HAhmed.com

Source: Just Another Blog

OH MY GIDDY GIDDY GOSH!!

I’m still pinching myself!! Did I really sit in a seminar room in a hotel and interview Outlandish for like 35 minutes??

Hell yeah!

How? What? When? Why? Where?

Q-news are going to be featuring Outlandish in either the next issue or the one after it Inshallah, and so they had to do an interview with them as they are in the UK for their show tomorrow(they jet off back on thursday). Knowing what a fan I was, Fareena and Abdul Rehman Malik invited me along to the interview. Unfortunatley Fareena couldn’t be there but Abdul Rehman was and he had asked me to come up with some questions that I could ask Isam, Waqas and Lenny in relation to their music as he thought I’d be more familiar with it while he tackled the more political and social backgrounds of Outlandish.

I ended up being late becasue I got lost finding my way (to Tottenham Court road :S) but we had to wait anyway while some brothers who had come from Manchester were inside speaking to the guys for their magazine. Then it was our turn. I was wondering if the ‘handshaking situation’ was going to occur when we introduced oursleves, but Alhumdullilah, it worked out that it didn’t and anyway I wouldv’e handled it if it did.

Anyway, so we all said Salam and hello and sat down. Abdul Rehman introduced himself and Q-news (to which Isam is subscribing) and I was introduced as a fan :blush: (to which they all smiled) and said how this was my first Q-news assignment and that I’ll begin the interview! eeee omg!

So, I began by asking them to tell us a bit about their background and how they met (as if I didn’t already know) and then I asked how the name “Outlandish” came about. Now here’s something I didn’t know- Waqas told us that intially they came up with a really bad name…“Young, Gifted and Brown”-Lol! Imagine that. But later it changed to Outlandish and they explored the meanings behind that word and how it describes/described them. That was interesting. The discussion then moved onto Denmark, what it was like growing up there, the political parties/groups over there, the whole cartoon episode. Other things that they talked about were religion (the group consits of two Muslims and one Catholic), the inspiration for their music, how they define their music, the meanings of the songs “Aicha” and “Look into my eyes” and how figures such as Bob Marley, Malcolm X and Che Guevara have seemed to become T-shirt products and people have forgotten what these people stood for.

Masha’Allah , they were very nice and down to earth. Alot of what they were saying resonated with me. In particular, what Waqas said about the ‘revolution starting from within’ and his respect for Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, and also Isam’s hope of seeing young muslims being creative and expressing themsleves and how we each have a talent and we should use that (I have been hearing that so much lately..).

The interview will be put up as a podcast too Inshallah, so you’ll be able to hear it all there as well as read about in the magazine.

“Where are the pictures?” I hear you ask.Hmm, that was a little let down. I was hoping to get a few good pictures but that wasn’t really possible as they had to jet off to do a phone in interview and a live radio broadcast later(which I’m listening to now). They had been doing interviews all day. I asked them if they’d sing something…Isam asked if I was kidding, I said no…LOL (it’s not everyday you get to meet Outlandish so I though I’d just ask). They said I put them on the spot and that its a different thing performing for one person and performing infront of hundreds! Oh well, I got bumped…by Outlandish!

Oh, and I’m SUCH a doofus, I completley forgot to ask them to sign my cd!! DOH!!

A little treat to look forward too…Outlandish have done a version of Bob Marley’s “Redemption” song which has been added onto the International version of the album ‘Closer than Veins’ which will be released in the UK in March.(The album’s artwork)

And Isam is engaged.

So this was like my first experience of journalism… thank you Fareena and Abdul Rehman for this!

God Bless and du’as

Usma