Zain Bhikha
From TheHeroesWiki
Yusuf Islam (formerley known as Cat Stevens) was a great Rock star. He had (according to the western culture) everything: the money, the fame, the fans and the power. However, he wasn't satisfied with this materialistic life so he searched for the missing ingreidient in his life which was spirituality, after a long journey he converted to Islam and became one of the pioneers in the field of Islamic nasheed songs directed to English speakers.
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His Beginning
Zain was born in 1974 in Pretoria, South Africa where he started singing from a young age, though entertaining family and friends was as far as he went. In 1994, Zain entered a singing competition on a local radio station. From thousands of entries he won the competition. This success led to his first album 'A Way of Life' (1994). It soon became a rousing success amongst the South African Muslim community.
His works, albums and collaborations
He then released an album called 'Praise to the Prophet (saw)' (1996), followed at yearly intervals by 'Fortunate is He' (1997) and 'The Journey' (1998).
All proved extremely popular and began to filter abroad. And so it was that Yusuf Islam came across one of Zain's albums and invited him to London to work with him. The result was 'A is for Allah' (2000), a double album, primarily spoken word, which featured Zain singing 7 of the 8 songs. Later that year, two compilation albums 'Children of Heaven' and 'Towards the Light', featuring re-mixed songs, were released by Jamal Records.
In 2001 he released 'Faith' with a guest appearance from his friend Dawud Wharnsby Ali. Zain later went on to release the album 'Our World' (2002) which brought together the talents of Yusuf Islam, Khalid Belrhouzi, Qatrunada, Hasan Kilicitan and also introduced his son Rasheed Bhikha.
Sources and some external links
Zain Bhikha from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
