By popular demand (all 3 people reading), here’s the next part. I combined part 4 and 5 so that you’ll be reading for a while before asking for more (or no more).
The Show Begins…
So brother Ahmed was pretty funny. I don’t remember his jokes, but I do remember them being funny, and I do remember chuckling at a few of them. After that, the next act that was introduced was Nazeel (sp?) backed up by an-Nur (or Noor).
At first, I thought it would be the Harper brothers I knew, who had their own group called Noor, but it wasn’t them. The first song was along with music (ugh!), and it was a slower song which basically chorused off “Ya Rahman, Ya Raheem,” a lot of the time.
Their second performance was a bit faster, and it was another song about Allah again. As usual, I found the nasheeds corny, kind of like Christian rock. I guess it’s a matter of taste – back in my days of musical addiction, I was into all the mainstream. Anyway, they finished and left without much ado. After this, the director of MAS Youth came out and said a few words, and then brother Omar Atiyya came out and announced that it was almost time for Maghrib salaah, so the people would be given time for wudu.
Intermission
I wasn’t sure how the wudu facilities were going to be, so I already had wudu. I started wandering around til I found the prayer area and was standing fairly close to the front. Pretty soon, I was in the front row on the extreme right side. Just before salaah started, Imaam Suhayb Webb showed up, and then a whole bunch of younger brothers put themselves in front of the first row and made themselves the first row. Not cool. Worse, I knew almost all of them. A few people ventured forward, and I did as well. Whether that was smart or not…
After salaah was over, and everyone had prayed sunnah, I ventured back to my seat, and I crossed another brother I had met a few nights earlier. Some brother recognized me, but I couldn’t see him (no peripheral vision) and said, “Is that Sir–” and I thought I heard a salaam, but I was out of earshot by that point and the crowd was making lots of noise. I quietly mouthed out a salaam back and then sat down in my chair. By this time, a sister had joined our row, and 4 chairs separated us. Man, why was there mixed seating? Alhamdullillaah, 4 other brothers came and sat between us.
Amir Sulaiman
So the next person brought to the stage was Amir Sulaiman, an African American poet. No music, alhamdullillaah. He has an album, either out or coming out called “Dead Man Walking”.
I enjoyed his poetry recital – very powerful stuff. Very strong, and straight from the heart. Unfortunately, the poetry he was reading was not what he wanted to read. He wanted to read “Dead Man Walking” and I believe another called “Danger”. How did I know? Because he made a point of telling the whole audience repeatedly that that’s what he wanted to read them, but he was censored by MAS. He went on to say that it was in the contract that he signed that he would not read these two poems, and he could not break his word unless they gave him permission.
Of course, everyone wanted to hear it, and of course, MAS maintained their position. And the brother kept saying over and over, “I’ve read this in Congress, in front of Jews, in front of Christians, and all other types, and it’s only the Muslims who censor this, and this just shows us the state of our Ummah.”
I was interested in knowing what the lyrics were, and actually found his myspace profile online and got to hear it directly from him. Very cool stuff, and I think I understand why they censored him. Here it is:
There’s really no vulgarity there, just raw emotion. It was refreshingly uncensored from the PC polite police pundits that typify North American Muslim dialogue. I may actually buy the CD 
Native Deen and the Bongo Battle
The next act started out with two drummers in an apparent battle of styles. After this, Native Deen came out and performed a number of songs. Unfortunately, the music returned, to my disappointment.
I personally didn’t find anything special about their performance and was actually starting to space out. Even the music didn’t sound all that great. When I was paying attention, I didn’t hear anything wrong with the lyrics themselves, and it sounded like a lot of encouragement to do good, worship Allah (SWT), never give up hope in His Mercy, and so forth.
Heh, one of the volunteers tried to get a Naughty by Nature Hip Hop Hooray hand wave going on, but the poor kid was defeated by the Chicago crowd’s apathy before he even knew what hit him, and he quickly scurried back into the crowd of volunteers who were simply standing at the stage and watching the show, and occasionally annoying the people in the front rows by blocking them (ha ha!).
Eventually, one of the Native Deen brothers jumped off the stage, into the audience, and ran up and back down the aisles before finding two kids, a boy and girl, whom he brought up to the stage. They gave the kids free shirts and free CDs (of their own work). For some reason, and I can’t explain it, that really hurt (the free CDs). I couldn’t help but think, subhanallah, they’re being caught at such and earlier and innocent age. Tears began to well in my eyes, but being the testosterone laden dude that I am, I fought it down and continued to watch the show.
At this point in time, it occurred to me that Native Deen seemed to be spending a lot of extra time on the stage. A lot of extra time. Somewhere in there, the drummers tried to start up a Queen “We Will Rock You” beat, but that quickly transitioned into another nasheed (can’t seem to recall which).
The songs continued, and one of the members of Native Deen started asking people to pull out their cell phones, open them up, and start waving them around. Yes, welcome to the 21st century. We don’t use lighters anymore, we use cell phones.
Anything else? Ah yes, call me an early 90s dork, but the drummer ripped a riff off of Bell Biv Devoe’s song “Poison”. Come on guys, you can do better than that.
