all that jazz...

I'm a little hip-hopped out after the last couple of posts. But I actually think that the more things change the more they stay the same. This connection between Islam and Black music goes back alot further back than just the origins of rap. Similar things were going on among jazz musicians of the past too.

Many jazz musicians adopted Muslim names although not all of them were necessarily practicing the faith.

And in Dizzy Gillespie's autobiography "To Be, Or Not ... To Bop" there is an interesting passage discussing why so many African-American jazz musicians were converting to Islam.

And of course, in the intermediate period between be-bop and hip-hop come The Last Poets, which definitely fit in with the themes of Planet Grenada. I've been meaning to write something about them but I wanted to see what was available online first.