I was 9 years old when Eric B. and Rakim's 'Paid in Full' dropped. I have vivid memories of the bass-laden track booming out of car stereos and hearing it on Black radio, like Kiss FM's top eight at 8 p.m. countdown. On the track 'Move the Crowd,' Rakim ' also known as 'the God MC' ' rhymes 'All praise is due to Allah and that's a blessing.' Growing up as a Black Muslim in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, I was already familiar with the phrase. Like all Muslims, I learned to say it during my daily prayers and as an expression of gratitude. But when Rakim laced those words into the lyrics of what ultimately became a popular song, he affirmed what I was seeing around me in my Brooklyn community ' that Islam and Muslims were prominent features of Black life. When Rakim extols the benefits of 'knowledge of self' to himself as an emcee and a human being, he is drawing on a philosophy that has been critical to Black Islam, a term I use to describe the different forms of Islamic...
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