Shafiq Husayn, Sa-Ra Creative Partners and the Sound of Leimert Park Hip-Hop

If not inspiring anything as brash as the sentiments of “Cop Killer,” and if resulting in nothing as inflammatory as lines like that song’s “I’m ’bout to bust some shots off/I’m ’bout to dust some cops off,” the experience that day in Ice’s studio started a process that imparted Husayn’s own creations with a greater spiritual hue. Whether he’s working with his Sa-Ra family (coincidentally, he first encountered Om’Mas from the group at Ice’s house in ’94, recording as part of the crew Raw Breed), or outside production, like Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah: Part One (4th World War), his expansive sound pool became married to a worldly political philosophy. So while the new album collates a brilliantly motley array of sonic influences — Husayn cites Sly Stone, the Beatles, jazz pianist Dick Hyman and “chamber music” as his soundtrack while composing it — it’s all held together by a “free nationals” ideology. It’s a worldwide concept he explains as “basically anyone who’s naturally free, free from nationality. We say these are the ones who aren’t slaves. In America, you have what we call 14th Amendment citizens — anyone who came from other nations, who came to register as a citizen of the United States. They’re not free nationals anymore, they’re nationals to the U.S. They gave up their native nationality to participate in someone else’s government. So the U.S. has 14th Amendment citizens, who are second-class citizens. It started in the slave days so it’s not possible for them to be free.”

It’s a peace and unity–based line of thinking straight from Bambaataa’s book, and as En’ A-Free-Ka unravels, it resembles a full-circle resolution of Husayn’s musical journey. “Whenever I went to the East Coast, my partners were people like Prince Whipper Whip and Grandmixer D.ST., so what I was experiencing with Uncle Jamm’s, I also experienced simultaneously with what the Zulu Nation was doing over there,” he says, connecting the dots. Then, with broad, indiscriminate blessings, he adds, “Peace, love and light; I appreciate all energy.”

Shafiq Husayn, journey man

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More About

• Shafiq Husayn
• Afrika Bambaataa
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Sun Ra
• Hip-Hop and Rap

SHAFIQ HUSAYN | En’ A-Free-Ka | Plug Research