Zayn Malik performs at the iHeartRadio Theater in New York City on March 25, 2016. Photo courtesy iHeartRadio.

It is currently Ramadan. I’m far from a religious scholar so I’m not going to embarrass myself by getting into too much detail, but I do know that it’s the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and that it’s a major religious observance of fasting and prayer. It’s an important holy month for billions of people worldwide, and while I make fun of a lot of things, I draw the line at religious observances, which is why this paragraph is uncharacteristically devoid of jokes.

But I do know way more about music than I have any right to. So rather than embarrass myself in front of the Internet again, I’m going to stick to my wheelhouse and talk about some Muslim artists.

ZAYN — “Dusk Till Dawn”

I don’t think I’m blowing anyone’s mind that Zayn Malik is a Muslim. He’s one of the biggest stars in the world and the video above has 1.9 billion views in five years. Billion. Roughly one view per 4.2 people on Earth. It’s likely that I know far less about Malik than most of the people who found this because his name is in it and are probably trolling me on Twitter for something or other.

Speaking to those people: If you’re gonna get mad at me, I might as well give you a good reason. Calling a song “Dusk Till Dawn” creates an expectation that the song will at least reference the classic 1996 Robert Rodriguez movie “From Dusk Till Dawn.” George Clooney stars as a fugitive who carjacks an RV, kidnaps the family riding in it, and takes it to Mexico. Upon arriving they go to a bar and are attacked by a stripper named Santanico Pandemonium, played by Salma Hayek, who is a vampire. Then it becomes a horror movie.

If you’re gonna remind me of that movie you need to back it up, Zayn.

Yuna — “Mannequin”

As much as I like to pretend that I know all musicians because of my deep explorations of different genres and constant mining of streaming service back catalogs, I became aware of Yuna because I interviewed her ahead of a 2019 Noise Pop show. Whenever there’s a festival, I end up talking to a lot of artists with whom I’m not especially familiar, and some of them stand out enough for me to take notice of their work and follow them after that.

In Yuna’s case it was because the other artists I’d interviewed recently were, to put it mildly, young. They made me feel downright ancient and, in a strictly biological sense, I was old enough to be their dad. Yuna, meanwhile, is roughly my age, so when she told me she got her start on MySpace, I was relieved to get a cultural reference for once. It’s always nice to talk to someone who also remembers MySpace.

Oh, and her music is good too. That also helps.

DJ Khaled featuring SZA and Future — “Beautiful”

I honestly don’t get what DJ Khaled’s deal is. He’s a DJ and producer, which is great, both are valid art forms, but I don’t get how he releases albums when most of what he does on them is say his own name and occasionally mutter a couple words in the background like Puff Daddy on Biggie songs back in the day. Isn’t this a Future song featuring SZA? Why is Khaled there?

I didn’t include it on this list just to ask those questions, though if you have an answer I’d love to hear it. No, I included it because it’s a two-fer, since not only is Khaled Muslim, but SZA’s a practicing Muslim as well. Considering the topic of the list, it counts double.

I do not know Future’s religious affiliation, but he’s got seven or eight kids with seven or eight women, so I’m not sure if any religion would be super eager to associate with him anyway.

Akon — “Enjoy That”

My favorite fact about Akon is that his full name is Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Puru Nacka Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thiam. I am not making that up. He has a 12-word name and three of them are Lu. Great name, if a bit difficult to remember.

Not only is Akon Muslim, but his father was born into a family of Quranic scholars in Senegal. Instead of joining the family business, Akon’s father became a drummer who played with BB King in 1974, so that’s pretty good, too. Hard to argue with that one. He went on to give his son 12 words of name.

Cat Stevens — “Wild World”

In 1970, when “Wild World” came out, Cat Stevens’ name was Cat Stevens. He has more names than that.

He was born Steven Georgiou but took on the stage name Cat Stevens early in his career because, as he tells it, people love animals. Which… I mean, it’s hard to argue with the results. I like cats and I like Cat Stevens songs. I’m not sure about the correlation, but what do I know?

Then in 1978, he changed his name again to Yusuf Islam. See, in 1976 he almost drowned. He told God that if He saved him he would work for Him, and a wave immediately swept him back to shore. So, true to his word, he went shopping for religion. He didn’t find any that felt right until his brother gave him a copy of the Quran in 1977, and by 1978 he had converted and changed his name again.

I would have posted a Yusuf Islam song instead of a Cat Stevens song, but after his religious conversion, he quit music for 25 years to work for God like he said he would, so that was a bit of a tall order.

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis and tweet column ideas to him at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.