CROSS-CULTURAL RAP.(State Department promotes rap group Native Deen in 'Shared BValues' initiative)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 23-DEC-02

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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

The rap-music industry has never had a particularly good working relationship with the United States government, nor have rap videos done much to dispel the notion abroad of America as a debased land full of Bentleys, Benjamins, and lascivious women. Nevertheless, a new kind of American rap group may be an integral part of the State Department's strategy to win the hearts and minds of would-be terrorists around the world. As part of its "Shared Values" initiative, the State Department is acting, after a fashion, as the international promoter of Native Deen, a rap trio based in Washington, D.C.

Deen is Arabic for "religion." Though the members of the band--Joshua Salaam, Naeem Muhammad, and Abdul-Malik Ahmad--are African-Americans, not Arabs, the native religion in question is Islam. (As they rap in...

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