A rapper and convert to Hasidic Judaism tries to “keep the party going” at Jewzapalooza.

By Jacob Dorman

They threw the third annual Jewzapalooza Sunday, September 17 at the
scratch of grass where 72nd Street meets Riverside Park. When I arrived, around three, it was mainly parents with small children and the grandparent class. There were only a few hundred people there,
lollygagging on a grass field that was mainly dirt and sitting on cement bleachers or underneath trees in the back, near the kosher food vendors. Kippot and tsitsis were in effect. Some young people wandered around and tried to get you to sign up for credit cards with images of Israel on them. The Wailing Wall on a credit card. I sat down next to two Orthodox women. Somebody made a speech about how we had to go to a rally protesting the presence of the Iranian president at an upcoming conference at the U.N. and to show support for Israel and the two soldiers still being held captive. Babies gurgled.

Then an artist named Y-Love took the stage. Y-Love is a black convert to Hasidic Judaism who is also a rapper. Or rather, from the sound of it, Y-Love is a rapper who converted to Hasidic Judaism. He bounded on stage with customary hip hop bravado, wearing a white shirt with tsitsis and a beard with peyes tucked behind his ears, underneath a brown peaked cap. He exhorted the few people actually paying attention to “make some noise” and his dj laid down a grimy bass heavy hip hop beat while a live drummer banged away on a drumset. I did a quick visual poll of the septuagenarians seated near me and the response was not favorable. Disgust would be more like it. Disgust and disinterest. Rather disinterested disgust. Some alterkakers rose to go. Others sat there, thick stomached, stoically. I heard someone mutter about rap. On stage, Y-Love kept repeating “true soldiers gotta break, true soldiers gotta break.”

For his next number, he threw in some Yiddish rapping. Up front, a young putz with a kippah danced arhythmically with an Israeli flag, his tsisis flying. After another song or so, two older people pushing eighty wearing matching “Kosher Delight” t-shirts rose to go on their matching Raleigh bicycles.

In his lyrics Y-Love kept praising Hashem and hectoring the crowd to be more observant Jews in a manner that was almost evangelical. During a break he put in a plug for the “Yeshiva he was affiliated with,” Yeshivaetz Zion in Brooklyn or the Bronx, which is the “only Yeshiva I know about” that is keeping it really real, or words to that effect.

Then he promised to kick it “Aramaic revival style.” He launched into a rap with a long Hebrew or perhaps Aramaic section, culminating in an English verse “I’ll be aided through that 6-1-3,” a reference to the 613 laws of the Orthodox Judaism. I never thought of this before, but Aramaic really lends itself to rhyming, as everything ends with an “ah.” On the grass in front of the stage the audience consisted of two twenty year old girls sitting down. On the side where I sat, a three year old wore a yellow t-shirt that said “Somebody who loves me very much went to Montreal and got this shirt.” Up front, Y-love rhymed, “Haven’t seen this many Jews move since the Exodus.” One of the two girls in front of the stage bobbed, while the other was too embarrassed to move. One thick-looking security guard in a blue staff shirt sat with his forearms resting on the metal barricade, looking like a bored former cop.

“We about to keep this party going,” Y-Love said, obviously not able to adjust his rhymes or peppy attitude for the context. He obviously didn’t prepare a ballad. No April in Jerusalem, no Love Supreme, Hashem Supreme, Hashem Supreme. Then the dj cranked up the beat from Slick Rick’s Children Story, which has also been redone by the Muslim Brooklyn rapper Talib Kweli. Only instead of a children’s tale about the ghetto, or a children’s tale about the rap industry, Y-Love had made a rap about the composition of the Jewish community: “1 in 36 wear black…1 in 44 look like me.” To my left there was a bald woman in a head scarf with a long camouflage skirt and black solid shoes.

Y-Love didn’t sound bad. He had a good flow, and sounded a bit like Del, as he announced that he served up “that style cabalistic.” His number one and it seems only subject was God talk. “Which of his requests are you gon deny? That is the state of the nation unified. Which of his requests are you gon deny? That is the state of the nation unified.” Repeated over and over and over again. His tone was almost hectoring. Maybe it’s a Hassidic thing, but I don’t think any other kind of Jew would get up on stage and exhort the rest of the Jews to be more like them. “Try shellfish! You know you’d like it!”

Then he brought on an Israeli rapper who rapped in Hebrew while touching his chest with his free hand. It was a beautiful sunny day by the water, as boats plied the Hudson and joggers and bikers went by the river path. Out in the audience a mother carried her baby, and there were many men with guts who you could tell were “under cover,” wearing yarmalkuhs underneath their bland cotton baseball caps. One man in his sixties had a fuscia polo shirt, khaki shorts, and a baseball cap that said “OpEd.” “It’s about to get crazy up in here,” Y-Love proclaimed.

Jacob Dorman is a historian working on alternative African American religions during the Harlem Renaissance.