A couple years ago, the Toronto musician Mustafa Ahmed, who goes by just Mustafa, released his debut project When Smoke Rises, which got shortlisted for a Polaris Prize and landed him on our list of the Best New Bands Of 2021. Today, Mustafa has returned with his first new solo single since then, “Name Of God,” a soft and tender one that sees him reflecting on his relationship with Islam and the death of his brother, who was killed over the summer.

“I never felt like the Nubian prince my father seen in me through his tinted lens. I try their dance, their prayer — I always fall short,” Mustafa shared in a statement, continuing:

& Gods name wasn’t always related to beauty for me, but to hopelessness, this Islam we share and Allah we call for while witnessing a constant violence that continues to
bind us, I don’t think I ever felt completely Muslim among other Muslims,

All these sub-beliefs like borders. My aunts in all their wisdom and narrowness-one Sufi spinning into remembrance, one refuting the taking of a photograph.

When my big brother was killed in what will always feel like yesterday, knowing the suspected murderer was someone he held as a friend, someone he prayed with- it led me to believe that maybe his love was his end? Maybe where there is no love, parting from love keeps us alive? Maybe ending in love is the only way to actually begin? I don’t know.
The only clear memory from the days of his death were my parents reciting in unison, “oh Allah, we accept his passing, we accept what you ordained.”

I’m desperate to love God like them.

Our faith and our hearts are too often our demise- I know a field of young niggas dreaming that can testify to this. For better or worse we’ll uncover every bone beneath our hollow laughter, our confused affection; maybe its revealed in our final gasp for meaning.

Until then.

Bismillah, In the Name of God, 10.17.23

Listen below.

“Name Of God” is out now.