You're Going to Wind Up Where You Started From

I don't know how someone can sing the way I feel, not merely enunciating words and announcing ideas, but appealing with the soul. He can. Whoever he was/is.

I feel the power growing in my hair.



I just visited his website and listened to some of his more recent work, including his 2009 album Roadsinger. His voice seems amazingly untouched, plangent and insistent as ever. The music didn't necessarily grab me. He had already returned to performing live, worldwide in the early/mid 2000s. He had, as he described in a press release that officially announced his hitherto gradual re-emergence, come full circle. 

After I embraced Islam, many people told me to carry on composing and recording, but at the time I was hesitant, for fear that it might be for the wrong reasons. I felt unsure what the right course of action was. I guess it is only now, after all these years, that I've come to fully understand and appreciate what everyone has been asking of me. It's as if I've come full circle; however, I have gathered a lot of knowledge on the subject in the meantime.

I often remind myself--and I don't recall from whence this directive sprang--that when I don't know what yet to do, do nothing yet. When you are uncertain of the course of action, wait. It always, eventually, becomes clear. .

In the case of Yusef Islam, I'll probably remain guilty of my usual musical m.o.: indulge in the old stuff at the expense of exploring the new. I can't be blamed entirely since the new is often a shadow of what came before. In this case, though, I think it's a continuation of the journey, one that continued and continues whether we listen, or get to hear it, or not.