Music is a powerful lens

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

That quote comes from Haruki Murakami's novel Norwegian Wood. Musicians on Abdul Malik Dyck's new album Remembered Music include his father Sheikh Hassan Dyck, Western classical violinist turned Sufi exponent Ali Keeler and Afghan rabab master Daud Khan. My deviant reading while in Morocco recently included Columbia University lecturer Hisham Aidi's 'Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the new Muslim Youth Culture' which discusses how music from hip-hop to Sufi is expressing a shared Muslim consciousness in the face of 'war on terror' policies. Writing in the prologue Hisham Aidi describes how "Music is a powerful lens through which to view the identities and movements emerging in Muslim communities".

Remembered Music was a requested review sample. Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Also on Facebook and Twitter.