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

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 the song "Soldiers," "Some come from far-off lands like Iran and Pakistan / But some are just like you and I / Brought up on corn bread, collard greens, and sweet-potato pie.") Native Deen doesn't rap about bitches and ho's, or make music videos. Because some radical interpretations of Islam equate musical instruments with sex and alcohol, even turntables are off limits; the group uses only "traditional drums"--conga and tabla--and the occasional human beat box. Native Deen performs in Islamic casual: white kufis, or skullcaps; black shalwars over baggy white pants; and black shoes. Their hit songs, spread largely by word of mouth along the Muhammadan wedding and convention circuit, include "M-U-S-L-I-M," "I Only Fear Allah," and "Drug Free."

"After 9/11, the question of how well we are understood overseas was thrown into high relief," an official in the International Information Programs office at the State Department said last week. The information office has published an article about Native Deen for its "Muslim Life in America" series; the story, posted on the State Department Web site, describes the group's message as "decidedly more upbeat than the dark themes of drugs and violence that permeate most rap," and quotes the band member Joshua Salaam as saying, "Our music is American, it's hip, and it's something everybody can be comfortable with." Courtesy of the State Department, media from Kazakhstan and Malaysia have come to the United States and produced stories on the trio as well. "We're showing people that Islam doesn't exist only in the East," the rapper Naeem Muhammad says.

The band was in town recently for a tuneup concert--a celebration of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan, at the Muslim Youth Center, in Bath Beach, Brooklyn--before embarking on a ...