Black Jews are a rare find but they do exist from Ethiopian Jews to NYC’s popular Bajan – Caribbean Fever host Dahved Levy. Rapper Shyne is one more person you can add to that list. NY Times recently did an article on Shyne’s transformation into the life of Judaism after his arrest and conviction for a shooting in 1999. Shyne made the move from a jail house to a Yeshiva, he changed his name to Moses Levi and started a new life as a Jew. Interesting things to note in the article is that Shyne’s father is the prime of Belize, Dean Barrow, the apple fell far from the tree in this case. Also when he now raps he incorporates yiddish… Maybe he will collab with Matisyahu…
Living as Moses Levi, an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem (he legally changed his name from Jamaal Barrow), he shuttles between sessions of Talmud study with some of the most religiously stringent rabbis in the city and preparations for a musical comeback.
His transition from troubled adolescent in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, shot at the age of 15, to celebrity gangster rapper turned prisoner turned frequenter of yeshivas, is the latest chapter in a bizarre journey that began with his birth in Belize 32 years ago. He is the son of a lawyer who is now that country’s prime minister and a mother who brought him to the United States and cleaned houses for a living.
“The science of Judaism” as Mr. Levi refers to it, has become his system for living, a lifeline that connects him to God and becoming a better human being. He sees no conflict fusing the hip-hop world with the life of a Torah-observant Jew.
Mr. Levi speaks in the style of the urban streets but combines his slang with Yiddish-accented Hebrew words and references to the “Chumash” (the bound version of the Torah, pronounced khoo-MASH) and “Halacha” (Jewish law, pronounced ha-la-KHAH).
As in: “There’s nothing in the Chumash that says I can’t drive a Lamborghini,” and “nothing in the Halacha about driving the cars I like, about the lifestyle I live.” As a teenager he started reading the Bible, relating to the stories of King David and Moses that he had first heard from his grandmother. At 13 (bar mitzvah age, he notes) he began to identify himself as “an Israelite,” a sensibility reinforced after finding out his great-grandmother was Ethiopian; he likes to wonder aloud whether she might have been Jewish.
He was already praying daily and engaged in his own study of Judaism at the time of his arrest but only became a practicing Jew, celebrating the holidays, keeping kosher and observing the Sabbath under the tutelage of prison rabbis. In Israel, he said, he had undergone a type of pro forma conversion known as “giyur lechumra” (pronounced ghee-YUR le-kchoom-RAH).
The folks at LargeUp have posted a great feature with Belizian artist Hubert Neal, Jr. discussing his 26-piece show The Dudus Chronicles which is currently showing at the Grosvenor Galleries in Kingston, JA. Check out the details below…
When Belizean artist Hubert Neal, Jr. arrived in Kingston, Jamaica on May 20, 2010 to start a residency at Melinda Brown’s Roktowa studio, he had plans to paint Jamaica. Three days later, the military and police invaded Tivoli Gardens in hot pursuit of Christopher “Dudus” Coke, a man who had been, for months, wanted for extradition by the United States of America. The hunt for Coke and its accompanying media coverage was impossible to ignore, and Neal began to paint. The results of this process was a series of twenty-six works titled The Dudus Chronicles, on display now at the Grosvenor Galleries in Kingston. It’s colorful and varied–but also quite disturbing, never shying away from depicting the violence that accompanied the search for Dudus. Largeup caught up with Neal during his last few days in Jamaica to talk about his process, his work, and his position as an outsider looking in.
Off the new LRG mixtape we mentioned a couple of weeks back. Make sure to download that if you haven’t already. You’ll definitely be pleased. But don’t take my word for it…check the video below….
I’ve had both of these in the pipeline for a minute, but only got around to getting them here now. Both tracks are from their upcoming free LRG-assisted Professional Leisure Tour EP, set to drop on December 8th.
Check out the audio below…
Kidz In The Hall – “All Night”
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Another release from the Kidz upcoming freebie, Professional Leisure Tour. “All Night” continues on the same uptempo, up close pace established on “Grizzly Man” and features Marsha’s contributions (again so quickly?) in the vocal department. Despite the unassuming expressions worn in the picture above, these two are devils in disguise evidenced as Naledge espouses the finer points of manwhoring to the melody. The breakdown during the second verse makes it worth the while.
Kidz In The Hall – “The Grizzly Man”
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Fans these days. Their appetite for new material insatiable. When pupils of Kidz In The Hall found out their 3rd LP, Land Of Make Believe, was pushed back to March 2K10, they threatened to drop out the course. Being the accomplished scholars musicians they are though, Naledge and Double “The Hair” O bounced back and linked up with LRG to construct the freEP Professional Leisure Tour, set to drop right on your laptop December 8th, 2009. Naledge & Double-O craftily rework Grizzly Bear’s “Two Weeks” into a testosterone-filled, braggadocios Hip-Hop track, just like we like our music to be.
Our peoples over at Duck Down just released a new free mixtape featuring their roster of artists, including of our folks Kidz In The Hall among many others. I’m loving the artwork they put together for this one too.
The Kids at it again. Check out the new single from the forthcoming album The Land Of Make Believe, “Jukebox” below…
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When Double-0 hit me up with this yesterday, I made sure to get it up here. This is the 1st single from the new Kidz In The Hall album, “Flickin’”…
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Let us know what you think.
The new album, The Land Of Make Believe, hits stores October 13th. To purchase the new single on iTunes, click here: Buy “Flickin’” on ITunes.
