla: But I have you back now, not as a professor. We'll get into that later. And my second guest is Chime Umesi. I hope I've pronounced that correct. 

 

Chime: Yes. [laughs]

 

Shehla: But his stage name is Chizabam. And you hail from Atlanta, but are now in my town. You are in Dallas, Texas. 

 

Chime: That’s correct.

 

Shehla: You started your musical career at 11 years. I still haven't taken that in and I was like, “Dang, man.” [Rudolph Ware laughs] Second-generation Nigerian. And now you're into your musical career. You've worked with known artists like Deji, Cashonable, Dubbygotbars and so many more. You have your own recording label, SNL Music. And now we get into the fun bit. 2020 pandemic, both of y’all come together and create a hip hop rap, I guess duo called Slum Prophecy. 

 

Rudolph: Slum Prophecy in the building, man. 

 

[laughter]

 

Shehla: Tell me. Oh, yes. Slum Prophecy is here. Yeah. But tell me. When everybody was baking bread, how did a professor and a musician come together and create this? And now you both have released five albums as well.

 

Rudolph: Yeah.

 

Shehla: How did that happen?

 

Rudolph: I want to hear my man's explanation.

 

Chime: Okay. Yeah, because you– [crosstalk] 

 

Rudolph: I want to know your recollection of the process. 

 

Chime: Okay. So, the thing is, years ago, I was listening to Dr. Ware's lectures, like, online, different stuff. My boy, [unintelligible [00:03:18] Mox actually gifted me The walking Qur'an, the book years. I was listening to the lectures. I was like, “Oh, this is some dope stuff about Africa.” Because you know looking into- I got to this point in my Islam where it was like--especially as a convert, you get to a point where you want to identify with something that identifies with you. You know what I mean? And so, I found his lectures being wholesome in that way. 

 

I remember one time, Mustafa Briggs, brother Mustafa Briggs, he had a podcast that I think Mox had sent me the podcast where he had Dr. Ware on. He was doing it on SoundCloud that he dropped it on and when I heard it on. And it was a point where in the lecture where they were talking-- It was more like a discussion, where they were talking about Africa and the deen and all these things. He was talking about a certain level where people get to a level of fundamentalism, where it's like he quoted this line by André 3k, a 3000, where he said-- N**a , they made them gas. They gas [crosstalk] blowout of they backs. 

 

Rudolph: They guess it gets blow out of their backs. 

 

[laughter] 

 

Chime: Yeah. That’s-- [crosstalk]

 

Rudolph: Middle of an Islamic lecture [crosstalk] just go straight to OutKast. Hey, man, look, I was wearing the Bob Marley shirt a minute ago. If the cap fit, let him wear it. The line was the right one for the time. 

 

[laughter] 

 

Chime: I had never heard of-- You know what I'm saying? I had [unintelligible [00:05:09] this thing. 

 

Rudolph: Everybody's talking about like armed resis-- everyone is like armed resistance. They want to establish an Islamic state. I'm like, “You buying your guns from the enemy, and you talking about going to war with them?” [crosstalk]

 

Chime: It was so brutally honest [Rudolph laughs] when he connected with my childhood and upbringing so much, because with being OutKast, my favorite group of all time, so for me, here from Atlanta, it connected perfectly in the moment. And I'm like, “I know exactly what he's talking about.” I know the exact ideology he's talking about. This is connecting perfectly. And so, I hit him up in a DM, direct message. I was like, “Man, the fact that you even said this, bro, it was just like a funny, like, LOL, man. You know what I'm saying? To say that. 

 

Shehla: Yeah.

 

Chime: And then he was like, it is like, “Okay, that's what's up. That's what's up.” And he was like, “I actually make music myself.” I guess he scoped the page. He's like, “I actually do my own thing.” I’ve been producing-- 

 

Rudolph: Yeah. When you sent that DM, I checked out your profile, and I was looking at what you've done and played a couple of the pieces of the music. Yeah. And I'll let you finish because I'll come in with my side of it where I was at the end of 2020. But yeah, I checked out your profile, and that's when I was saying, “Yeah.” I started getting back into music, but go ahead. You finish off and then-- [crosstalk]  

 

Chime: Yeah. I feel like it's towards the end. I'm getting back into music. I'm getting back into production. I'm like, “Oh.” This is different for me too. You know what I'm saying? Somebody of such high knowledge being open like that to creativity, because a lot of the background that I've come from, especially after taking Shahada basically around 2011, was you come into contact with different things, man. So, a lot of it was rigid. Just a rigid understanding. Not to list any particular affiliations or anything, but just like a rigid understanding of certain things. So, for him to say that was even like, “Yo, this is dope. I already watched this stuff. It's crazy.” So, then he sent me a beat, and I believe the very first one that we did was Whips and Chains. 

 

Rudolph: Whips and chains was the first one. 

 

Chime: First one. Okay. He sent me the beat. We basically collabed on it. I'm like, “This is dope.” I feel like, you know me, I'm going to side with the trap 808. I got to throw some 808s on it, certain ways. 

 

Rudolph: I had produced the beat a certain way, and then Chime like flipped portions of it, brought out the low end beautifully. Yeah, continue and then I'll go. [laughs] 

 

Chime: Yeah. So, that's basically from there, we just started working. The connection was real. His rate of producing for me was crazy. So, it was like, we were in line because I like to work at a certain rate too. So, for me, him throwing out these beats, and I'm just in a moment, it's just, let's knock them out. We knocking them out, and we create it- 

 

Shehla: Wow.

 

Chime: -basically albums. 

 

Rudolph: Yeah, we had-- [crosstalk].

 

Shehla: It's only 2023, gentlemen. Five albums-- I'm not even sure how the math works on this. 

 

Rudolph: Well, I'll try to answer that as I chime in, pardon the pun, with my version of getting to know brother, Chime, aka Chizabam. So, I got that direct message, checked out the profile, listened to some of the music. And at that point in time, I was cultivating collaborative relationships with a few Muslim recording artists. So, what had essentially happened was I got on social media in 2020 after the Floyd murder, okay? And I basically concluded that anything that I had that was of benefit and could bring light to people with respect to spirituality, social justice, any and all of it, if I withheld anything of it, that God was going to take me to task for it. So, I just didn't hold anything back. So, I just started teaching in a public space, and the social media account grew very, very quickly. 

 

So, one of the things that happened was that I started doing dialogues, not podcasts. I'm not that refined like you, sister, Shehla. I did Instagram Lives, and I did them with a bunch of Muslim recording artists to talk about the relationship between hip hop and their own spiritual experience. Because me, personally, it was a lot of the lyrics in the late 1980s, early 1990s hip hop that had brought me to Islam in the first place. So, for me, there had always been a close relationship between hip hop music and Islam. I realized that especially for the younger generation that had been influenced, and you're not going to name names or sex, but I'm just going to call out the Salafis on this, is that a lot of people had just been told directly that all kinds of music was haram. Like, music's forbidden. You shouldn't be making music. You should stop listening to music. 

 

Disregarding the fact that Imam Ghazali, for example, the most accomplished scholar in the Islamic tradition, was somebody that not only said that music is permissible, but that it is indeed laudable when it is part of somebody's spiritual journey. So, it could be something that you could use to get closer to God. And whoever these different Salafi scholars are that are making whatever pronunciations they're making, they ain't Ghazali. They don't have his [laughs] credibility. They don't have his scholarly achievement. So, the point is that there had always been divided opinion amongst Muslim scholars. So, I was comfortable talking about music. I was comfortable enjoying music, and especially music that is designed towards liberation purposes, spiritual elevation purposes. So, I started interviewing people on that. 

 

When I started interviewing people on that, people started asking me to collaborate with them on tracks and to co-write things. And so, I would write something, and then they'd be like, “Well, how do you spit it? And I'd spit it. And I'm like, “I can't spit it like that. You should spit it.” So, then I started recording again for the first time in 20 years. 

 

Shehla: Oh, wow. 

 

Rudolph: Then I didn't like the sounds that we were dealing with, the beats that we were dealing with. So, I went and got an Ableton push machine, and literally taught myself beat production in a year. So, when I first started sending you beats, I had only been working with the Ableton for about five months at that point in time. I wasn't even really ready yet, but I was getting there, because my father was a very, very gifted musician. I didn't get his hands for instruments, but I got his ear. So, when I really applied myself to try to make the sounds that I wanted to rap to, then the sounds started to come along. So, that's when Chiza entered the picture, is that I was cultivating collaborative relationships already with people that I had been interviewing and working with. So, Basha Régine was one of them, Mona Haydar was one of them, Harun Shields was one of them. Akil the MC from Jurassic 5, we ended up doing a track together. Wise, intelligent, from poor righteous teachers, also was an Instagram Live. And these end up becoming collaborations down the road. 

 

So, when I encounter this brother, when I send him a beat, he sends it back just laced. The vocal performances that he would put on these tracks was incredible. I remember, and I told you this, I was like, “Man, I'm either going to have to step my game up rapping to these beats, or I'm going to have to retire from rapping at all and just feed you beats,”-

 

[laughter] 

 

Rudolph: -because you're running circles around me on a beat that I myself made. So, encountering him with his unusual range of vocal talent and ability to do things musically with his voice while still delivering all of the different ranges of hip hop cadences from classic to contemporary, it started to push me as an artist in ways that I hadn't been pushed previously. 

 

And then the last thing I'll say to introduce it for me, what brought Slum together was like a shared vision that we were going to make music that was hard that-- We were going to do the art form justice and not make preachy, corny Islamic music. Because both of us hate that kind of music. 

 

[laughter] 

 

Rudolph: What we wanted to do instead was to do what the hip hop artists of the golden age had done. A lot of them five percenters, or a lot of them nation of Islam folks, some Sunni Muslims, which was to slip the ethics and values and principles of Islamic teaching into the lyrics, but in a way that wasn't so overtly preachy and corny. We didn't want to make Muslim rap. We wanted to rap through Islam and let who we are as black Muslims lay itself down in the tracks, and leave that as the thing that would invite people to ask questions about the values that animate us, the historical experiences that shaped us. 

 

My brother, as you know somebody that was raised by an African-American, myself as an African-American who lived for years in West Africa, we felt like that as Muslims, as black folks, as people of the diaspora, we had something to offer. And so, we were comfortable creating a lane of our own for Slum.

 

Shehla: Right. That is amazing. The way I see it, it was meant to be from one lecture to that one phrase to the fact that the both of you connected in such a way when you, Professor, were just restarting your musical journey. That's incredible. But if I have to go back to the very basic question, why the name Slum Prophecy? 

 

Rudolph: Okay. Yeah. So, I'll start with this one, and then you correct my recollection. 

 

Chime: Okay. Yeah. Please do. Please do.

 

Rudolph: The way that I remember it, this is like, now early 2021. By the way, Chiza’s, what he did, the first track was Whips and Chains. And Whips and Chains is still one of our most popular streaming songs. It was the very first track we did. The second track we did was Sabor. Sabor is still our most popular streaming track. And it's like a Latin infused, hip hop, pop fusion type beat. I had sent that beat to 10 people. Nobody knew what to do with it. I sent it to Chiza. He sent it back the next day, and I played it and I was like, “Good God.” 

 

[laughter] 

 

Rudolph: He went completely crazy on that thing. He introduced whole new levels of musicality. I shared it with one friend in Detroit after I had spit my verse, [laughs] and he said, “Dr. Bilal, I love you.” He said, “But you're going to have to take that verse back to the drawing board.” I said, “Because your man bodied you on your own track.” Like, “You need to step your delivery up.” [Shehla laughs] He was right. He pushed me to reach deeper. So that was like, end of early part of 2021, and we're fine tuning the sound, building what will become some of the dopiest tracks, and we're thinking about now, release. What are we going to do about release? 

 

My MC name as a youngster when I was rapping was always, B-ware. It's what's on the screen. Like, yeah, you better look out. [chuckles] [Shehla laughs] But it was also a play on both of my names. Butch, my childhood nickname, and Bilal the name that I chose for myself as a Muslim. So, I was cool with B-ware, play with the idea of maybe doing the professor, since there aren't that many professors that rap and make music. 

 

Shehla: That's true. 

 

Rudolph: So, we were thinking about Chizabam and B-ware, Chizabam and the Professor, different things. And then I called you, I think it was when we were working on Last Dragon. The song called the Last Dragon. And I said, “What if we, instead of just using our stage names, we created a name for the group,” the way that a tribe called Quest was its own entity, the way that OutKast was its own entity. It's the way of saying that the team is bigger than the individuals. 

 

One of the things that I reproach the current contemporary era for is like the way that my father would have put it, pardon his political incorrectness, but too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Everybody wants to be a solo artist. Everybody wants their name in lights. Everybody wants to do their own thing. But the music is better when we collaborate. The music is better when your sensibility, your ear, your lyrical talent is informing and shaping mine. You know what I am saying? I know that Chiza made me step up my delivery game, but I also like to think that I pushed him on his writing game, like to bring out the best of his pen. 

 

And so, the idea of doing something that would talk about our collective identity as a group, as something that was informed by an urban sensibility, but also by a prophetic methodology, like that we were really not rapping about anything negative. We were rapping about truths and realities that we had seen and experienced and lived that had an edge to them. But we were never getting people to glorify the darkness, nor were we being preached and corny. We were bringing humanity, as the Quran says, Minaz Zulumati Ilan Noor, out of the darknesses and into the light. So, the Slum was the first representation of that, and the Prophecy was the second half. 

 

Chime: Yeah. [laughs] That's perfectly said, man. When I think of Slum Prophecy, I just think about- This goes back to a conversation I had years ago with my boy, Mox. The fact that I'm a make music, I can't negate the things that I've experienced in life. And that's what I love about Bware is like, we're not negating the things that we've actually experienced. We're not necessarily glorifying it either, but certain things- So, the name, Slum, it was a natural, you know hood, certain ideas and things that behaviors-- [crosstalk]  

 

Shehla: It is an undeniable part-

 

Chime: You can't deny it. 

 

Shehla: -of the experience. 

 

Rudolph: Yup.

 

Chime: Right. 

 

Shehla: I think if I had to say it, it's even an undeniable part of the hip hop experience. 

 

Rudolph: It has to be. I taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara, just this past quarter, a hip hop history class for the first time. And so, your point that you're making is so crucial. It is really an important part of an authentic hip hop experience is to understand that this music comes from a place of struggle. It comes from a place of, essentially, the African diaspora. Not just black folks, but black and Puerto Ricans, especially. People that were interpreting the rhythms of Africa in their musical traditions in different ways. And then speaking first to the realities of the South Bronx in the 1970s, which was just a blighted atmosphere. And the D. C. that I grew up in that same period was fundamentally like those places. 

 

But then it traveled, and everybody put the stamp of their own hood on it, and they put the stamp of their own creativity and sensibility on it. When it went to the south, it became a different thing. When it went to the West Coast, it became a different thing. [Chime laughs] And that's the thing, is that those undeniable realities that shaped you, that's what gives the music its authenticity. 

 

Chime: Exactly. 

 

Rudolph: We were never going to sell out on the authenticity of the music. That was just out of the question. 

 

Shehla: Right. I've listened to all the tracks. I've downloaded all the music. I think that's the thing about it. It is so raw. The music is so raw. I love it. [Chime laughs] This may not be for everybody, but I love it. It's not for everybody. I definitely say that. It's not something that's soft or fluffy.

 

Rudolph: No. [laughs] 

 

Chime: Oh, no.

 

Shehla: For anybody, it’s not soft-- It's not supposed to be soft and fluffy. So, with that, tell my audience, five albums, okay? First, second, third, fourth, fifth. What was the inspiration behind-

 

Rudolph: Wow.

 

Shehla: -all of them, and what were the tracks that you love working on?

 

Rudolph: Damn. You go first. 

 

Chime: Oh, man. From the very first-- Well, I would say, you know what? How about--

 

Rudolph: Because we did things out of order. We released things different order than the way we made them. [Shehla laughs] So, I'm curious as to how you're going to respond. 

 

Chime: Okay. 

 

Shehla: I'll even deal with the tracks. Which were the first few tracks and which were the ones that you guys really feel for it? 

 

Chime: I'll say this. When he sent me the beat for Across 111th street. 

 

Rudolph: Oh, 111 Street. Oh, damn.

 

Chime: Across 111th street. So, [chuckles] the vibes were like-- He mentioned Sabor. We have these different songs and the vibes. What I love about B-ware’s Production, and just touch on that, is that it brings a certain level out of me, artistically. It's not one dimensional. He may make a trap beat, a melodic type of trap beat and then over here, he'll make something that sounds like it should be topping the charts, the top of the billboard charts in a pop category. 

 

Shehla: Right.

 

Chime: So, I've always loved different genres growing up. I grew up in the trap, submerged by the trap, like that perfect era. So, I know how to master that sound a lot. But nevertheless, I loved Outkast. Like, Timberland was one of my favorite producers. Pharrell was one of my-- Kanye. 

 

And then the songs from Nelly Furtado. If we get to rap, rock, like, Evanescence. Linkin Park. So many different things. I can name EDM. I've always loved that stuff. Akon. A bunch of the stuff that you're hearing today from the rap the trap music goes back to-- When T-Pain first came out. I remember when I was on Myspace and shout a Snap, “Hey, [unintelligible [00:24:14].” You know what I mean? All of that. Today, people are just following that. The whole Drake, So, B-ware's Production style allowed me to just be free. [laughs] It did not say like, you know what I mean, “Oh, I got to do this this way. I got to do this this way.” It just allowed me to say, “Man, I'm just going to make great music over these beats.” So, with that being said, Sabor, definitely-- 111th Street. One of the albums that we did as far as The Book of Hearts, man. 

 

Rudolph: Yeah, The Book of Hearts. I think it is so underrated.

 

Chime: We really went out there on that. You know what I mean? 

 

Rudolph: I was going to mention that one if you didn't mention that one. 

 

Chime: Yeah. The tracks on there, Mo Bounce. What he did vocally on Sitting by the Phone. You know what I'm saying? 

 

Rudolph: So, I'll pick up where you left off and then I'll provide my provisional answer to the question in terms of favorites. 

 

Chime: Yeah.

 

Rudolph: That I think is what musically, like, it's one thing to see eye to eye conceptually and historically. It's another thing to have somebody that can match your musical range and vision for the sound. That's what I found with Chiza. Because he grew up in the trap era, I grew up in the boom bap era. My ear is most finely tuned for boom bap, but I love certain kinds of trap beats. I love Reggae Tone beats. I was a huge prince fan and Michael Jackson fan coming up. There's certain things about pop sounds that I feel like that especially when you can bring a soul sensibility or a funk sensibility to pop music, that you can really, really do powerful things, like, emotionally for a listener. 

 

Shehla: Oh, yeah.

 

Rudolph: So, the big thing was that I would be hearing these things and just trying to bring out something in a beat. And then as a vocalist, he would hear layers in it that I couldn't hear that were latent. So, he would bring out new melodies, new harmonies, and then create a different kind of sonic tableau, because he could match the range. He could hear things in different kinds of music and always deliver it with soul and authenticity. So, that being said, I think that in a lot of ways, our first album, Slum Prophecy Vol. 1, and then Whips and Chains are like the truest to the vision of what Slum Prophecy is. 

 

Whips and Chains contain many of the very first songs that we worked on. But for different reasons, they weren't quite ready until album four. We would come back to them, revise them, because there was a concept that held the whole thing together. It was about the Whips and Chains that keep us in place now are not slave master’s whips and they're not slave chains. They are the whips that we drive and the chains that we buy that it's our consumer culture and our internalization of a bunch of negative ideologies that now keep us in bondage. And because it had that kind of coherence of vision across tracks, there was a certain kind of coherence to the way that album pulls together. But The Book of Hearts, which I just mentioned, also has that. 

 

And The Book of Hearts was really an effort to make an album of essentially halal love songs. They were different engagements of the realities of male-female relationships, where we're talking about what's really happening, what's really out there, and how to try to navigate that in a way that you don't debase yourself, you don't diminish yourself. But being frank about sexuality, being frank about relationship. For me, the illest track that we did on Book of Hearts is John Wick. [Chime Laughs] John Wick is a track that, without containing any curse words, without containing anything that is demeaning of women or of men, it's about making sure that your wife is satisfied. [laughs] 

 

Chime: Facts.

 

Rudolph: It's about manning up and doing what needs to be done. It's playful, but it's also serious at the same time. It's the answer to the commoditization and commercialization of sexuality in the culture. My students also taught me about that in class. They were like, “Listen, MC Lyte was talking about sexuality and human relationships. Queen Latifah was talking about sexuality and relationships. But they weren't stripping butt naked and dancing and selling sex. They were speaking in sincere ways about sexuality. So, that's one of the things why that album stands out, is that we took more chances musically, and we took more chances conceptually with that one than previous ones.

 

Shehla: Right. Yeah, I think that's so important, and I think that's where my next question comes into. In comparison to the music Slum Prophecy is making right now, it's different. Like, both of you have said that your inspiration comes from the 1980s, 1990s. But in compared to what hip hop is now-- I'm not anybody to make any comments about what hip hop is now because I'm not deeply entrenched into that culture. I'll be frank about that. I like certain hip hop artists, but I'm not deeply entrenched in that culture. How would you compare to the music the both of you make to what's out there right now?

 

Chime: I'm going to say this. Slum Prophecy, not only nurtures your sonic needs-- We don't only deliver your sonic needs, but we deliver your spiritual needs as well. Once again, it's not in a way that's preachy purposely. It's not in a way that's, “Oh, we're telling you what to do.” But it's in a way that the range of musicality of the decades that we have apart in age, the range of musicality that gives it us a lot deeper of a catalog and a base to pull from musically. 

 

So, I'll say this. What you have today in just like modern music was just talking about today, Slum Prophecy is on a completely different level. Because not only are we pulling from one registrar, which a lot of the music that you hear today sounds like one consistent song, right? 

 

Shehla: Right.

 

Chime: We're giving you variety. We're giving you range. When we go out to certain different ranges, we're not doing it in a whack way or in a subpar way. This song can stand as an R&B song in the R&B charts. This song can stand as a pop song. This song can stand as a trap song, if you listen to tune. It can stand as a modern-day trap song. So, if we want to give the comparison, it's really just saying that I'm not seeing-- [laughs] You know what I'm saying? I catch certain music. 

 

But I'm going to be honest with you, I don't really listen to much music. I think due to that other than the people that I know, like, it was one of my boys send me a track, Bush send me something, my brother may send me something, boy Cash may send me. Just different people might send me their songs, and I feel like that's enough. But as far as am I listening to the radio every day to see what was new and all this. Somebody might send me something, my wife may send me something, this person popping right now, or this track is hot right now, and I'll be hearing it. I'm just like, “Ah.” I'm going to say it like this. There's a certain level- Sometimes I hear people's songs and I feel like that's not complete or they should have gone back and did it. It takes-- crosstalk].

 

Rudolph: They weren’t done yet. 

 

Chime: You know what I'm saying?

 

Rudolph: Yup.

 

Chime: So, there's a certain level that we hold ourselves to and a certain standard that Slum Prophecy holds itself to musically. 

 

Shehla: Right. 

 

Chime: I just feel like is what makes us successful.

 

Rudolph: Yeah. I would just only add to that by saying that I listen to a lot of contemporary stuff, but it's only when somebody is doing something innovative musically that it catches my attention. Because I feel like a lot of the production is very basic. It's just a simple 808, simple trap drums, a very simple, affected melodic line, and then heavy auto tune on vocals, various sing songy melodies, heavily auto tuned without a lot of lyrical reflection. You know what I'm saying? Because everything's just about trying to be catchy and catch people's attention.

 

Shehla: That is a tough industry, Professor. 

 

Rudolph: It's a tough industry. [Chime laughs] But here's what I found though. People really responded positively to Tomb. I think it's our third or fourth most popular stream track. Dervish, which came out on the recent album. Everybody loved Dervish. Dervish is a trap beat. I think that there's a lot of things that you can do with contemporary instrumentation, with contemporary sonic principles. If you are actually a musician that is informed by the black musical tradition. This is really, really foundational, is that, frankly, I'm going to be blunt about this. Whatever their color, black, brown, green, red, yellow, everything in between. A lot of the people that are producing contemporary hip hop have no connectedness to the black musical tradition. None. There's no soul in it. There's no soul in their music. 

 

Shehla: Because hip hop has become popular. 

 

Rudolph: Exactly. 

 

Shehla: It's a global thing now. And again, I'm in no position to make any commentary about this. But the fact is there are certain types of music that exists from a core, hip hop exists with a core. 

 

Rudolph: It comes from a place. It comes from an experience. It's not that that there's a racial monopoly on that. No. Anybody that taps into that experience, that pays homage to its sources, can speak from their particular perspective and have it be authentic. I don't put Eminem in my top 10, but I like Eminem as a rapper, because he speaks realities from his subject position and pays homage to the tradition. He respects it. You know what I'm saying? Same thing with big pun. Similar phenomena. You don't have to be black to make great hip hop music, but you have to understand the black musical tradition to make great hip hop music. You do. There isn't a way around that. And instead, what we mostly have, and this is true of black artists today, is that they're not making black music. 

 

[chuckles] There's a lot of black artists that are making music that is utterly divorced. It has the cultural veneer and a performative element of blackness to decorate it. But it is not nourished from the same places that brought jazz, R&B, blues, funk, and hip hop into being in the first place. It is nourished entirely by a shallow, naked, consumer culture that is just about sex, drugs and consumption. 

 

Shehla: Right. 

 

Chime: Facts. 

 

Shehla: So, if I had to ask you, so, five albums, how has your audience responded? I'm only asking this in a sense, because your music, the music that the both of you create, Slum Prophecy, is not the mainstream. So, how have your listeners responded to this? 

 

Chime: I'll go first on this. Everyone who has come into contact that I know that's purchased or streamed a song of ours has always come back to me. It's really been gratifying to a degree, because it lets me know that what were the mission. When we got together and we spoke about this, and we both came to the table with the same exact thought process about this, it lets me know that the mission is being fulfilled. You know what I mean? Fulfill the prophecy.

 

Rudolph: Fulfill the prophecy.

 

Chime: [Laughs] It is quote of one of our songs. But I found so much sincere support, so much love, and I appreciate all of it from everybody who's ever purchased an album, who's ever streamed it, any of our stuff, who's ever shared any of our stuff and actually felt it. The responses have been amazing. Like, paragraphs, [unintelligible [00:38:25] sending some stuff, you know what I'm saying, of what people have said. I've sent him stuff and what people have said. People are in love with it. 

 

I think the thing is is that, if we talk about it not being mainstream, even young people-- I noticed this when I'm online and stuff like that. Even young people have come to us and said-- younger than us have said how amazing this is. 

 

Rudolph: It's hard. That's what they're usually saying. 

 

Chime: It is hard. You know what I'm saying? 

 

Rudolph: [crosstalk]

 

Shehla: Yeah.

 

Chime: We're in a time that-- When you mentioned the mainstream thing, we're in such a time that everyone creates their stream. We talk about [Rudolph laughs] the mainstream. You create your stream today, right?

 

Shehla: Right.

 

Chime: Everything, whether it's a polarization of politics, whether it's the algorithms, whatever you watch is now it's going to curate. The algorithm is going to curate that for you. We create our streams today, our own stream. I think a lot of the people from Generation Z even-- I see it all the time. They're like, “Man, what's all of this? This stuff is like--” I feel like a lot of them feel like they wish that they were in the 1990s. [laughs] They are born in 2000. I wish I was-- You know what I mean? Whatever. So, I think Slum Prophecy is fulfilling a need of the people. You know what I'm saying? If you say, Fard Kifaya. That will be just a concept. It is a prophecy fulfilling in--

 

Rudolph: It's a collective need. 

 

Chime: Right. It's fulfilling a need in the sense that you have skilled musicians, a skilled group, that's feeding you from so many different dimensions and so many different eras, compiled in today's time that can touch you in every way. And that's what the feedback has been. It's always been positive. It's always been, “Oh, this is my fruit.” I remember something, one that I saw on a post that we recently did, a sister said that she's like, “These are my theme songs right now in my life. It's just something so beautiful that I read.” I was like, “Man, this is amazing.”

 

Rudolph: Yeah. So, there was a promoter, discussing doing some promotion when we switched and started do streaming for the first time after just doing direct download sales. When I shared our sales figures, I mean, I won't share those publicly, but when I shared our sales figures for the digital downloads, he said, “Well, you shouldn't be coming to me for promotion. I should be coming to you.” He said, “I manage artists that have several hundred thousand followers on social media, and they couldn't sell a tenth of the albums that you guys sell through digital direct downloads.” 

 

Shehla: Wow.

 

Rudolph: He said, “So, you should tell me how you're doing it.” 

 

Shehla: Right.

 

Rudolph: Our first album, direct sales, we made more through streaming than we would have made with 10 million streams, because we got so much love and support from our direct community, people that wanted to hear this kind of music. When that first album dropped, I was going to an event at Lighthouse Mosque in Oakland. South Asian brother came up to me and he said, “You're Dr. Ware.” He said, “You're the Rapping Sheik.”

 

[laughter]

 

Shehla: I like that. 

 

[laughter]

 

Rudolph: When we made Nostalgic with Akil, the MC from Jurassic 5, and Akil had collaborated with Nelly Furtato, who you have mentioned before. They had a huge chart top and hit in the early 2000s. He said that every time he went to the masjid that summer in LA, people were asking him was like, “You did that track with Professor Ware Nostalgia.” 

 

[laughter] 

 

Rudolph: He would text me about that. So, word spread in the community of people who were thirsty for this, I think that's one. I think that Chiza highlighted another thing, which is not just the way that the public has responded to the music, but the way that the musicians have responded to the music. So, [unintelligible [00:43:21], said this. And he posted this publicly. He's like, “Y'all's music is not just music. It's healing for people.” He’s like, “Scholars are going to write essays about y'all's tracks, you know, generations from now, because this stuff is deep. It's not shallow surface level. It's not preachy and corny.”

 

Like you said, when you described it as raw, I take that as the utmost compliment. Because I'm always trying to make music that would have appealed to the 16-year-old or 17-year-old me , and it would have had to be raw, in order for it to reach me where I was at. It would need to be real. It would need to be hard to reach me at that age. And I've had 15-year-old kids to 16-year-old kids repost our music, put comments in their social media stories about it. So, I do feel like we're making music that crosses genres. We're making music that crosses time periods. We're making music that crosses racial and confessional divides. Man, we're just making good music. It's made from the heart and it speaks to the heart. 

 

Shehla: Mm-hmm. So, what's in the future for Slum Prophecy? What are you guys working on right now? 

 

Chime: [laughs] 

 

Rudolph: I'll start. We got two things in the works currently. One is an album that we're trying to finish for this summer, for a late summer release. We've just got a couple of things that we're fine tuning. And it's a little different. This one also is held together around theme. But this one, if I drop the title, this one is called a Vibe called Blessed, and it's a play on A Tribe Called Quest as a title, but these are basically all-- We hit people with a lot of heavy realities, but we wanted to make something that was more still true and authentic, but more playful, more tribe, more de la soul, more not lighter in the sense that themes are frivolous, but more uplifting.

 

To put it in Islamic parlance, a little more Jamal, a little less Jalal, something that was brighter and more fun, something that you could bump in your car on the way to the beach, and it would give you something to think about after the fact. And then Chiza, maybe you can also mention what is probably behind that one since you gave the project the next one its name. When I kept sending you those beats and you told me, one word kept coming to mind. 

 

Chime: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The antebellum sound. 

 

Rudolph: Yeah.

 

Chime: Yeah. I'm going to tell you all like this. There's something [laughs] we're brewing. Yo, Bware's Production right now and the ears that we have and the ears that he has right now-- 

 

Rudolph: But also, what you pull out of it. 

 

Chime: The ability to share and to pull on each other, there's something that's so special that's just happening. But this antebellum sound, A Vibe Called Blessed, trust me, is, wow. 

 

Rudolph: You’re are going to love it. 

 

Chime: [chuckles] You love the musicality.

 

Rudolph: Yeah.

 

Chime: Everything that we're talking about is--

 

Rudolph: Especially that first track. Especially, especially, [Chime laughs] especially, especially Iraqi Bellz. Iraqi Bellz is just outrageous. It's outrageous. One of the first beats also, but it took a while to get it there. 

 

Chime: The thing about it is [Rudolph laughs] sometimes you hear something and it comes to you immediately. For this track, Iraqi Bellz, for me, I felt like I needed to give this is due, because I was reminded by, just to give somewhat of an understanding of this, I was reminded by GhettoMusick by OutKast when I heard it. It's upbeat. It was hit in a certain way. So, I'm like, “Oh, man, I need to give this track its due.” That one right there is for the books. But the antebellum sound, to answer the question, that's a whole sound. And Bware flows on some of these stuffs. [laughs] It's different. You know this.

 

Rudolph: Yeah. Iraqi Bellz, like what Chiza is describing and the album that's going to come this summer, it reflects mature sitting with a few of these things and bringing the fullness out of the sound. It's very energizing. That's the way that I would describe the music that runs through this whole album. It's energizing. Antebellum, I kept selling these different beats, and I would get a little portion of it here, a little hook up there or verse there. And Chiza was like, “One word keeps coming to mind with this sound.” He's like, “Antebellum.” And I'm like, “Yeah, before the war.” Not just like the Civil War and slavery period, but it's the time before the war.  If I could describe the sound on antebellum, which is the one probably will come in the wintertime, it's like if the Asian revolution were an album. 

 

Shehla: Oh, wow. 

 

Rudolph: Antebellum is like a slave rebellion. [laughs] It musically takes you forward in time and backward in time at the same time. I don't know how to describe it. 

 

Shehla: Wow.

 

Rudolph: It's like the war at the end of days, and the Civil War and the Asian revolution get collapsed into a single moment. 

 

Chime: Infused.

 

Shehla: Wow. Can't wait for either of those. But before we can get into that, where can they find any of this? Where can my listeners find Slum Prophecy and the music? Do they stream it? Do they buy it? Where can we find the both of you? 

 

Rudolph: You can stream it on all your favorite platforms. But if you really want to support the group, do what our hardcore committed fans have done and buy the album directly from us for digital downloads. We sell them for 11 dollars and $11.11, and you always get at least seven tracks, plus a bonus track or two on each one. And that has allowed us to keep making music, because a lot of artists are making music at a loss. They're essentially paying to make music, whereas Alhamdulillah, we're still getting paid to make music rather than having to pay to make it. And that's what's allowed us to keep going and to make five albums and to keep pushing the sound, is that we get direct support from our fans rather than just having to rely on streaming. So, that'd be my answer to the question.

 

Shehla: Where can they download it and where can they follow Slum Prophecy on social media? Where can they find the both of you on social media? 

 

Rudolph: So, we're both on social. You can follow @slumprophecy, you can follow @chizabam, you can follow @butchware. We'll both periodically post stuff that's about our own music or our own intellectual, our own personal stuff on our personal feeds. On Slum Prophecy, we tend to post stuff that's about music or that's about culturally related issues that directly relate to hip hop music, to the black experience, especially to the Black Muslim experience, we tend to concentrate those things at Slum Prophecy. But yeah, follow us all in all of those spots 

 

Shehla: And everybody will be able to see all of those links on screen. I can't thank you both enough for being here with me, with us and telling us about how you guys came together to create something that is such a powerful hip hop legacy. I can't thank you both enough.

 

Chime: Thank you.

 

Shehla: And thank you to everybody who's listened in and watched us on YouTube. Y'all, take care of yourself. And may peace be on you all. 

 

[music] 

Shehla: Thank you so much for tuning in to I'm A Muslim (And That's Okay!). And if you wish to follow my social media for more updates, you can follow me on Instagram, on Facebook and on YouTube. All the links to those are in the show notes. And if you are on Apple, or on Spotify, or on Podchaser, please do give my podcast a five-star rating. It really does help get me, you know, in the public eye. And if you wish to donate to support the podcast, you can do so through the PayPal link in my show notes as well. Take care.