Excerpt:
"New Muslim Cool," a film by Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, is not a documentary about Muslim style, Muslim clubs or Muslim power cliques rising out of New York or Los Angeles as an emerging entertainment force. Aesthetically, the film, to be shown Tuesday as part of the "P.O.V." series on PBS, has no investment in cool at all. Shot primarily in grim quarters of Pittsburgh, it chronicles the life of a young religious convert to quietly explore the porousness of cultural identity and the immense challenges presented to a man dramatically trying to reinvent himself in the face, essentially, of sanctioned prejudices.
Born to a Puerto Rican Roman Catholic family, Jason Pérez grew up fearing that he would be dead or imprisoned by the time he was 21. The concern was hardly irrational — he was a drug dealer. But then at 20, he found peace and answers in Islam, changing his first name to Hamza and dedicating himself to spirituality, music (Muslim-inspired hip-hop) and good works. The interviews he gave around some of his rap music, though, later come back to haunt him.