“Osama Bin-Who?” Native Deen, and Why American Muslims Shouldn’t Play the Victim : ReligionWriter.com

When ReligionWriter first heard that the American Muslim hip-hop group Native Deen had a new album out this winter, she wanted to buy it right away. Native Deen’s earlier album, The Deen You Know, was played more-or-less non-stop in RW’s
car for months, at the request of her young sons, who loved to rock out
to the title track. (FYI for non-Muslim types: “deen” means
religion in Arabic.) At the December Eid al-Adha celebration in
downtown D.C. (an event well-captured on video by Washington Post religion reporter Michelle Boorstein,) RW brought her sons over to buy the new CD, Not Afraid to Stand Alone, from none other than Joshua Salaam — one of the three members of Native Deen, who also happens to be the youth director at the ADAMS Center, RW’s own mosque. RW’s sons shyly handed over the money, thrilled to see a “celebrity” they admire face to face.