As the first generation in his family to be born outside of the plantations, Salim was born in the housing projects in Memphis, Tennessee. The narrative of Salim’s exposure to music is a remarkable one. When his family moved to Detroit, they lived in the notorious “Black Bottom” area during the 1960-70’s Detroit riots. As a young boy in what he calls “one of the most violent neighborhoods in Detroit”, he was drafted into the neighborhood gang at the age of 9. The leader of the gang played the trumpet and, having a soft spot for this young boy, goaded him into learning to play. Salim became very proficient, even surpassing the leader. Noticing the boy’s potential, the leader excused him from the gang.  Salim credits this gang leader to introducing him to the trumpet, his first musical instrument. While learning music at school and with friends, Salim’s most significant early exposure to music was in church, specifically in the Pentecostal tradition of the Church of God in Christ. In this setting he learned that music was a sacred activity capable of linking people to the spirits and the heavens. 

The defining moment came in the 1970s after hearing John Coltrane on albums, Exotica and Miles and Monk at Newport; “It was the most powerful, most intelligent and beautiful thing I have ever heard. It was about me and my experience in a much more elevated form than anything I had heard…it changed everything.” This stirred him to buy a saxophone with money from odd jobs. Salim was enlightened with the intelligence in Coltrane’s music, which also triggered the passion and emotion that he gets from church music and songs like Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly. Often demoralized by teachers for his musical ideas and afflicted by racial and social discrimination in school, this was the much-needed affirmation to pursue music.