more on muslims and hip-hop

This can potentially be a huge topic. For a long time now, to varying degrees of depth and sincerity, hip-hop has included some kind of Islamic content. Oddly enough, it seems like the most well represented "Muslim" group in hip-hop have been the Five Percenters or the Nation of Gods and Earths (e.g. Poor Righteous Teachers, Rakim, Brand Nubian, Busta Rhymes, Wu Tang, Digable Planets etc.) I imagine that part of the reason is that the Five Percenters put a certain amount of emphasis on developing a certain "rap" and verbal fluency which lends itself very easily to hip-hop's lyricism. Another reason is likely that as a movement the Five Percenters are highly concentrated among the urban black youth who are part of the hip-hop generation. On the other hand, among orthodox Muslims there are certain factors which probably discourage participation in the production of hip-hop music, for example attitudes which restrict the permissibilty of music per se, and then reservations about being in environments where mainstream hip-hop tends to be performed (mixed crowds, places which serve alcohol). In spite of these factors, there are still a few who identify as Sunni Muslims in mainstream hip-hop. (e.g. Mos Def, One.Be.Lo, Q-Tip, members of Jurassic 5, the Roots)

I was especally surprised to find out that there is actually an online forum specifically dedicated to Islam and hip-hop at muslimhiphop.com. Some Muslim rap groups like Native Deen are becoming more and more visible. And the ummah in America is even developing Muslim record labels (here is an interview with one of their artists, Capital D from All Natural [2] and commentators on hip-hop culture like Adisa Banjoko