Amir Junaid Muhadith – Nottingham Uni Malaysia
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
My brothers and sisters in Islam and my
brothers and sisters from Adam,
Ala'ai Salaam.
I always like to start my speaking engagements
by thanking the people who invited me.
Because when we don't thank the people, we
don't thank Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So thank you brothers and sisters who participated
for the sake of Allah and made this
thing possible for me to be here.
The hospitality has been amazing.
Alhamdulillah.
And may Allah reward you all.
I go by the name
of Amir Junaid
formerly known to many of you as long
from Bad Boy Records.
And for those of you that don't know
me,
you know,
I used to be very, very successful in
the music business. I was a successful songwriter.
I was a successful artist.
I wrote over 52 top 10 hits. I
sold over 7,000,000 records worldwide.
I was able to travel the world and
see and experience many, many things.
I was born and raised in New York
City in the streets of Harlem.
For those of you who don't know,
Harlem is like the mecca of
many of the things that influence music and
entertainment today.
We were the epitome of those things.
And growing up in this type of environment
by default, I was always exposed
to a very dark side of life
that consists of immense crime,
violence,
drugs
etcetera.
And by being exposed to these things,
many people who shared
this harsh reality,
we all, in fact, we all we all
sought out to find a way to escape
this harsh reality
whether it was by way of playing sports,
by way of excelling academically.
But in more recent times,
many of us developed this ability to rap
and write songs.
For myself, I never was really influenced by
music growing up. I was more so influenced
by the individuals in my neighborhood,
many of the brothers who indulged in selling
drugs,
committing crimes,
you know, and things of the likes.
And this was the more dominant impression that
was left with many of the youth in
my community, even myself.
And by default,
we fell victim of these same
activities that took place in the community.
So this became my first teacher.
My first teacher, I was exposed to drugs
and violence.
And growing up,
being a young kid is very hard to
express the emotions that come with living in
these harsh realities.
And at certain points you feel so
secluded from
anything that may give you resolve that you
start to bottle up all the emotions and
frustrations that come with living in this type
of reality.
So for myself, you know, I dabbled in
sports.
I was pretty good in school, wasn't the
greatest student, you know, I knew how to
count money though,
you know, so math was
something I got easy.
But I developed this ability to write.
And many of you know from your early,
maybe secondary school, the format to writing which
is to have a setting, a body and
a conclusion.
So I took this understanding from school and
I started to utilize this format
in a more therapeutic method of dealing with
my day to day hustle and bustle of
being in the streets.
So what I would do, I would write
down exactly what I was going through.
And after a while I started reading these
things and it started to remind me of
how hard it was.
So then I started to include my imagination
into this writing and started using my imagination
to resolve some of these affairs.
Then gradually it started to turn into rhyme
and gradually it started to turn into songs.
So I went through these steps for a
period of time before
one day my talent was discovered
in the least likely way.
And I was standing in front of a
building
doing something I shouldn't have been doing
but it was a brother that I was
very, very tight with and
I remember,
I remember going inside the building and leaving
my book.
There was a guy that was selling like
this car. He said it was clean. I
said, okay, it's clean. I'll pay for it.
So I bought this hot car.
Well, I didn't even make it down the
street with the car
and I got arrested
and the same brother
who was standing there with me told me
not to get in this car but me
being hard headed at the time, I got
in the car anyway
and I got arrested for grand theft auto.
But when the brother came to pick me
up from the precinct,
which was very noble of him at the
time, because a lot of times in the
street, you believe your friends are your friends
until you really have a problem, then you
quickly find out who your friends are.
So it was very noble of him to
come to my rescue at the time and
bail me out of prison.
But the funny thing is when he bailed
me out, of course, he beat me up
for like 5, 10 minutes with I told
you so
and I had to take it like a
man because he did tell me.
But he started reciting things to me that
sounded so familiar and I was like, hold
up,
that sounds like something that I wrote.
So I remember being very shy and very
bashful because you know this whole macho thing
and a lot of you brothers out there,
y'all know how it is when you're around
the other brothers, you want to try to
keep your chest poked out, you know, you
want to put extra bass in your voice,
you want to sound like you just don't
have no problems,
nothing can harm you, you know, you're not
a ghost. I call it the poker face,
you know.
So
by trying to, you know,
conceal the emotion that I was having, hearing
this guy recite some of my darkest and,
like,
my most deepest emotions, something that I kept
concealed,
and I was only using this as a
therapeutic method to, you know, suffice my own
issues dealing with the streets.
So hearing him saying I became very shy.
And after they told you so, I was
expecting him to kind of like slander me
or beat me down about, you know, this
this hidden talent that I have.
But really he encouraged me.
He encouraged me and said, yo, this is
dope, man. Like you should really continue doing
this. Like you should pursue this.
And I'm looking at him like, yeah, just
give me my book, you know, just give
my book, man. I don't want to hear
all that.
So I took his advice, you know, I
took his advice
and I started to pursue writing.
And I was writing and writing
and a lot of times, you know, people
would discover my ability to write and they
will always say they knew people. I know
somebody that could probably help you. I know
somebody. I know somebody or whatever, you know.
I never really took it serious.
But I remember the first time I had
the opportunity to write a song and it
was in 1995. I wrote a song for
Shaquille O'Neal
out of all people.
Many of y'all probably remember when Shaq thought
he was a rapper. Right?
But I wrote some of those songs.
And I started doing this ghost writing for
years and never really had any intentions of
being in the spotlight, never had any intentions
of being, you know, in the limelight or
anything.
But I ended up my career really took
off is when I met, you know, Sean
Puffy Combs
and I signed to Bad Boy Records.
And from there, I wrote a lot of
songs that were very big
and it became very international smashes.
And I was exposed to a market
that was so broad
that it surpassed my own perception of what
I thought success was.
And it happened so fast that I wasn't
even prepared
for what was yet to come.
Because a lot of entertainers, you know, and
I can speak for many of them, especially
coming from the ghettos,
we have a very short range perception of
what success is.
We think mainly about, like, secular countries like
in Europe, you know, France, England. We think
about reaching these kind of markets. We never
think that this stuff can be propelled
into, you know,
you know, markets that are predominantly Muslim countries
or things of this nature.
So by having all this success
and all of the wealth and the glitz
and glamour that came with it,
it quickly started to have, like, this reverse
effect.
Meaning that in the beginning, it was something
I was striving for. In the beginning, it
was something I wanted so bad and I
had very pure intentions. You know, I wanted
to just get my grandmother a house. I
wanted to buy my mother a house. I
wanted to help my sisters get through school.
And a lot of you don't know, I
was a parent at 16 years old. You
know, my oldest child is 19 years old.
She's in a 2nd year college like some
of you guys here today.
You know, I have a kid in school,
same age as some of y'all.
I was 16 years old.
So while some of y'all is 16, probably
was playing Xbox or doing whatever he was
doing, I was buying Pampers.
You know. I was buying milk. I was
up in the middle of the night trying
to rock somebody to sleep,
you know. So responsibility
started to come in my life by default
as well.
So basically,
when you get the opportunity to fulfill some
of these desires,
and they're good desires. You want to do
good for your family, you want to do
good for the people that supported you through
all the hard times going to the studio,
spending 17 hours in the studio,
never eating, never sleeping, just going through all
this hard work.
And you wanna try to return this favor
to those who supported you in all of
this.
But once you accomplish that, that's when you
come to this fork in the road.
That's when you start to realize where do
I go from here?
What else is there to do?
And this is when I used to seek
refuge
and material things,
you know. You get frustrated, I'll just go
buy a car.
You buy a car, you get used to
all the gadgets, you know, you get it
up to 120 a couple of times and
it's like you're over it. It's like it's
just a car now,
you know. You go buy a chain
then you see like somebody in another, you
know,
rap circle or something, maybe 50¢ or somebody
and his crew got a chain that's longer
with more diamonds. Then you go back to
the jeweler, you get yours a little bit
longer with more diamonds and it's like you
become, you know,
eventually your chain be on the floor,
you know.
You know, you got to pick it up,
put it in your pocket sometimes, you know.
It just becomes ridiculous. Your watch just hides
your whole hand.
It just becomes real gaudy and just unnecessary.
You just start looking really crazy. You see
rappers walking around with strobe lights on. It
just looks ridiculous,
you know.
And this is when, you know, you notice
that we start competing in wealth. We start
competing in materialistic
things And at the end of it all,
there's no benefit in it.
And then the most saddest part about it
is once you get over the thrill, you
have to start living vicariously
through those who are less fortunate.
Meaning I become a vampire,
so to say.
I'm not thrilled about it, but you coming
around saying, oh, is that a Ferrari?
Oh, you never seen a Ferrari? Like, you
know, I have to kind of like extract
my joy from your excitement. To me, it
was just a red car.
But when you come and say, oh, is
that a Ferrari? Is that the new such
and such and such with
the super kid? No. He started naming all
this stuff with the dual exhaustions. Like, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Matter of fact, yeah. That's the
Ferrari.
Yeah, you know. You want to take a
ride? Now you know. So we had to
start living vicariously through those who were less
fortunate.
And this is what the music business was
designed
to do.
It was designed to glorify just a short
lived, you know, saying glorification
of a lifestyle that's not consistent in everyone's
life,
you know.
If every rapper
was as wealthy as they glorify
in these videos, how come when we look
through Forbes 500 we only see like 2
of them?
You know what I'm saying? You only see
like maybe Jay z or 50 Cent and
Puff. But there's a million rappers out there
and they all got yachts. They all got
helicopters. Everybody got all this stuff. It's like,
why you all in that in Forbes?
And these are some of the hints that
this is just glorification. This is just something
that's being glorified, that's being over exaggerated.
But the sad part about it is the
reality that comes with it a lot of
you guys don't see because the music business
is only designed to show you one aspect.
That's it. And there's a lot of money
being made just glorifying this one aspect.
But no one talks about the death toll.
No one talks about some of these young
women,
you know, who are underage
and they go places and get fake ID
just to try to be down, quote on
quote down,
and they end up having a guy slip
a * drug and they drink and
they end up getting dragged off and raped.
No one talks about her story.
No one talks about the guy, you know,
who got a little too drunk,
a little too loud,
and a security guard break a walkie talkie
over his head and drag him out in
the alley and he dies from a concussion.
No one talks about this guy. No one
talks about the guy that gets stabbed in
the club. No one talks about the shootout
in the parking lot. No one talks about
these things.
And a lot of things, you know, the
youth don't know is in the music business,
it's not a lifestyle, it's a death style.
It's the exact opposite.
Because every day I used to be risking
my life,
risking my very life. I don't know how
many times I used to kiss my kids
and, you know, hug and squeeze them before
I go out on a tour,
knowing that I may be going to foreign
countries,
going to places where they might have crazed
fans. It might be somebody that might be
a fan of Suge Knight or some when
I was down with Bad Boy. He might
be in the crowd somewhere wanting to kill
me or something, you know.
These are all the things that we used
to have to face just so we can
continue entertaining you.
And then the most sad part about it
is that all the things we glorify, a
lot of the guys in the music business
are not even willing to do.
But you you stupid enough to go out
there and shoot somebody.
I don't know if I ever seen 50
Cent's house. They got like 22 rooms. Do
you think he's trying to go out there
and shoot somebody?
Do you think he's going to throw away
all of that? No.
But when you see this glorification of this
type of lifestyle,
it takes people through this realm of where
they try to do all these elusive things
and all these extreme things to obtain just
a piece of it,
just a piece of it. And sometimes we
detach ourselves from everything that we know to
be morally true.
And in most cases with some of the
young Muslims today, you detach yourself from your
religion,
chasing something that you know is an opposition
of what Islam teaches us.
So the reason why I'm talking about these
things is I feel like it's something more
universal, something that we can all relate to,
being quote unquote generation x, you know, that's
what they call us in the United States.
We're generation unknown,
but we are the next generation
and a lot of us are inspired by
things that have no benefit.
So while traveling the world,
this became my education.
The last grade I completed was the 8th
grade.
8th grade. I had never seen a university
till now. I'm sitting in one now talking
to university students,
but I never filled out an application.
Never applied.
I had the money to pay but
didn't have the, you know, the credentials or
the academic achievement
required for me to enter university.
So my experiences in life became my education.
And I used to read a lot too.
I used to love reading,
you know.
But while traveling the world,
I remember doing this song
with a Lebanese artist by the name of
Masadi,
And
doing this song with this this this brother,
at the time, I didn't really think it
was going to do anything big, you know,
as a Lebanese guy, you know, I'm doing
songs with Toni Braxton and Snoop Dogg and
all these major people and it's like, who's
Masardi?
Am I saying his name right? Is it
Masardi? Masari? What is it? Masari? Like, you
know, but the guy, they had the money.
So I said, okay. I'll take the money
from Masardi.
Masadi is paying. Then I kind of find
out later in Arabic, Masadi means money. So
I was dealing with money from the beginning.
Hey, Masadi.
Fall loose.
Cash. Dope.
I'm with all of that.
And the record never even reached the American
market so it was kind of like a
one off that wouldn't tarnish my exclusive track
record of doing songs with all these A
list people. So it didn't tarnish my credibility
with the A list stars. So, okay, brush
that to the side. But then I started
getting calls
from places like Muscat, Oman, Abu Dhabi, Dubai,
Kazakhstan. Are you serious? These people want me
to come out there?
No way. I watch the news. I see
how it goes on out there. I'm not
going out there.
You know, I'm American and I'm ignorant at
the time, so I don't know anything. I'm
looking like, I'm not going out there. Are
you kidding me? You can't even hear the
commentator. All you hear is shooting in the
back. I'm not going out there.
Every time you see the news, there's a
guy like, yeah, it's
heavy fire in the background and yes, you
know,
you're trying to, yeah, you're trying to evacuate
some civilians and they're like, I'm not going
out there to do no song. Are you
kidding me?
Stage must be bulletproof.
But when I got there, I saw the
exact opposite.
So before I get into this description
of what I saw, I want to take
you a little bit back to New York
City
and how I was always exposed,
you know, to the presence of the Muslim.
Because New York City, as most of you
may know, some of you may be Americans,
some of you may be from Britain, you
know, from what I hear, so many different
cultures and ethnicities and
things that, you know,
make this school very diverse.
But New York City was the same way,
you know. We had the, Yemeni brothers. They
used to they used to own most of
the like local grocery stores,
you know. The West African brothers, they owned
most of the cab services and stuff.
You know, then, it's up on a lot
of the Pakistani. You know, they owned all
the
pharmacies.
All the pharmacies.
Absolutely
all the pharmacies.
Then you know you had Indian brothers. They
were the doctors.
You know, how can I help you? I'm
like, okay.
I have a fever.
They pull out this long needle. It was
like, hold up, doc.
Like, where did you study?
You know, I'm gonna lie.
This was the very minute perception that I
had, you know, coming from where I'm coming
from. You know, coming from ignorance. I'm coming
from a place where, you know, we use
what we got to get what we want.
This is one of the mottos that we,
you know, we we used to use coming
out of the ghetto. It's like, you know,
we use what we got. If you're a
good talker, man, you talk your way to
the top. You dance, you dance your way
to the top, man. You can rap rap
to the top, play basketball, maybe jump over
the moon. Do something, but we use what
we got to get what we want. So
my perception of things was very vague. I
just, you know, very one dimensional,
so to say.
But the one thing that was significant
about these experiences is that we all share
something in common. We all lived in New
York City. We all was in the ghetto.
We was all in Harlem.
So these were my brothers in the struggle,
you know. So I never had any negative,
you know, vibes or negative relationships with nobody.
Even though sometimes the West African brothers in
the taxi, they could be a little aggressive,
you know. You get in the taxi, say,
hey, take me to 125 Street Yaqui.
Because, you know, we even even as non
Muslim, we used to call the Muslims, Yaqeen.
Well, I used to call all the Muslims,
Muhammad.
SubhanAllah, hey, Muhammad. How's little Muhammad? How's how's
your mother? How's other Muhammad? How's your brother
Muhammad that went back together? How did everybody
with Muhammad?
You know. So I was very ignorant. I
didn't know no better. I just, you know,
from the kid from the street. That's it.
So you get a taxi, West African brother,
you say, hey, take me to 125th Street.
You know, you're driving,
get a phone call, something changed. You know
what, Akeem, could you stop 137? No. You
said 125.
I calm down. Calm down. No. You get
out my cab now. I'm like, relax, man.
Relax. Calm down. Calm down. I ain't supposed
to be a Muslim and relax,
you know. So this is this is the
way my community was, you know. And we
can laugh at these things,
you know. And in most cases when I
used to be young and struggling as a
parent and I would come up short with
money for Pampers, I would always go to
the Yemeni's grocery stores and they would give
them to me, you know.
So I was like, you know, Hamdi Llah
is my brother's.
So even in that state of ignorance, when
certain things used to break out,
the Muslims would be blamed. Everybody in my
neighborhood would be like, no. We're going out
with the Muslims. So they come over here
with that. We're gonna we're gonna fight with
the Muslims. Like, we didn't know no better.
We just like, yo, you know, just like
our family. You know, we come here. They
treat us right. We go over the pharmacy
even though we ain't got the the best
insurance. But you know, we might get some
painkillers,
you know. And this is just the way
it was.
So me growing up in a Christian household,
you know, my grandmother, she was in the
United * College Film Choir. I don't know
if you're familiar with it, but it's a
very big gospel choir,
35 years. They should travel all over the
US and some places out the country,
you know, singing the gospel. I used to
spend 6 days a week 6 days a
week in the church.
So a lot of times when I hear
people say, yeah. I'm a Christian. I go
to church. I went 6 days a week.
I was in cub scouts. I was in
bible studies. I played the piano. I was
a usher. I was in church
6 days a week.
You know?
And it wasn't like I was one of
the kids that just sat through bible studies.
I used to actually read and try to
study the understanding of the bible. And I
started to stumble over certain things even as
a little kid.
Even as a little kid, I used to
stumble over certain things. And I remember asking
my pastor a question. I remember asking him.
I said, listen, pastor, let me ask you
a question. You know, if Jesus is god,
you know, then why does he pray?
He just chewed me up. Like, I asked,
like, the worst question in the world. I
was just a kid.
If he prays, then, you know,
how is he god if he if he's
praying?
Boy, you don't believe in Jesus Christ, your
lord and savior? And I said, calm down,
pastor. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying
I'm trying to get my finger on. If
he's submitting himself to something, I wanna do
what he doing.
I wanna follow him.
You know, I don't wanna worship him because,
you know, coming from the street, we can
identify with street with strength and weakness.
Know, we can identify with someone who's strong.
He stands firm in, you know, all situations.
You wanna ride with him.
You don't wanna ride with the guy that
went shot in the air and he's running.
You gotta run behind him. You wanna stand
with the person that's strong.
So
this figure
was a symbol of strength,
but seeing him submit to something greater than
himself, it sparked a question in my heart
and in my mind. And when I asked
about it, I never got a straight answer.
So at that point, I stopped going to
church and I just decided in my heart
that I'm just going to believe in God.
I said, I'm just going to believe in
God.
So now
back to my trip.
I'm visiting Muslim countries for the first time.
I'm realizing I don't need a bulletproof vest.
I'm realizing that, you know,
they have palm trees. They have things that
symbolize
cool.
And when I got there,
I started to see a whole different perspective
of the Muslim,
you know. Because in America, you know, media
propagates a lot of images of everything.
Everything. Even me being as an African American.
You understand?
I know what it's like to be singled
out for everything wrong.
I know what it's like to be, you
know, a part of a
family who's upright. My grandmother was a beautician.
My grandfather spent 30 years in the army,
was the first Black captain of his regime.
There's things in so I know what it
is to have a good family, but to
step outside your house
and be profiled
or step outside your house and be blamed
for something you didn't even do, or step
outside your house and have this stigma that
you you just trouble.
So I know what it feels like to
be singled out.
You know,
but this wasn't the perception I ever had
of anybody else. I never walked around with
hatred in my heart. I never walked around
with hatred for nobody, no race, no culture,
no no creed. Never.
But I did have tainted images in my
mind
of what certain things meant.
So being able to travel to a Muslim
country, I saw a totally different perspective of
what a Muslim was,
And I saw different mannerisms and characteristics of
a Muslim that blew my mind away.
I seen brothers that was wearing all white
thobes and gutras,
smiling, greeting each other, hugging each other. And
I said, supinellah, this is this is this
is different.
And any of my non Muslim brothers and
sisters that's here, y'all know we used to
think that somebody has to die and rise
in the heaven to see people dressed in
all white.
You know how I go. You die.
You just rise up. There's a guy at
the podium with, you know,
like he's taking your, you know, putting your
name on the list like, you know, hey,
you made it, Like, you know, you got
all white. Everybody got all white.
Everything flying around isn't white. Everything is just
white.
But I'm very much alive and very much
awake and I'm seeing that
this characteristic
is something that's living.
These were people who had great manners
and I was around multimillion dollar people who
were stingy,
multimillion dollar people who wouldn't even give you
advice and advice is free.
So to be around
a culture of people who were giving
and they were giving for the sake of
Allah.
I remember even visiting the Muslim brother house,
you know, the the guys that hosted me,
they took me to this Muslim brother house
and his hospitality was amazing.
I came in the house, he's like, hey,
what the fuck do you mean? I'm
pointing at tapping the brother, like, what the
fuck do you mean?
You know, I was still a little ignorant,
like, that mean kill me? Like, you know,
what the fuck does it mean? Does that
mean get his feet? Because I see the
f in it, like, what the fuck does
it
like, what the fuck does it mean?
But he meant sit.
And when I looked at where he was
pointing, he was pointing to the best chair
in the house, like, here, the fucker, sit.
Here, have tea, have chai, have this, have
that, have that. And I'm sitting there accumulating
all these gifts and I'm like, nobody gives
me nothing. I'm just ready to cry. Nobody
ever gives me anything,
you know.
And unless it has
an interior motive, you know, no one gives
you anything unless they want something,
you know. And you have to decide if
you're willing to give before you accept. You
understand? You're looking at the gifts and it's
like, okay. This is looking like he might
want a couple VIP tickets or something. I
don't know. What's your angle, Aki?
What are you giving me this for again?
You know, and people used to game me.
No. No. No. Just being nice. You ain't
just being nice.
You want something.
But for this brother, he didn't want nothing.
He was just giving me stuff and I'm
watching his house disappear and all the stuff
he's given me is just starting to disappear.
And I'm like, you know, if he keeps
giving me stuff, he ain't gonna have no
place to live,
you know. Who's that nice?
Who's that hospitable?
You know, I'm thinking this guy is going,
you know, pop up at the club later
on like, yo, remember me? I gave you
17 dates, 3 books, a couple glasses of
water, some tea. Remember me? Yeah. Just me
plus 3. We good? Like it wasn't that.
It wasn't no angle. It was just good
hospitality.
And all of these things started to take
precedence even when I went to Kazakhstan.
Now you know me coming from Jahiliya, I'm
thinking Asian is Asian. I never knew that
Persians or Pakistan. I didn't know that was
Asian.
I thought Asian was Asian. I thought you
had to well, I am not trying to
be funny, but I thought you had to
be like Chinese or you had to look
like, you know, gently or something.
So I'm in Kazakhstan
and I'm asking I hung out with the
president, I was with the president out there
and I remember asking him like, listen, you
know, how y'all say what's up?
I'm not making him like, how y'all say
what's up?
What up? How y'all know who's popping? How
y'all say that?
Assalamu alaikum.
Now get out of here, man. Chinese man
ain't going to say that stuff.
You know,
I'm getting my ears all ready for some
other stuff that I could use as a
mockery to joke with people. You know what
I'm saying? Make up some stuff like, you
know, but he said, Assalamu Alaikum and I'm
looking at him like,
Come on, man.
You ain't serious. You don't say salaam alaikum.
You say no. Assalamu alaikum. It's peace be
upon you. I said I know what it
mean, man. I just don't it don't look
right coming out your mouth right now.
You know?
I had my ears set up for some
other stuff. Had the record button and everything
ready because I was gonna go back to
the, you know, Chinese restaurants in my neighborhood
or the laundromats and start, you know, picking
at them.
But he didn't give me nothing to work
with, man. He gave me salami while I
go, okay, why are you doing stuff?
But this was showing me
the diversity
that came with Islam.
Because remind you, I'm gonna remind all of
y'all, no one talk to me about Islam.
You know, I accept this religion only by
Allah's guidance. And I mentioned this earlier
when I did my introduction which is a
part of the Khutbah al Hajj, you know.
But the prophet used to say,
Whomsoever Allah chooses the guide, no one can
lead them astray.
And whomsoever
Allah leads astray,
no one can guide.
That's simple.
So you got to understand as Muslims, we
don't make Muslims. Only Allah makes Muslims.
All Muslims do is convey this beautiful message
of monotheism, of worshiping 1 God and 1
God alone. And this concept was something that
I stumbled over many times in my life
as a Christian.
First commandment, thou shall not place no other
God before me.
That sounds like God wants to be worshiped
alone.
Thou shall not place no other God before
me.
There's even a verse in Isaiah where he
says, you may know me and know that
I am he.
Before me, no god was formed nor shall
there be any after me.
For I am the lord and besides me,
there is no savior.
That's in the old testament.
So once again, that sounds like he's negating
that there's any partner or anything associated
with his greatness, with his majesty. It's him
and him alone.
There's a lot of y'all y'all students,
Muslims and non Muslims, you can relate to
what I'm about to say. You're a student.
You spent 4 years,
4 years working hard, busting your butt to
get this professor an A and he turns
around and give you a grade to the
janitor.
How would you feel?
How would you feel?
4 years, you don't go to sleep. You
don't even forgot your name sometimes,
left your keys a dozen times,
but you made sure you had your book.
You made sure you had everything
to,
you know, suffice this, this, this, this,
this need to have this grade, this need
to pass.
And they give everything that you work for
to the least likely candidate, this guy over
here who does nothing but mop the floor,
he gets an a.
How would you feel?
That will bother you.
That would bother you. Same way some of
y'all parents who may have spent all this
money.
And you decide on your 4th year you
wanna drop out. How do you think your
parents feel? Like, I don't know. We invested
all of this in you and all of
a sudden you just went left.
What type of gratitude would that be?
What kind of appreciation would you be displaying?
So when you take that to another level,
when you look at your creator, your creator
created the heavens and the earth and everything
in it. No one helped them. No one
assisted them in this creation.
He created it all,
but you turn around and you worship this
podium.
How do you think that will make your
creator feel?
You get sick, you call on a saint
or some other person like
you. He created you though.
He was your creator.
Who knows you better than the one that
created you?
He actually decreed that you would be sick
that day.
So would it only be incumbent upon you
to return back to them
for the cure?
If he decreed you to be sick,
then that mean he can decree
your wellness.
And this is the simplicity with Islam.
So when I ran into this truth
by way of visiting Muslim countries, by way
of being able to bear witness to the
characteristics and mannerisms of the Muslims, the the
hospitality,
the culture, the everything. And then when I
heard the adhan,
that pretty much almost sealed the deal for
me,
you know, because I was an artist. I
used to spend hours on top of hours
in the studio trying to make songs that
make you look stupid in the club. So
you used to be dancing around like crazy
and, you know, you're just bugging out.
Some of y'all can't even dance. Y'all just
dance. You're just looking stupid.
I remember that dumb dance. I used to
be in the club people.
The point dance was like,
Panama, what is that?
You know,
I'm just sharing
my state presently
and then I'll show you later on in
the talk the beauty that came out of
that
because all of us are adults and we
all gonna come to forks in the road
and we had to make sound decisions.
So in my case, I lived a life
of falsehood.
I lived a life of violence. I lived
a life of crime,
you know. In my society, I'm considered a
failure.
I'm a predicate felon. I'm an 8th grade
dropout.
I'm considered a failure.
So when they have little applications that say,
have you ever been convicted? I just walk
out. It Don't even make no sense putting
a check there.
Don't even make no sense lying because who
am I? These people might have some real
type super
system back there. They punch up and say,
well, sir, you know, you don't qualify for
the job. You know, unfortunately, we looked at
your criminal record and, you know, you've been
arrested for many things.
This job is not for you.
You understand?
So I can only resort to the talent
that I had.
So it wasn't about raising my ego,
giving fuel to this altered ego. I was
known since I was 13. That's a nickname
I got
for being in the streets.
'Loon' short for 'Looney'
for the Atta brothers, Majnoon.
Yeah. I know what Majnoon mean. Crazy.
You know, I wasn't this hopeless romantic guy
that needed a girl every song.
That was me just taking that opportunity there
and trying to paint a better picture of
myself instead of
glorifying
the streets and the killing and it's like,
why?
I lost many friends.
I lost family members to drugs, to violence.
Would I look like going to glorify that?
You understand?
That's just like if somebody stabbed and killed
my mother in cold blood
and I take that very knife and dip
it in gold and put it on a
chain and walk around with this symbol of
death on my neck. Like what sense does
that make?
Glorifying something that hurts.
So when I ran into Islam and I
discovered the simplicity that comes with it, I
didn't have to change myself too much. No.
Just the way I live and just the
way I understand my purpose of creation.
I didn't get too holy for my friends,
you know.
I'm not above anybody.
Being a Muslim doesn't mean I can hear
through walls,
I could jump over buildings. It doesn't mean
that. I'm human. I'm deficient just like every
human being in here. I have deficiencies.
But what Islam establishes is a means of
dealing with those deficiencies because our creator know
he created us with deficiencies.
So by his mercy, he gives us ways
to deal with these deficiencies.
Legislated
proof. And he sent us a messenger like
he sent many messengers before
from the nations before.
And as Muslims, we show no distinction
from none of the messengers. We don't worship
Mohammed.
He's a man, he's a creation.
Do we follow his way?
Yes.
We try to I mean to the best
of our ability. That's what you have to
understand.
You don't judge the truth by a man,
you judge the man by the truth.
Because if we sit there and try to
distinguish what's true and the shortcomings and the
actions of a human being, we'll never find
the truth.
We'll never find the truth.
And that's the problem sometimes. We're always looking
for something tangible. We got to touch it
to believe it. You know what I'm saying?
We have to see it to believe it.
Well we've been given proof. We've
been given the Koran
and there have been messengers that came before
and books that came before.
And this is only by Allah's mercy that
he's always sent a warner, a clear warner,
a guide
to lead a nation back to worshiping him
and him alone.
Because you already know the capacity of the
human beings,
emotions
and their thoughts towards another human being. And
I'm gonna give you a prime example, and
I mentioned this yesterday, Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson sold over 25,000,000
records worldwide a thriller, even singing since he
was 6. He dedicated his whole life to
entertaining
and pleasing
his fans.
When Michael Jackson died, the Michael Jackson craze
lasted 2 weeks.
Y'all wrote Michael Jackson off like a used
car.
So that goal just shows you that
when your intentions
are to please people,
when it's all said and done, you're going
to get exactly what you intend.
And at that point, based on that scenario,
the people showed exactly how much they cared.
That's why as a Muslim, everything we do
is solely for the sake of pleasing the
one that created us because that's the only
one
who could reward me in the life after
this life.
The only one
who is the bestower of that mercy.
So I only seek refuge in him and
him alone. Even if you turn away and
say, look, you know, Amir is a sucker.
He gave me too much change. I don't
care. My intention wasn't to please you anyway.
It was to please my Lord.
So all of you people out there that
may be inspiring to be a rapper or
a musician, you're not going to surpass Michael
Jackson. Long while them, but you know,
look what they did with Mike.
Y'all all saw it. Y'all was on TV.
People crying, Mike, we miss you. They had
on a glove, just the a shiny glove.
Mike, we're gonna miss you.
Cas was out there. I mean, you seen
Persian guys with straight hair all of a
sudden out of Jerry Curl was out there
pop locking. Everybody was out there just showing
their love for Mike.
2 weeks, man.
The earthquake in Japan got more of your
attention right now than Michael Jackson. I don't
even care about Michael Jackson anymore.
And that's sad
that people spend their lives trying to please
other people
when the reward you will see in the
end.
I used to see it all the time
in my hood.
Little Ray Ray get killed. Everybody walking out
the rest in peace Ray Ray shirt. We're
gonna miss you, Ray Ray.
Word, man. Ray Ray was real, man.
Ray Ray killed 7 people in December. Man,
Ray Ray was real.
As soon as that shirt hit the laundry
machine, nobody care about Ray Ray anymore.
Nobody care about Ray Ray.
So the beautiful thing about Islam
is this call of tawhid,
monotheism.
And as students, you all know what the
word mono means. 1.
1.
Because even as kids,
we all wanted to seek refuge in our
mom.
Am I lying? You bump your head, your
head bleeding, you'll run past 7
Band Aids, 6 pieces of gauze, 3 bottles
of peroxide just to get to your mom.
And there's people that can help you. Like,
yo, let me help you. Let me stop
the bleeding. No, get off me. I just
want my mom. You just want to get
to mom. You just want to get to
that one source. You don't care about nothing
else.
You You don't even feel the pain as
soon as you get to your mommy. You
got a head that's cracked in half. You're
just sitting there as soon as you give
a mom, it's like,
mommy, what's this? No, you want to, you
know. But it's like
as a kid, you understand what it is
to have one source.
But as an adult, you know you can't
run to mommy no more,
even though some of you all still might.
You know, I left my house at 15.
I don't even I can't identify with that.
You know, I had to fend for myself
for a very long time.
But I do understand what it's like to
run to mommy. But as an adult, who
do I get to run to?
You know,
who's going to be sufficient for all my
needs,
all my deficiencies,
all my shortcomings?
So when I found Islam,
Islam spoke in volumes. Islam spoke to me
in ways
that it made it very easy for me
to abstain from everything else that I thought
had a value,
everything that I thought meant something, everyone that
I thought meant something.
It was the easiest trade in my life.
It was the fairest thing I've ever did.
And that was at the height of my
career. I wasn't in no downslide.
I wasn't short on cash. I didn't have
any problems. I wasn't diagnosed with no terminal
disease or nothing. It wasn't like no desperation
move, I need to be a Muslim.
No. It was the truth.
And the sad part about it is some
of us are in denial what the truth
may be.
Some of you have even discovered it, came
face to face with it, but it doesn't
coincide with your desires, so you put it
on hold
and chase what your desires tell you to
chase.
I did that for you. That's why I'm
sitting here,
as an example
that I did that for you.
I tried everything you're trying. I did everything
that you're trying to do. I did what
you shouldn't be doing.
I did what you're attempting to do.
I did what you thought about doing.
You know, I did a lot of stuff.
You know, to be forgiven for these things
and be given a clean slate,
entering the fall of Islam.
La ilaha illallah Muhammadu Rasoolullah.
From that day, all my bad deeds were
removed and turned into good deeds, and I
got a clean slate. So now I'm held
accountable for everything I know from this point
on.
You can't get that with no Oprah Winfrey
remix or like no Jenny Jones makeover. You
can't get that.
It doesn't work.
Change your hair red and call yourself strawberry,
sister. It's not gonna work.
You
know, you can stop being Mohammed and call
yourself Moe's. It's not gonna change.
I know about these little quick fixes. Everybody
thinks it's a quick fix. I'm a go
with the Mohawk this month. No. It's not
gonna work.
It's not gonna work. There's always gonna be
somebody that knows you, spots you. Hey, Henry,
that's you.
Who's Henry? I don't know who Henry is.
You try to change your work. Come here,
I know you is, man.
You know?
So alhamdulillah,
you know.
I guess
I just wanted to share
just a little bit of the mind state
and the emotions that came with being who
I was
and coming to,
you know, this beautiful religion of Islam,
you know.
And I hope that this can be a
reminder not just for the Muslims but for
the non Muslims as well to reflect and
ponder on your purpose of creation. Why you
were created? Why are you here?
This has to be a question that crosses
your mind every day. Why are you here?
What was your purpose of being created?
Was it for you to just enjoy life
the way you see fit?
Is it just for you to just, I
guess, you know, burn yourself out and then
once some of the things that you thought
had value, you don't have value no more.
Now you wanna settle down.
Because I know all these scenarios. I've been
around all these people. You know?
Once guys start getting gray hair, they, you
know, they don't feel like they're hot no
more. So, like, I need to just really,
you know, try to go track down Judy.
She used to really be in love with
me. Oh, she still is.
I'm going great. I'm losing my hair.
Hopefully, she'll like me.
You know, women as well, once they, you
know, the thriller is gone. You're not the
hottest chick anymore. You're the old chick in
the club now. Now you wanna get married.
Yeah. I'm a be real with you. I'm
from the street,
you know. Muhammadu Islam, I'm a Muslim,
you know.
But these scenarios, you know, they're real. We
can be in denial all we want, but
these are real scenarios,
you know. Some of us feel like we're
not fully accomplishing sin before we make this
decision to do what's right. I mean, I
still got a few more things I need
to do. You know, I haven't had Cristal
yet. Maybe I'll be a Muslim after I,
you know, have a couple of bottles of
that. It's like, you know, people just feel
like they're not fully accomplished and sane yet
so I still have a few more kinks
to get out before I start considering
what I know to be true.
It's in your heart. This is your fitra.
This is your natural disposition. You're created to
know that there's only one creator.
You know this. If you were sitting alone
on an island and you've seen the sunrise,
sunset,
moonrise,
moon set,
grass growing. You know ain't no man doing
that.
That's instinctive. You was already created to know
this.
The choice is,
are you gonna testify that it's true?
Are you gonna make that commitment
knowing that this is to be true, that
there's only one created, there's only one worthy
of worship, there's only one,
there's only one and there's always, always been
1.
There's never been
2 or 3, there's always been 1.
Alhamdulillah,
since I've been Muslim, my grandfather, he's 89
years old, he accepted Islam.
My son, he's 14 years old. He was
at the height of being loom's son. Motorcycles,
he had it all. But even he's seen
it. I didn't convince him. I wasn't even
in town when he became a Muslim.
And most of my friends and relatives, they
just see the consistency and the and the
sincerity
of what I'm upon, that he's serious.
And everybody that ever knew me knew I
never was a follower. I wasn't nobody looking
to be nobody else. I was happy with
being a little. I was little since I
was 13 years old.
I wasn't confused about my identity.
Y'all didn't see me with 7 different haircuts
through my little career. I had the same
haircut, the same style, the same swag. That
was just me. I was happy with being
who I was. That was me before you
met me on TV.
I was always
cool in my skin.
Some of us have identity issues
and that's one of the biggest issues of
growing and going through transition from adolescence to
a man. You
have to shed the boyish image and try
to grow into this man figure.
And that becomes confusing for some of us,
you know. Some of us start reaching.
Wanna look like another man or, you know.
Now, maybe not. Sometimes you might not even
look like a man.
Stuff for a little while.
But I just wanna open up the forum
for all of y'all to ask questions and
I'll answer them to the best of my
ability.
I'm not sitting before you as no scholar.
I'm not your share.
You understand? I'm just a Muslim.
Just a servant of Allah.
Slave of Allah. Being a slave of Allah
frees me from any other form of slavery.
I can't be a slave to drugs. I
can't be a slave to nothing else. I'm
a slave of the most high,
not the son,
not the child. I'm a slave.
Because even sometimes if you just change that
one linguistic
meaning from son to slave, your relationship would
be a whole lot better.
Because sometimes thinking you're the son, it makes
you very lackadaisical.
And I give you a scenario. If your
father had a job, he ran a business,
he told you, his son, to come to
work at 8. You show up at what?
8:30,
8:45,
9. Sometimes you don't even come. Why? Because
it's your dad's job.
It's your dad.
And dad will get over it.
It's just dad.
It's how you think
instinctively. It's just dad.
Dad will tell you don't take his car
out, you take it out anyway, you get
one little scratch on it. Dad will get
over it.
He has another Cadillac.
But if it was your boss,
it's upon Allah. This man has no relation
to you. You don't have the same blood
flowing through your veins or nothing. This is
just some guy that graduated from some Ivy
League College and he's your boss.
He say get to work at 6. You
there at 5:45.
And you guys coffee in here. You're a
sucker. Like, hey. Hey, boss. How you doing
today? You don't even like him. You just
bring it back. I got it just the
way you like it. Three sugars and milk.
I got it just the way you like
it.
See how easy it is for you to
submit for something that you think will be
a benefit for you?
See how fast?
Your first day of work, you're taking gum
from under the table. You're doing all kinds
of stuff. 5 years on the job, you're
walking around, you're making my slippers.
You're comfortable now. But in the beginning, you
was on pins and needles.
Pins and needles. You know how it is.
You'd be in the office, paper clip flight,
you'd be
sending paper clips and fighting.
The boss is coming in. Everybody get by
a terminal.
See how quick it is you obey
when your check is involved,
when your pension is being questioned,
when your grade,
it's upon the law.
These are the things you need to reflect
on.
Ask yourself, what are you willing to submit
to
versus what you should submit to?
And I hope someone asks questions along that
vein.
Don't be shy, please.
I am a normal human being. I cannot
judge or critique no one. I am Laymon
Damon from Lanesville USA. I am nobody.
I am just a Muslim
and I pray that Allah makes me better
than however you may see me,
you know.
And I'm gonna end this on a statement
by the best of creation after the prophet
sallallahu alaihi sallam was Abu Bakr al Sadiq
Radhiallahu an.
He said that I am no better than
any of you,
and if I was to do that which
is right, then aid me.
And if I was to do that which
is wrong or in error, then rectify me.
And it shows you the humbleness of the
companions of the messenger of Allah, salallahu alaihi
wasallam.
And may Allah increase us in his humbleness,
may Allah increase us in character, may Allah
increase us in everything that is pleasing to
him.
And may Allah protect us
from all things evil that he ordained
and protect us from the evil of ourselves,
the evil of ourselves.
If a man non Muslim brothers and sisters,
may Allah
guide you into the fold of Islam,
guide you to that which is correct,
guide you to this beautiful religion of monotheism,
guide you to this religion of diversity,
guide you to this religion of the oneness
of the only creator of the heavens and
the earth and everything in it,
guide you to this this this this brotherhood
that is expanding
by the minute, by the second. In America
alone, we have a quarter million reverse a
year,
and we don't have evangelists. There's no one
on TV
saying, you know, you can, you know, join
Islam for 13.99.
Three installment pays of 3.99. You can be
a Muslim. Ain't nobody selling Islam. There's no
bus going by with a guy on there
saying it takes you out of the day.
Like, it's not what's going on.
As Muslims, we only are, you know, we
only are, you know, tempted,
and it's incumbent upon us to just convey
this message. That's it.
You know? That's it. We're only here to
say that Islam is the truth. Islam is
the haqq.
This is this is the truth.
It's the religion of truth. That's it.
We're only here to tell you that you
only have one created and he loves you
even by his mercy.
He wakes even the ones who don't believe.
He wakes you up every day, put air
in your lungs.
He suffices your hunger. He provides the provisions
for you. You ain't going out getting it
yourself. I hope you don't think because you
put in 40 hours last week that's why
you ate.
That's what you think.
SubhanAllah.
So inshallah to Allah,
you know.
You know, it's very difficult trying to generalize
the talk
and be fair to everyone
and may Allah reward me and all the
brothers for trying to conduct ourselves in such
a manner because this is one of the
characteristics
of the muslim.
But just so I can identify
with my audience, inshaAllah, I wanna ask by
show of hands, how many brothers and sisters
here are born and raised muslim?
MashaAllah.
Now, how many brothers and sisters here such
as myself reverted
to this beautiful religion of Islam?
It's kinda dark up there. I think I
see about 10.
Alhamdulillah.
And the reason why I use the term
revert, because convert is is is not the
term that's used. Revert means you're returning back.
Convert means, you know,
for someone to be introduced to this beautiful
religion and convert
to something other.
Revert means you're only returning back
to your natural disposition. And your natural disposition,
your natural inclination is monotheism,
monotheism,
mono
one.
It's not complicated.
You understand?
To have one source
and do any and everything
to the best of your ability to please
that one source because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is Al Rahman.
He is the most merciful,
the most merciful.
This is aqumal qaydah.