Mudd of 5 ELA
Reginald Azyez Moorer-EL, known as Mudd, is an American rap artist from Detroit, Michigan. He is co-founder of 5 Elementz, or 5 ELA, an underground Hip Hop group formed along with partners Proof and Thyme that is credited with developing the sound of Detroit rap in the 1990s alongside Slum Village, a style that would influence future successful rap acts Eminem, Royce Da 5’9”, Danny Brown. He is also credited helping develop the Order of Divine Reality, a grassroots spiritual organization in Detroit credited with helping hundreds of youth throughout the city, with many students going on to a successful career in music, including DeShaun “Proof” Holton, James “Jay Dee” Yancey, Titus “Baatin” Glover, and Robert “Waajid” O’Bryant. He was a co-director of 5E Gallery in Detroit, a a Hip Hop cultural arts hub in Detroit that was active from 2007 until 2016. Today, he is a father of three daughters, an active solo recording artist, and host of the YouTube show The Moorish Mudd Show, featuring perspective on Hip Hop culture, spirituality, relationships, and politics.
Early Life
Mudd was born in 1977 on the eastside of Detroit to parents Ella and Al Moorer, both of whom were active in the local gospel music scene, inspiring him to join the traveling youth choir of Wayside Missionary Baptist Church. In elementary school, he would have his first encounter in music class with James Yancey, whose legend would grow in later years as the celebrated Hip Hop producer Jay Dee / J Dilla. He attended Osborn High School, focusing on music classes where he would learn to play a number of instruments, these classes often featured guest musicians from Motown Records’ famed band The Funk Brothers, including Earl Van Dyke. Many of these lessons would be applied in the early days of Jay Dee’s time learning music production with Amp Fiddler, a solo artist who often performed with Parliament/Funkadelic, the lessons he gave to a select community of young artists was known as Camp Amp.
Spirituality was vital to Mudd’s development, though he would grow away from the Christian teachings of his younger days, he was a prodigal Biblical scholar with a natural curiosity and devout love for God and his community. His studies moved to Islam, taking Shahada prior to attending High School to the disappointment of his parents. In his neighborhood in Krainz Woods, he would meet Al Hajj Ameen Hamid Rasool EL-Bey, a local businessman whose true calling was spiritual development, having had decades of lessons in Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Taoism. Together, Mudd, Ameen and other local spiritual teachers would develop a curriculum of spiritual lessons that would come to be known as “The 22”, a series of twenty two lessons for advancing the spiritual growth of youth. Additional lessons included meditation, Tantra, QiGong, and Kabbalah, with an emphasis on community commitment, diet and exercise, and sexual education, which was considered essential due to the lack of quality sex-ed for teenagers in the public school system in Detroit. These lessons were the heart of The Order Of Divine Reality, whose members were encouraged to sign a covenant to serve the will of Allah for the purpose of helping to save the troubled city of Detroit. An estimated 500 youth are believed to have been introduced to The Order Of Divine Reality as co-founded by Mudd.