At Native Deen shows, audience members are more likely to be from Middle Eastern or South Asian backgrounds than to be American blacks. One reason, according to Suad Abdul Khabeer, a Purdue University anthropologist who studies Islamic hip-hop, is that Native Deen\u2019s \u201charmonies and melodies sound like the kind of nasheed\u201d\u009d \u201d\u201d Muslim praise music \u201d\u201d \u201cyou get from the Middle East.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
As a result, Dr. Abdul Khabeer said, Muslim immigrants who may look down on African-American culture find Native Deen\u2019s work palatable, while American blacks may find it insufficiently aggressive, sonically speaking. \u201cHip-hop lite doesn\u2019t speak to them in the same way,\u201d\u009d Dr. Abdul Khabeer said. \u201cBlack audiences are like, \u201d\u02dcThat\u2019s kind of lite.\u2019 \u201d\u009d<\/p>\n