AS:
My brother and I made the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca the past year. It was transformative beyond what I have the language to express. It is difficult to measure how the Hajj has changed us, consciously, subconsciously, emotionally, artistically and otherwise.

The Meccan Openings is a borrowed title from a book by Ibn Arabi, Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya (also translated as The Meccan Revelations or The Meccan Illuminations). Ibn Arabi’s is a magnificent work, all of which still hasn’t been translated into English. The breadth of which covers metaphysics, cosmology, spiritual anthropology, psychology, law, prophethood, sainthood, language, and the science of the names of God. It took decades to write and centuries to understand. This album is not pretending to be that. This is but a moment of self realization as any real art is.

RC:
I understand that this is a collaborative album, who are you working with?

AS:
My brother, {qp} short for quantum palindrome, and I did not intend to come home and create this project. He was sending me music as he always does but this post-Hajj music production spoke to something that made me more prolific and lyrically dense than I have every been in my life. His presentation is rare in that it engages the higher and lower stations of Self effortlessly. His work was inspiring my work and my work reciprocated the favor and suddenly we had an album by accident or by providence.

RC:
How different is it from your last release, Like a Thief in the Night?

AS:
This, for us, is intrinsic hiphop’s communion with Islamic mysticism. It is Rakim meets Rumi. It is a giant unbroken metaphor of I. Every one and every thing mentioned on the project is a personification or anthropomorphism of my self, my spirit, my heart, my ego, my fears, my hopes etc. I pray you’ll find good in it. I certainly have.