Mohammed Yahya Interview

Muslims in England has received an exclusive interview with Mohammed Yahya. You can now find out more about this prominent figure in Islam...

Interview:

1.    What attracted you to Islam?
Answer: I guess it was the brotherhood that I experienced when I visited a country called Gambia situated in West Africa

2.    Who are your inspirations?
Answer: Spiritually I’m deeply inspired by the life of the Beloved Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h), as well as all the other Prophets that I have read about.
I’m also inspired by Scholars and Pious People that have walk in this Earth, People like Sheikh Ahmed Bamba from Senegal

3.    What inspires you to make the music that you do?
Answer:  My life experiences mostly, especially because my music is so personal.

4.    Who is your target audience?
Answer: Whoever my music reaches, I Feel like I’m just a vessel, but the real work is only done by the will of God

5.    How do you motivate yourself?
Answer:  By waking up every day and seeing the state that we are all in, Famine, wars, Political corruption, poverty, child abuse, racism, are some of the things that I would love to eradicate, and there is an even bigger list of things which I would like to replace them with.

6.    What influenced you to make music?
Answer: Music has always been a part of me for a long as i can remember, my father used to be a singer, and my mother used to also play music in our household.
I guess it was the way that I decided to express myself in order to deal with internal conflicts derived from my life experiences, being a refugee from the age of 1, experiencing racism on a daily basis, seeing my father financially struggle in Portugal due to the colour of his skin, seeing my uncle inject heroine at the age of 5 and other similar things

7.    How long have you been making music?
Answer: I’ve been making music since I was about 17 never took it serious until a few yrs later but I’ve been writing bits of poetry before I was 8

8.    Do you ever have to deal with criticism in regards the type of music you make, and if so how do you deal with it?
Answer: Sometimes I come across people who sat that making music is forbidden in Islam, which i totally respect especially because not even the Sohabas would agree on everything.
What I try and do is to provide evidence that what I’m doing is permissible within the fold of Islam

9.    What do you aim to achieve from this line of work?
Answer: Whatever God has in store for me

10.    What album are you working on right now? Who are you working with?
Answer: I’ve recently just released a new CD called Beyond Conflict which is a compilation of compilation of unreleased material as well as some of my previous work that people really liked but couldn’t really get hold of it, it features collaborations with M1 of Dead Prez, Sean Price (Heltah Skeltah), Faith SFX, Kyza, UK Apache, Poetic Pilgrimage, Masikah and many more. It is now available for sale from Islamicimpressions.co.uk

11.    When is your next album being released?
Answer: I’m currently recording a new project called Silent Lectures which will be released next year by the will of God.

12.    Tell us a little about the hip hop group you have formed with the Jewish brother.  What inspired you to do this? What do you expect to achieve from this?
Answer: Lines of Faith is the name of the group, and the purpose is to be able to show to the world that Muslims and Jews have so much in common, we try and focus on the similarities that we both have and the morals that we have adopted by following the traditions of our faith.
Even though we may disagree in some political aspects, we  try and create the platform where we can express ourselves, and listen to each other’s point of view in a correct manner.

13.    What is your feedback about Muslimsinengland.com?
Answer: From what I’ve read I think it’s a very positive and insightful site.

14.    Please give a special message to the MIE-readers?
Answer: May God guide us all