Enter Into Peace was established in 1996 by Dawud Wharnsby as a publishing entity for his lyrics and music. Over a decade later, Enter Into Peace continues to administrate Dawud’s songs, while having grown into a multidimensional platform promoting artistic expression as a means of inspiring positive social change.
"Bridging nations and tribes,
through education and the arts."
Silk Route Media is the music production and distribution wing of Enter Into Peace. Established in 2010 it serves as the independent label for Dawud's recordings, as well as his collaborative work with artists Idris Phillips, Bill Kocher and others.
Silk Route Media also offers music production, narrative / voice-over services and a music library for video and television use.
"World Music...For A Change."
On Institutionalized Education
“Eating education is like eating Christmas pudding:
Too much can make your stomach sore,
too much can spoil your whole Christmas.
Learning from a man who learned all he learned from another, can lead you to a safe place, but destroy your sense of wonder. Trapped inside a book, locked inside a lecture,
when do you find the time to love
and spend your days in forests?
And when ideals are fleeting ~ tell me then who do you turn to? They prove to you that God is dead,
but to them you’re just a number.”
“All the girls and boys seen preening through school halls, fighting to fit in, games they just can’t win,
higher education dumbing down a nation,
around the square unsure of where we fit in.”
~ Rachel
"As children we would play and sing,
learn and weren't afraid to try.
We had hope and we felt free,
unafraid to fall or fly.
Now do we dare follow our hearts
to find the sacred dreams we saw?"
~ Kalima (2011)
On Holistic Learning Leading to Positive Social Action
“But if we hide ourselves away, afraid to grow and learn,
we might wake up in the flames of the ignorance that burns
and we’ll never be much more than only casualties of war
in a struggle we can’t win if we have no faith to begin.
We’ve got to tip the lid and let some sunlight in.”
On Politics
“Pictures of politicians preen across our TV screens.
Pretensions plaques and posters fill our minds and magazines. Promises a burning match, igniting dreams of straw…”
On Institutionalized Religion
“The world is not a box,
there’s no lid, no doors, no cardboard flaps or locks,
and everything in nature from the clouds to the rocks
is a piece of the puzzle of the purpose of mankind,
it's a piece of the peace that we’ll find.”
“We’ve digitized The Revelations ~
do our rehearsed recitations go any deeper than our throats? Our calls to prayer they seem to rise up to the skies, conferences and lectures, seminars for you and I.
The words that blow away with the nasheed that make us cry,
yet why are the drums so silent?”
On Capitalism, Commercialism and Consumerism
“Build me a tomb for when I die,
build it 50,000 feet into the sky...
Build me a boat I want to discover America,
build me a boat to take me to the edge of the seven seas,
build me a boat and you can sail along with me,
we’ll spread our money, power, religion and disease.
...Who are they to say that we own nothing
and our lives have gone astray?”
“Standing in the market square, so alive but void of life,
We work and we sweat and we struggle through each day.
As our efforts scar our hands,
this world stains us with demands.
It’s hard to see life’s humour in the business games we play.
As we gnaw our nails with stress,
our fists and hearts pound so carelessly.
With every effort forward, how much more can we digress?”
“You’ve built me a cabin but I want more, and more and more, now build me an office tower with an automatic door.
Build me a fence that I can wrap around my state.
If anyone tries to break through,
I pity his fate.”
“All of us, ride on the same bus,
shop at the same malls and stores.
All of us, debate and discuss,
decide and divide what is mine and what’s yours.”
"Watch the grown ups all twirling
with the clock throughout the day.
Watch them spinning through the hours
while the time hands tick away.
They talk and grip the world, as they would catch a falling knife. Reality deceives them ’neath amusing games of life."
On God
"Dear God I've heard your name
from teachers family and friends,
you made the universe and so will live on when it ends.
Everyone I know admits they’ve never seen your face,
they’re not sure where you live and have no map to the place.”
“You and I, wonder at the sky,
call God a different name.
As we try, learn and long to fly ~
you and I are so differently the same.”
On Prophethood
"Prophets poets and the people of the past in every land,
lived to teach us, tried to reach us ~
how well do we understand?"
~ Kalima (2011)
On Simple Living
“There’s always work that must be done...
Life’s so simple when we simply work to make it fun.”
“We love to live a simple life...we simply love the life we live though some would say it's hard.”
On Pop Culture and Trends
“Teachers and pop icons, empty drums beat loudest noise.
We swap their quotes and CDs like children trading toys.
Follow along, bite the barbed hook deep in our jaw...”
On Nationalism
“Fences and forts with walls and flags,
caw caw ~ they’re so funny."
~ Dear Mr. Crow
“What of this God whom we command,
to bless our colourded flag and land?
So busy drawing lines in sand
that we don’t think and understand.”
On War
“The foolish big boys who fight with their toys
are so sadly silly.”
~ Dear Mr. Crow
“We have dealt with all these idealists in the past,
I’m sure we’ll find a way to deal with them today...
Rid our world of all these fanatics one by one,
won’t let not prophet lover ruin my fun.
We’ll string ‘em up and shoot ‘em down.”
~ Wood and Nails
“What of wars we have survived,
genocides and hollow costs/holocausts?
Have our hopes for humankind
like scriptures and mass graves been lost?”
“If a fist can hold a sword,
and a fist can clench a pen,
but the points of both are missed,
by dull, tarnished pride of men.
We must open up our hands,
raise our palms up high to see,
the mazes of our unique selves,
end with similarity.”
“Your bombs and pens like swords,
held high, up to my throat.
You have made the cost of blood,
as cheap as ink and all I think.”
"If we only knew, the sacred value,
And if the might of our pen, is stronger than the swords of men, let us unsheathe our minds, write with our hearts again."
~ What Has Become
Anthology: For Whom The Troubadour Sings (2010)
On Time
“Time seems cold, each day we grey away. Believe the lines that we’ve been told, 'Lose our way lose yesterday’, they say, but who are they? Who are they anyway? They didn’t hear us play at eight years old.”
~ Eight Years Old
Album: Out Seeing The Fields (2007)
On Connection to God
“If he could read a line, just understand one sign. Close his mouth and hear
the peace of hope and fear,
if he could read a line.
If he could keep in time.”
~ The Poets
Album: The Poets And The Prophet (2006)
On The Music Business
“‘Where’s the next show?’,
‘Why don’t you make a Video?’,
‘Put on these beads and clothes
and The Bling, Bling!’'
Well, if that’s all it’s abou
than I think that I want out,
of a career that won’t just let me sing.
...‘cause music faith and knowledge
should be free.”
~ I Just Wanna Sing
Anthology: For Whom The Troubadour Sings (2010)
“Throughout history the leaders of countries have been very particular of what songs should be sung.
We know the power of songs.”
~ Pete Seeger
"Music is the shorthand of emotion."
~ Leo Tolstoy
"Men profess to be lovers of music,
but for the most part
they give no evidence in their opinions and lives
that they have heard it."
~ Henry David Thoreau
"Music produces a kind of pleasure which
human nature cannot do without."
~ Confucius
“...we have neglected music.
Music means rhythm, order.
It’s effect is electrical.
It immediately soothes.
I have seen, in European countries,
resourceful superintendent of police
~ by starting a popular song ~
control the mischievous tendencies of mobs.
Unfortunately, like our [Sacred Books],
music has been a prerogative of the few,
either the barter of prostitutes
or high class religious devotees.
It has never become nationalized in the modern sense.
If I had any influence with volunteer Boy Scouts
and [other] organizations,
I would make compulsory the singing in company
of national songs.
And to that end,
I should have great musicians
attend every congress or conference
and teaching mass music.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
