Malang - Thousand of audiences, Friday night (19/8), was stunned by the action of hip hop musical group of United State. It was not like as common hiphop. This musical group that consist of three-faced Afro-America was an American Islamic Nasheed Group. Native Deen, the group name, it was brought by the U.S Consulate General Surabaya to perform at UMM Dome in the mission of cultural diplomacy with the theme of International Ramadhan Tour.

Unfortunatelly, not all members of Native Deen, Naeem Mohammad, Joshua Salaam, and Abdul Malik Ahmad, could perform together, as in Surabaya, Pontianak, and Jakarta. Naeem could not join the performance because of another activity. "He is busy, he has another bussiness with the orphans," said Joshua Salaam.

The UMM Vice Rector II, Mursidi, said his fully gratitude to U.S Consulate General who entrusted UMM to be the host of International Tour. He added, during Ramadan, there were a lot of activities at UMM. Not only serious activities conducted but also joyful Ramadan event such as this concert was held.

“This is really busiest month at UMM. Several big events that brings up thousand audiences scheduled in this month. Those all in the purpose to enliven Ramadan with trully spiritual," explained Mursidi accompaniying the UMM Rector Muhadjir Effendy watching the concert.

U.S Consulate General, Kristen F. Bauer very welcomed of UMM openness to this concert. She declared that in such ways, UMM cooperation with U.S Consulate General are  good, then, there were no reason not to choose White Campus (UMM.red) as the host of that free concert. "We trully hope that this concert will build up some more cooperations in art and culture between two contries, Indonesia and America," she stated. America's mission, she added, to develop constructive dialog through mutual understanding that reach out Indonesian teenagers.

Native Deen, the Islamic Group from Washington D.C. was one of famous and prestigious Islamic hiphop group at U.S. The music sang combined the hiphop rythm with Islamic lyrics.  What was more attractive thing that Native Deen shared their experience to be Moslem through story and, ofcourse, song. The songs they sang were; Sakina, Intention, Be at the hip-hop, Greatest One, Small Deeds, Ramadhan, Thalaal Badru, Labayk, Stand Alone, and Muslim.

In this two hours concert, they also distributed several gifts and souvenir to the audience. Native Deen directly choose the winner by jumping up to the srambled spectator who wanted to greet them.

Native Deen also collaborated with Indonesian Joy Band to sing Indonesian hiphop and American one. For the love expression, Native Deen, performed Silat to entertain the audience. Silat Practice they got from their learning in Indonesia Silat Community at America. "We love Indonesia. We want to perform Indonesian Culture. Do you know Silat? Yes, ofcource, I want to perform it. Here we go," said Joshua entertained and greeted his audience nicely.

(hm-uhamka, retreived from umm.ac.id)