Photo Credit: Laylah Barrayn

Early Life

Brother Dash (Born Dasham K. Brookins) is a poet, essayist, and Spoken Word artist.  Most of his poetry and writings focus on spirituality, culture, social issues and self-introspection.  Dash was born in Brooklyn, New York and spent his formative years in that city’s most populous borough. At a very young age he showed a keen interest in reading and an affinity for language.  He took a particularly unique interest in reading daily newspapers at the age of 7 and began developing vocabulary skills somewhat advanced for his age.  This interest in language would show itself later in his poetry. Dash wrote his first poem after the tragic death of a close childhood friend when he was only 8 years old.  Dash would not write much poetry at all however until after moving from Brooklyn to New Jersey while in High School and subsequently attending Rutgers University on a full academic scholarship.  Brother Dash explains…”My focus was on being an actor in theatre and movies. Poetry wasn’t really my thing per se. My creative pursuits were in drama.” It was however during Brother Dash’s tenure at Rutgers (initially as a theatre major before double majoring in English and Sociology) that he started to actually perform some of his poetry in front of live audiences. Spoken Word Poetry, which was largely non-existent for urban youth after the birth of Hip-Hop, saw a resurgence from its 1950’s Beatnik and 1960’s/early 70’s Black Revolutionary Poet days, in the early 1990’s on college campuses, coffeehouses and cafés. Dash, who still went by his full birth name, took to this genre as a “refreshing hobby” while still pursuing his dream of becoming an actor/director and producer.

University

While at Rutgers University Dash, who had begun to do a personal evaluation of his own faith, left Christianity and settled on a simple spiritual belief in the oneness of God and the golden rule but distanced himself from “organized religion”. “ I always believed in there being one and only one God ever since I was a child. I could never wrap my mind around the trinity however, though interestingly I had no doubt in Jesus having existed and being a great man. But after doing an academic study of the faith I was brought up in, and the Bible in particular, I decided that belief in God and living by the golden rule was good enough. I’ll just be ‘spiritual’ and call it a day.”  Though he did not come from an overly religious family Dash had a Christian background with most of his family being of various Protestant denominations.  The only exception to this Christian background was that of his Father. At the time of Dash’s birth his Father was a member of an offshoot of The Nation of Islam known as The Five Percenters. This is why his birth name, Dasham, sounds “Islamic”.  As “fate” would have it shortly after graduating University Dash did in fact take his shahada to become a Muslim. “Even after my rejection of organized religion I had still continued to study somewhat and be open to different paths. Over time Islam started to resonate with me more and more and my anti-organized religion stance started to soften. One morning my heart just wanted to be Muslim. I had already befriended several Muslims from school and so I knew where to go and took my shahada after the night prayer…I’ve been Muslim ever since.”

Influences

As far as poetry and art Brother Dash grew up with a combination of both literary and musical influences. He gives credit to writers as varied as William Shakespeare to Langston Hughes to Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez and Nikki Giovanni. He credits spoken word pioneers such as The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Herron with providing certain stylistic and structural influences. But most importantly however, as with most youth after the rise of pop culture, Brother Dash’s greatest influence has come from music. “All of the poetry that I actually perform (not necessarily everything I write) comes to me in the form of a rhythm. In my head it’s music with the words being the notes if that makes any sense” says Dash. “Much of the poetry that is meant really just for me often does not come to me as music strangely enough.  On some of my albums you will hear pieces that just seem to be ‘different’ from the others and those are usually the ones that did not come to me rhythmically. But I put them on the albums for the message though I rarely perform them. Pieces like “Nafs” on Poetically Speaking, “Shards of Glass” from the Muslim Poet EP and even “Can I Breathe” and “I Will Not Fall” from Spoken Soul are good examples even though the latter two have a definite cadence and a “hook” they’re not really my typical performance pieces. “adds Dash. Hip-Hop has had a significant impact on Dash’s poetry. He was especially influenced by artists such as Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Run DMC, Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, LL Cool J, Rakim, and many others. While not a rapper himself his Spoken Word performances clearly do borrow from his love Hip-Hop and other musical genres such as funk and jazz. If you listen carefully you can sometimes hear drum riffs, a bass player “pop” on a string, or even a great horn player “blare” in Dash’s delivery. On his latest album Spoken Soul he even includes a contemporary jazz background to the album’s title track.

Islam

Brother Dash’s poetry is influenced the most however by another important aspect of his life…Islam. As mentioned earlier Brother Dash converted to Islam in the 1990′s shortly after graduating college. He started a family and ceased writing and performing for several years. When Dash did pick up the pen/mic again he found that his “muse” was directing him towards speaking from a new voice.  This new voice placed less emphasis on the socio-political content he was known for and more of his poetry was being written with a spiritual, but non-overtly religious component.  “I don’t like street corner preachers so I don’t write poetry khutbas or spoken word sermons. I don’t hide my faith of course. I just choose to speak from a place of truth for me. And that truth is one where you will obviously hear and feel Islam in my stuff but not in an in your face, my way or the highway manner,” says Dash. Today Brother Dash seems to have seamlessly combined all of his influences from the spiritual to the moral to the social to create a unique “sound” and style.  He is influenced by Islamic scholars such as Sheikh Abdullah Adhami to Muslim activists and lecturers such as Imam Siraj Wahhaj and many others. These individuals and others have helped to give Brother Dash a foundation in sound, well researched, traditional Islam but with the balance of understanding how modernity, one’s own culture and religion can fit together harmoniously.

Balance

Dash talks about social, political, cultural and spiritual issues in his poetry to Muslim and Non-Muslim audiences alike in a balanced way.  He says: “The Prophet Muhammad was balanced. He warned against extremism and excessiveness in religion and how that will lead to your own destruction so I believe in being balanced. To me that means being unapologetic in terms of my faith but to also believe in compassion, wisdom and understanding. Not every problem is a nail and not every solution is a hammer.”