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Mm, mm, mm. Today's episode of Body and Wine is just a crunch of cracker and a sip of something spicy to come.

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I introduce you to Toronto-based hip hop artist, Raz and the groovy things he's shakin' up both in the music industry and personally- here and now, today on Body in Wine.

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'[Intro song] Hellooo my friends.

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Welcome back to Body and Wine: Conversations on Sex and Spirituality.

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I'm Charlie Gray and today I'm teasing you with some flavors to come.

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Next month my rad friend R az is releasing an Epic EP you won't want to miss, but for now I'm going to give you a sneak peek into his world and latest single"Myself" from his upcoming EP.

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I'll play the whole song for you later in this episode, but let's have a quickie for now, shall we?

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A re you ready? [song plays] Yes! So freaking good.

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R az is a musician based in The Six producing stadium hip hop from the heart.

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His first single my world from the next EP set to release in October, featured Isam B and reached over 100,000 views on YouTube a nd over 65,000 plays on Spotify.

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R az isn't killing it. He's living it. You'll want to get his jingles in your ears.

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I had-the privilege of sitting down over coffee and Chacool chocolate- Toronto listeners, please incorporate Chocosol as a regular part of your diet.

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I'll l ink i t in the page notes. R az and I caught up and chatted about the many ways that faith and gender identity are expressed from an impressed on his life.

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I n the following minutes, listen to this shorter clip from Raz's full interview, which will come out on Body and Wine in a couple of weeks of him reflecting on how his music process and faith journey relate to one another and so many other gems of thought after we can f am jam to his latest hit myself.

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Here we go.... Following on your Instagram and stuff that you've been pretty vocal about your beliefs in and around your career, which has been kind of interesting to watch.

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What is your relationship between your faith, and your music?

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How does one influence the other or express itself?

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Or is it really that related? Like how do you see that relationship?

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So we spoke earlier about there's a Muslim music industry just like there might be the church music industry- which is actually a massive industry.

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I don't know if you knew that.

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Yeah,

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Yeah, yeah. But I learned that I was like, Whoa,

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It's a bit scary.

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Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah. But it's amazing.

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So there's kind of a a Muslim industry where the music is kind of like the church music.

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It's very openly talking about the prophet or referencing beliefs and whatnot.

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And I never grew up on that music.

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I grew up on a Lauryn Hill and Bob Dylan and like Joni Mitchell and then like Kanye.

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But it's interesting cause that's the mix of my music now.

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Yeah it's like hip hop meets Rock and folk mixture.

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But in terms of spirituality, the music that if you want to call it was like spiritual Muslim music, not Muslim industry.

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I didn't grow up on it so I never really was influenced by that type of music.

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I didn't necessarily think it was high quality based on what I was listening to.

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This is just my opinion on it. I didn't see it as high quality music.

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And so it seemed very black and white.

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Like you're either make it quote unquote Muslim music or you were making secular North American industry music.

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Cause when I say North American, because it's Canada and the U S is very different than like the European or the British or Japanese music industry.

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It's a very pop star, mega star oriented in North America or younger, you're not successful.

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So I realized that I was in between, when I started writing music and I started focusing, I realized that the people that I looked up to like Lauryn Hill and Talia and Lupee, they either were spiritual or they followed a specific religion or they'd studied like Islam and Christianity and Judaism and what they were saying in their music.

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I was like, that's what I want to say because no matter what Lauryn Hill said, it was like ultimate truths.

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It's like a capital T truth, whether you were Muslim or Christian or Catholic or Buddhist,

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She's stirring something in you for sure...

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She says something and you have to, you have to agree.

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You're like, Oh yeah, you have to feel it. And so I wasn't getting that from, if you want to call it the Muslim industry.

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So I was like, where are they getting these truths from?

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Like how are they saying these things? And it hitting home for me when I have no relation to learn how to Lauryn Hill grew up in the same place.

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We're not even the same gender or whatever.

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And I realize that as she tapping into that, then I learned that she had studied the Bible and the Quran and it was very spiritual in that sense, just learning.

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And then I was like, wait a minute, I have the Quran.

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Cool.

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And that's when my writing really took a turn and I started really writing stuff that I really liked.

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Cool.

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From the get go. That's how the, I guess the spirituality came into my music, but I still realize that I didn't like writing it and like that Muslim industry way, it's very straightforward, very, Hey, I'm going to rap the fact that I'm Muslim or I'm going to talk about the profit on every song.

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Right.

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Which is great. It's just not, didn't vibe with me.

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So you were kind of carving a little bit of your own way.

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Yeah, it hit home for my grandfather, really drove it into my head that like Islam and being Muslim is a way of life.

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It's not just a religion, it's not checkboxes. So it's a way of life.

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So if it's a way of life for me, I was like, I don't think I need to be saying it so blatantly.

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I don't need to be using like Arabic words. I'm also like, I don't speak Arabic.

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Yeah. I think my parents were in the Caribbean. I was in Arabic, so it wasn't true for me.

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It wasn't real for me. That's like I don't need to be calling out the prophet's name because to some extent it could start sounding like you're just leveraging these things because you know there's a population of Muslims who can do it and there's not that many Muslim rappers doing it at a high level.

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And so that always rubbed me the wrong way. It kind of reminds me of, there's kind of this thing that some people use, actually it might even be a verse in the Bible.

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I forget.

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Yeah totally, Again I confuse, was this a religious thing or does it become cultural thing?

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But other people will know you by your love.

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They will know that you're Christian, not cause you're like, I'm a Christian, but because of the way that you,

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Exactly. Exactly. And I took to that much more in the way that I started practicing my religion is interesting because when I started writing raps and music was what I actually realized that I was practicing my religion more because now it was, it was kinda like holding me up to a standard for my, within myself.

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Like, what are you talking about?

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Cool.

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I'm like, I don't swear in my music at all as a regular everyday person.

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I try my best not to swear. So I was like, why am I gonna swear my music?

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So once I put that out, people, I don't know if people realize this, but when you release something like music is no longer yours.

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Once you release it, it doesn't belong to you anymore. You can't get it back.

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Somebody downloads that somewhere. It's not coming back.

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So maybe think about all of these things. And then I was like, wait, I wasn't necessarily practicing when I started my music.

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You want to have to think about all of these things. It was like eight years from now, 10 years from now when I'm dead, I can't take any of that stuff back.

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What do I want to have said? [Song"Myself" plays]

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Big thanks to Raz for your openness and dedication to sharing your gifts so well.

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Listeners and Raz fans. Stay tuned for an ear-fest next month, both of Raz's moving EP and also his full interview episode here on Body and Wine out October 9th, 2019 and our conversation, he talks on greater subjects of Islam and masculinity and personal things like marriage and the creative process.

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What makes an artist tick, what informs the practices, inspirations, messaging?

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Let's explore next time on Body and Wine and for now, check out Raz's music.

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His Instagram handle [email protected] and oh my goodness gracious and huge thank you to support of the show already and massive hugs did those who've chosen and are able to support the podcast project through our Patreon page.

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Your donations go far to support conversations on often such difficult yet important topics.

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If you're interested in financially participating with$1$5 or$25 monthly donations or your own creative pledge, check out patreon.com/bodyandwinepodcast.

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Thank you. Thanks you. Thanks.

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And as always, please check out our Instagram@bodyandwinepodcast and like, share, and subscribe and rate the podcast on any of your favorite listening venues you're spreading us on.

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Social media goes a long way.

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And one last thing before we go- Listener call-outs! Do you have any writing songs, recipes, raps, Proverbs, whatever that you want to share?

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Any stories? Feel free to record your voice for up to five minutes of audio time or send your writing to be recorded or shared on Body and Wine's social media pages.

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Email us at [email protected] Gray is spelled with an a.

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We will post what we are able and at our timing and discretion, but feel free to be encouraged to be vulnerable as you would like.

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And think outside the box. Anonymity and full visibility or options.

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Sexuality and spirituality are broad topics and we are open as Raz suggests.

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Let's all ask ourselves, what do I want to say?