Farrakhan's enlightening and wide-ranging conversation with Sway

By Ashahed M. Muhammad -Assistant Editor- | Last updated: Jun 30, 2015 - 9:25:01 AM

(L) Sway Calloway interviews the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan

It is not very often that you hear such a wide-ranging topical interview with discussion going from Beethoven to foreign policy towards Libya, then switching from population control and iPhones to marijuana use, then to Malcolm X, White supremacy and scriptural realities, but when you’re dealing with The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, information flows through him as a divine spiritual instrument able to reach everyone who hears the sound of his voice.

This was very clear during a recent interview with Sway Calloway, host of “Sway In The Morning” on Sirius XM satellite radio, which has over 25 million subscribers.

Sway said he considered it a high point in his career being able to sit down and interview the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.

“Coming up in Oakland, we face a lot of challenges, and sometimes you look for inspiration from different places. So I can’t tell you how many times just by listening to your words, or listening to you speak, especially even now having worked on MTV for 15 years and being in radio for 20 years, and being considered, humbly, a voice of this generation or hip hop culture—you know, sometimes you feel challenged, and you need those things to kind of strengthen you, and I’ll look at a speech you made or something you said, and it’s always something I could take away from it that’ll keep me smiling and make me feel strong the next day. So, I always wanted to thank you for that.”

Using somewhat of a different approach than many others who have interviewed the Minister, Sway asked probing questions so his listeners would be able to see Min. Farrakhan in a different way, beyond the public persona, and beyond the deliberately inaccurate depictions often found in the controlled media.

“I always see The Minister on the podium, but who is he when he’s not on that podium? When he’s not on that stage, and he’s not leading the people?”, Sway asked.

Min. Farrakhan went into his relationship with the violin describing how his beloved mother—a domestic worker and a seamstress—put the violin in his hand and set up a strictly timed practice regiment for him when he was just five years old. He said at first, “I didn’t like playing the violin, because they said it was a kind of “sissy” instrument… And, who wants to look like a sissy? So, I would put a tam on my head like Dizzy Gillespie, and throw my violin up under my arm like it was a horn, and walk through the Black community on my way to my lessons. But after a while, I learned to love it, and when I fell in love with the instrument, mom didn’t have to ask me to practice anymore,” he said.

The young boy who at first had to be forced to practice now “drove her crazy” playing the violin for hours on end. The discipline he learned carried over into Islam, the Minister noted.

“When I became a Muslim, I just switched the discipline from the study of my instrument to the study of The Word of God. And that’s why today, I mean, I don’t have to think on what to say, or try to make notes and whatnot, because so much of it is in me from the discipline of study. So, I am grateful for the music—and I’m back at music now!” the Minister said.

The instrument brings out another side of the Minister many have not seen because they have only experienced him as the courageous leader, and mesmerizing speaker. With the release of his upcoming musical compilation with a diverse roster of accomplished singers and entertainers such as Chaka Khan, Deniece Williams, Kirk Whalum, Damien Marley, Snoop Dogg and Rick Ross, that surely will change. Music is a language that crosses cultural and religious boundaries, and with advancements in technology—people are being reached all over the world, and are coming together to fight corruption, evil and injustice.

“With the awakening of people all over the world because of a man called Steve Jobs, and a man like Bill Gates... Steve Jobs, who gave us this tremendous thing called the iPhone and the iPad, you are in touch instantaneously with people all over the world, you can tap into libraries all over the world! There is nothing of knowledge that’s not at our fingertips because of what that man did,” said Min. Farrakhan. “So, the media conglomerates are losing power over the masses that they have always controlled,” he added.

On October 10, 2015, which is the 20th Anniversary of The Million Man March, Min. Farrakhan said the event will be translated in French and Spanish and Arabic, and Chinese.

“We’re reaching for the whole world, because everywhere you look in the world people are rising against injustice,” he said.

The Final Call