Rav Yehuda Gets His Groove On

"Said Rav Yehuda: Even silence has its rules," announces spoken word poet Jake Marmer at the start of his new album,Hermeneutic Stomp.

Between his rhythmic poem-spitting and the frantic, tight, dazzling grooves of his backing band, Marmer's voice becomes one instrument in a massive silence-smashing symphony. The poet is by far the youngest and newest member of the ensemble, an ensemble that includes Frank London of The Klezmatics, and Greg Wall, one of the ruling saxophonists of New York's avant-garde jazz scene (and a practicing rabbi). But Stomp is nothing if not accessible, with pop riffs, quick, fun textures, and wise, witty one-liners sprinkled throughout the lyrics.

One track, "Klezmer Bulldog," praises the title pooch as a dumb but earnest creature, and imagines it performing a traditional dance to the rapid, churning, sloppily fast-movingJewish ethnic music: "Wobbling is flirtatious, drool affectionate—this is not about good looks, baby!"

Other pieces, like "The Laws of Dream-Cooking" and "Bathhouse of Dreams," sample characters and ideas from the Talmud, repositioning them in shtetl stories or Russian bathhouses in Brooklyn. Give it a listen here.

- Matthue Roth for Jewniverse

Peter Rosenberg, Hip-Hop's Jewish Radio Star

By Seth Berkman for The Forwards

Growing up in a kosher household in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, Peter Rosenberg became enamored with hip-hop listening to tapes by rapper Big Daddy Kane and scratching records on the turntables he saved up to buy at age 14. Today, Rosenberg is a co-host of one of the nation’s most listened to morning shows, on the iconic New York City hip-hop station Hot 97. The Forward’s Seth Berkman recently talked with Rosenberg about the influence of his parents (his father, M.J. Rosenberg, is a well-known critic of Israeli policy), the relationship between Jews and blacks in hip-hop, and his die-hard fandom of professional wrestling.

Seth Berkman: Your older brother got you into hip-hop?

Peter Rosenberg: I was already like 8. The first tape that I remember having was when my dad went to a store on his way home from work one day and asked someone what he should get for his son who likes hip-hop and he got me one by Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud, “Girls I Got ‘Em Locked.” The first summer I went to sleep-away camp at age 9, I had like eight cassettes with me. I had “Long Live the Kane” [by Big Daddy Kane] and then they all got stolen at camp, Jewish camp mind you. Evidently there was a huge contingent of hip-hop fans there.

Were your parents supportive of your interest?

They were always really accepting. The only time I got any resistance was when I was 13 going on 14 and told them I wanted turntables — they weren’t against it until they found out how much they cost. But I got a job that summer and saved up. They were the same ones I got till this day, Technics 1200s.

They always knew that my interests were different from theirs. I have an incredibly privileged upbringing, not financially, although my parents were always upper-middle class, but I was completely privileged in that I utterly have had their support. They knew I was very committed in what I wanted to pursue and could tell that’s what I was suited for. I don’t think all parents would be that way.

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Reclaiming An Ancient Judeo-Arabic Musical Tradition

Elie Lichtschein for The Jewish Week

On a Monday night in late September, forty people gathered in a spacious, two-floor Chelsea Loft for the debut of the Maqam Project, a fusion of Judeao-Arabic music and reflective Jewish poetry. A maqam is an Arabic musical scale, similar to a jazz mode, which repeats a musical theme while allowing for and encouraging improvisation. Spearheading the project was its musical director, Epichorus founder, and oudist Rabbi Zach Fredman, who was selected as one of The Jewish Week’s “36 Under 36” and serves as rabbi and music director of the New Shul in Greenwich Village. He was joined by a flutist, percussionist, and violin player. St. Louis-based writer and teacher Rabbi James Stone Goodman interspersed poetry pertaining to the parsha, or weekly Torah portion, across the Middle-Eastern melodies.

The word maqam is linguistically aligned with the Hebrew word makom, which means place. "One of the goals of the Maqam Project," Rabbi Fredman said, "is to have each maqam that we use conjure a different place and color." The Maqam Project follows in the footsteps of certain Syrian and Iraqi Jewish communities, who assign each week's Torah reading a special maqam. In synagogue each week, these communities chant the week’s maqam, in essence giving each portion its own distinct identity.

Which is an idea Rabbi Fredman is trying to explore: how to balance each week's Torah portion between the traditional Ashkenazi understanding and representation with the uniqueness of each portion's maqam. Rabbi Goodman's poetry fit nicely into this. Having vowed several years ago to write a poem each week for that week's parsha, Rabbi Goodman has a backlog of parsha poems from which to choose. His choice for Breishit, the first parsha in the Torah, with its reference to the ourobouros, a sign of endlessness and ascending circles, was fitting for the holiday of Sukkot, when the Torah begins to be reread.

It's Rabbi Fredman's hope that the Maqam Project will extend into a weekly video series offering bits of wisdom and Jewish thought that mesh his maqam interpretations with Goodman's words. The pair, along with other musicians, have already recorded videos of maqam-poems through the end of the book of Leviticus.

Elie Lichtschein is a NY-based writer currently pursuing a graduate degree in creative writing. He runs a monthly musical project called Celebrate Hallel.

Rapper Nissim Black Has a Spiritual Message for the Hip-Hop World

The Seattle musician formerly known as D. Black returns with a new album after his latest conversion, to Orthodox Judaism

By Emily K. Alhadeff for Tablet

On a dreary Pacific Northwest winter day, through an unmarked door and up a flight of stairs in a depressing stretch of strip malls just north of Seattle, I found Nissim Black crammed into a tiny recording room with his brother-in-law and musical partner, Yosef Brown. Here at London Bridge Studio, where Soundgarden recorded Louder Than Love in 1989 and in 1991 Pearl Jam recorded Ten, a repetitive electronic beat rolled out of the speakers. Both Black and Brown seemed to be in a state of meditation.

“For me, this record is completely spiritual,” Black, whose round face is typically stretched out in a smile these days, said while fiddling with sound controls on a computer. “I was in a trance almost the entire time.”

World Elevation, out this week, is Black’s third album and emblematic of the third version of his musical identity. Growing up in Seattle’s modest hip-hop scene, Damian Black started out as gangsta rapper D. Black and evolved into D. Black the messianic Jewish-Christian. At 27, Black is again reinventing himself—and his music—according to an intense spiritual journey he undertook when he converted to Orthodox Judaism from Christianity between 2010 and 2012. The conversion, which took him out of the music game for two years, also makes him one of a small but influential group of black Orthodox Jewish hip-hop artists that includes Y-Love and Shyne. But Black diverges from his fellow religious rappers in one critical way: While trying to stay in the game as a serious musician, Black has recorded a new album dedicated to setting the Jewish world ablaze with a spiritual message.

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