See bottom of this post, each Jewish rap video in sequence of shared admonishment posts!
I could never do what Ari Melber, host of “The Beat”, does! Known for his intimate knowledge of rap music, culture, and lyrics, and to *sit there* appreciatively silent as a Latino rap artist erases Jewish ghetto presence in the formative rap scene. How did John say it? That rap music is a Black and Latino “culture” thing? Nevermind that Ghetto Jews of the USA brought rap to the Middle East, because rap music is a Black and Jewish and Latino/Hispanic thang – but *inherently Black only*! … I get it, though! I really do! The difference is this – some *real talk* y’all – time for some schoolin’:
Blacks and Latinos/Hispanics are fully successfully *colonized* folks, and have reinvented their Colonizer’s culture in their image – of oppression and submission. Hence, why Black and Latino/Hispanic folk worship the European Colonial god (reinvented in their image), speak the Colonial language exclusively, and take pride (this last one, which they should!) on building – by the very blood of their ancestors – the “American” and “Mexican” world that sits upon still surviving Indigenous Peoples’ lands.
Whereas Jews are like the Pueblo, Navajo, and Cherokee peoples, fully colonized but still unrelentingly *unassimilated* into the Colonizers’ religion and (exclusively) the Colonizers’ language. We keep turning *everything* Jewish – aka, Indigenous, folks! We are, like all Indigenous Peoples, the most outnumbered minority group. In the USA, the collective First Nation members outnumber the Jewish population in the USA by 8 million First Nation members to 5 million Jews.
I believe – and this is just a personal theory, folks – that Jewish contributions and ‘from the start’ involvement in the rap music scene is erased because we are *not* fully and successfully colonized. Then, add to this, the inherited antisemitic Arab-European Colonizer tropes about Jews, that further alienate us from recognition. Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t – all Jews throughout the last 1,600 years of Arab-European Colonialism history know this feeling well! It’s in the blood already! So, most Jews do as Ari Melber does, accepts the erasure without clap back, because we know as a people we’ll always survive this. I have difficulty, though, with *Indigenous Peoples* erasure! So, I cannot do as Ari Melber does.
Note: When I use the word erasure, I mean it in a structural societal social way. It is the act of forgetting less socially significant peoples in urban histories. And this allows anti-Indigenous tropes and caricatures about Indigenous Peoples to replace the historic narrative, because there is no social clap back to the forgetting of all who are involved in history – by those who outnumber the Indigenous minority. All Indigenous Nation members occupied by the USA complain about this daily. Lucky for them, that they don’t also have the burden of being overrepresented in USA media like Jews, an attention that assumes from social narratives the caricature views and beliefs about Jews over the lived historic reality of Jews in the USA.
Maybe this is how to say it: In the established social narratives of the history of the USA, “black” folk are the descendants of the formerly enslaved Africans brought to the continent that Europeans named “America.” What is missing in this social narrative is that this was *after* “white” Europeans had already enslaved surviving Indigenous Peoples and worked them to death, requiring a Transatlantic slave trade to fix this problem. Repeatedly throughout USA history, “Native Americans” have been included in the “black” racial category.
But, this is not emphasized in USA society, not even by most “blacks.” Why is this so? This is the kind of erasure that only an extreme minority experiences within Colonial Arab-European societies. It’s *all* about demographics! If the next Colonialism victim *up* does not speak up for the smaller minorities around them (aka, “clap back” to erasure, historical forgetting), who will?
Jews in Israel, though one-fifth the size of our neighboring Kurdish people (who are Arab-European occupied and deliberately socially erased), still do whatever that Israelis can – to include vocal public advocation for – the Kurdish people. Because, minority voices are too few on their own to successfully clap back. What do I mean? Let’s go to USA demographics.
There are 330 million USA citizens. Whites are 61.6 percent of the USA’s population, over 203 million. Hispanic/Latino are the next largest at 18.7 percent in the USA, nearly 62 million. African Americans are the next largest at 14 percent in the USA, around 46 million. Asians are the next largest at 7.2 percent of the USA population, around 24 million. First Nation indigenous members in the USA, “Native Americans,” are only 2.5 percent of the USA population, only 8 million. Jews are less than 2 percent of the USA population, around 5 million. Polynesians are the smallest demographic group in the USA. All this appropriately +/- give or take to reach 100 citizenship.
Now, seeing these demographics, how do First Nations, Jews, and Polynesians get their voices and histories actually heard, shared, and represented without the concerted and deliberate effort of Blacks and Hispanics to *emphasize* the actual histories of First Nations, Jews, and Polynesians? Thus clapping back at the historical and systemic caricaturizations of these extreme minority groups? We extreme minorities simply lack the physical numbers to effectively represent ourselves in the social media world. Hence, why antisemitism is presently at pre-WWII levels again in the USA, with the help of Hispanics/Latinos and Blacks who have the social megaphones in the USA.
Has it ever occurred to you that the majority of people who socially speak on behalf of the Jewish people about the Jewish people are known antisemites among the Jewish people? And more people are interested in listening to them, than they are to us? Anti-Indigenous racists have more credibility than the actual Indigenous Peoples in this world.
Real change comes from the bottom up. Meaning, the next higher numbered group has got to clap back at their own and educate their own every time their own erase, revision, or trope the smaller group below. And challenge the next larger group above them to do the same.
For example, any time I hear a Jew talk some crap about First Nations in the USA, I don’t hesitate to call them out publicly and correct this racism. I also challenge Blacks and Hispanics/Latinos to do the same! … This real change stops with Jews in the USA! And we’ve been complaining about this for decades on social media.
Jews police our own viscously, because we know what being the minority of minorities is like. We have 5 million to live clap back to in the USA, and this is why it seems Jews are always arguing with each other – because we are(!). What we’re not seeing in sufficient numbers is this happening by minorities with numbers exceeding 40 million – the next groups up – because y’all see yourselves as the bottom minority group socially (by “white” society conditioning).
And too many see Jews as having more social influence – especially in media – than Black and Hispanic/Latino folk. But, who outside of Jews, is checking for their actual Jew cards?! How much of the Jewish overrepresentation in USA society is just recitations of the caricatures and tropes about Jews, being pushed unquestioned and without critique?!
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“Rap was taken from the Jewish people.”
In an April 2005 interview, Yehoshua Sofer made the bold claim that “Rap was taken from the Jewish people. It’s an ancient tool of ours. We rapped to God many times a day through our prayers. Our psalms are rap. Our entire tradition was given over in rap.” … And he is actually *right* about this, if you’re familiar with *traditional* Jewish nusach chanting, which has been going on since the 12th century CE.
Here is Mizrahi-Sephardi (specifically, Egyptian-Syrian) Jewish nusach tradition. Now, imagine a minyan (plus) of Jews all chanting this together every single week day. … It’s rap y’all! Take a listen.
SHACHARIT – Veyatsiv Venachon
Yet, most citizens of the USA, Canada, and Europe think that Jewish nusach is what you hear in a typical “Reform” temple. Like what you see in most Western TV and movie presentations of “the Jews.” To experience traditional Jewish nusach, you either have to be Jewish or open to learning from documentaries about traditional Jewish communities.
The African American culture would be vastly different looking and sounding today, if there had been no extreme minority Jews presence in the USA. Jews, despite being at the bottom of the bottom demographically in USA society, had dual cultural influences upon the future of the Black fight for Civil Rights. “White” passing (Europeanized) Jews funded the organizations and advocated among whites. More insular “Ghetto Jews”, especially Sephardim (Ashkenazim demographic take over happened only after WWII) allowed their ger toshav an opportunity to learn about indigenous Jewish culture. But, it was *ultimately* bound to be formerly enslaved Africans who determined your path and culture as Black “Americans.” What demographics does in a racist “white” Colonial society is to take the “black” racial category and declare it the absolute bottom, thus erasing extreme minority histories and influences on the targeted racial class, socially turning such extreme minorities into caricatures of ourselves separate and apart.
Keep in mind that when Yehoshua Sofer says that rap was “taken” from Jews, he means this as an example of how cultures influence each other – though being so different from each other in our cultures… In USA history, certain black folk saw themselves in their European Christian imposed Bibles, themselves as Hebrews and they latched quickly onto the Jews of the Ghettos as ger toshav (gentile followers). Think 19th century. This is how the Black Hebrew Israelites eventually came into existence. … Ain’t nobody in this world trying to *steal* uniquely Black music genres from Blacks, other than European “whites,” who’ve been doing this since the sub-saharan slave trade.
“When you think of Jews in the Americas, you think of New York City and you think of the United States as being the most important location of Jewish settlement. But in reality, the origins of that story are in the Caribbean… The first [Jewish] communities in the colonial [USA] period were Sephardic. They were expelled from Brazil and they came via the Caribbean, stopping in Spanish Jamaica and then through Cuba… Newport, Rhode Island, had a Sephardic Jewish community that emerged in 1680 who were almost all from Barbados. They were Portuguese speaking, their communal minutes were written in Portuguese and they had names like Lopez, De Costa and Alvarenga.”
… And they did like all Jewish diaspora communities around this world, intermarried with the locals – creating “Jews of color.” Including, intermarrying with local Indigenous populations. (In the USA directly, there are Acoma Pueblo Jews, Anishinaabe Jews, Muskogee Jews, even Mesa Verde Jews.). …
“Somewhere around 200,000 Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. This was one of the largest upheavals of people up until that time. In late medieval/early modern standards, 200,000 people is an enormous dislocation of human beings. It’s a major world event and it has extremely important ripples throughout history. Most of those Jews that left Spain went to Portugal and were forcibly converted to Catholicism but continued to practice Judaism in secret.
So in the community of Recife in northern Brazil, you have a really large Jewish community that emerges in the 1630s and ’40s, and this ends up being the seed community for a whole Jewish population in the Americas. Where it all starts to become a Caribbean story is in 1656, when the Portuguese conquer the Dutch in northern Brazil and kick all the Jews out. Just like in Spain back in 1492. So some of them crossed the borders into what is today Suriname and Guyana.” – ASU prof Stanley Mirvis, assistant professor of history and a scholar of the Sephardic diaspora, Feb 6, 2020.
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Don’t be trōpin’!
People think I’m jokin’,
Seriously, y’all, don’t be trōpin’!
…
Just made this sh-t up on the fly,
’cause not enough are willin’ to ask why.
…
The racists want to chime in,
’cause they think they can get a rhyme in.
But I’ve got them blocked for life,
’cause their words are worse than effing lice.
…
Y’all think that Jews are appropriators because of stereotypes,
But we had you covered generations before with our Siddur word bytes [“to bite, cut into”].
…
We ain’t playin’ y’all for we believe in the long game,
that has kept our people alive l’dor v’dor an’ still without indigenous shame!
…
We Jews sound angry to you all ’cause we don’t get enough genuine representation,
Yet you know from firsthand experience ’cause you’re part of the unrepresented.
…
What does it take to get greater numbered minorities to clap back for us?
Does it require yet another worldwide genocide to become living history before us?!
…
Share if you dare, ’cause we refuse to be scared.
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We Minorities Need To See We Are Allies Y’all!
History is messy and hard to understand, until you stop dividing people according to the Colonial plan. … [The Colonial Arab-European plan for humanity!]
Like every forest that exists on this entire surface of planet Earth, there is a history of marginalized peoples relating that needs to be unearthed.
It’s not enough to look at just the forest or just a tree, embracing our common humanity is what we Sapiens need!
The reason Jews gravitate so clearly to established Black genre rhymes [Rap], is because we have such ourselves in our siddurs that wave our behinds.
There is no way to know who came first upon such a novel anti-Colonial protest idea, only that we feel and see each other and share in this ideal!
Seriously, folks, I was born on an island separate from USA “white”-“black” politics, but it took me *nothing* in my closet to pin this rhyme reasserting our known ready-mix.
(Okay, honesty demands, had to think a half second on politics, ’cause that’s such an anti-Indigenous racist ish!)
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A thought experiment, proofed in a comment snapshot below: In 1978 the Beastie Boys was formed, the first Jewish rap/hip hop group. … What? … You didn’t know they were Jewish? … The Beastie Boys preceded N.W.A. and, by decades, the “white” European “Eminem”. But, in social media, it goes like this … Blacks invented rap, Latinos/Hispanics identified and furthered this “hip hop” music called rap, and then “white” European rappers introduced rap to the Arab-European colonized worlds. … Where are the Jews? Oh, they “white,” too, and not recognized as Indigenous Peoples who are rappers. We see you! All of us Indigenous Peoples around this world *see* you, in *every* interview.
3rd Bass, another Jewish rap/hip hop group came upon the scene a decade plus before “white” European rappers like Eminem became a thang. Check out “Product Of The Environment” … Check out their track … https://youtu.be/KRKDgzlfUBY
Seriously, check out their rap, a decade plus before Eminem … https://youtu.be/KRKDgzlfUBY
But, in social media, it goes like this … Blacks invented rap, Latinos/Hispanics identified and furthered this “hip hop” music called rap, and then “white” European rappers introduced rap to the Arab-European colonized worlds. … Where are the Jews? Oh, they “white,” too, and not recognized as Indigenous Peoples who are rappers. We see you! All of us Indigenous Peoples around this world *see* you, in *every* interview. … So here comes Jewish Sephardi *post-Eminem* “1989” in 2002 … youtu.be/5VqSBb7ZuQo
Which was preceded by Sephardi Hip Hop Jews in the Ghettos of the USA in the 1960’s. Meet, Beny (Benjamin) Melendez, his family, including Melendez himself, were Marranos (Sephardic crypto-Jews). Beny was a supporter of Puerto Rican nationalism. Beny was the leader of South Bronx Puerto Rican gang and was lead vocalist of the musical group Ghetto Brothers, which they started in South Bronx in 1964.
Here’s a good write up about them… The Story of How a Puerto Rican Jew Jump-started Hip-Hop
Hip-hop started with Nuyorican Benjy Melendez and his band of Ghetto Brothers.
I’m done, y’all! … mic drop … and f–k y’all!
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The silence itself Arab-European Colonial social media online tells me that I’m not being heard. No matter what direction we surviving Indigenous Peoples take to be heard. Our lives are nothing but punching up to Colonial settler-occupations upon all Indigenous Peoples’ lands! How do we Indigenous Peoples break this Colonial barrier?!!!
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So, help me to understand this… Clarence Thomas gets rich and appointed to the Supreme Court of the USA by rich “white” European males, despite public allegations of misogyny. Clarence Thomas then gets courted (all but physically taken to bed himself) by rich white European megadonors – free vacations, his mother’s home renovated, gifts and more gifts – all so that his Court opinions benefit rich “white” European males over all other citizens. … Now, what the movie Straight Outta Compton fails to mention, thus giving the appearance of the greedy “white” Jew that is a common theme in Hollywood movies:
Jerry Heller was living with his parents in California when he met Easy-E, because his first music business attempt failed to last. Because he had connections, he was able to help Easy-E start Ruthless Records, putting in $250,000 for a 20% share in the business. Easy-E had an 80 percent share, and Ruthless Records grew to the point it was bringing in over $10 million a month. So, one middle age Jew helped Easy-E to put Compton literally on the vacation map for its gangsta rap fame, and made Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, DJ Yella, and Easy-E rich as f–k – like he did for antisemite Roger Waters (in his previous business) before them.
There are 46 million Blacks in the USA and 5 million Jews in the USA. It really shows the inherent structure of systemic Colonial anti-Jewish education in the USA that Blacks can get rich and powerful and still be utterly antisemitic like their “white” European benefactors – publicly – but Jews who have done nothing but try to do right by others – especially, minorities – are regularly accused and portrayed in media of abusing minorities and being “greedy” Jews, when we Jews help them to progress beyond belief. So, it’s okay when rich “white” European males spoil the f–k out of Black males, but it is an act of manipulation for profit when a Jew does this, without breaking any laws?
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“In the history of American music, there have not been Jewish people exploiting black musicians?” Spike Lee said in his defense to New York Magazine in 2006. “In the history of music? How is that being stereotypical?”
Just like there is Muslim-exploited “Black” comedian antisemites in this world, like Dave Chappelle, yes, there has been “Jewish” exploiters of black talent, too, like Herman Lubinsky. But, demographics and real life history always *exposes* anti-Jewish racist lies! There has always been 9+ times more “Blacks” in the USA than “Jews,” statistical full stop. And Jews have been overrepresented in the music and movie industries partly “because of the way they were shut out of many professions in the first half of the 20th century” and, still, European males took over near *everything* that Jews created.
But the “go-to” Arab-European antisemitic trope in the USA is to caricaturize Jews as being these greedy, “white,” users of minorities for their talent. Nevermind that, just in the USA alone, near all Jews of every presenting skin color – *the* extreme minority of USA minorities, outside of Polynesians – have no direct ties to the music and films industries, outside of being money spending *consumers* of what is produced. And it is usually *minority* ish that catches our money spending fancy! Anti-Jewish racism is a thang in the United States of Colonial “America,” because of Arab-European *obsession* over the continued very existence of “the Jews” in this world! …
There, said the quiet part out loud. If it was not for the Jews in the ghettos of the USA inventing the Nickelodeon, there would be no Hollywood today, full historical effing stop! Look it up. … But, if you go to Hollywood, you’re hard pressed to find an actual Jew there! A whole bunch of European actors playing Jewish roles, but … Where are the Jews?
The new movie “Spinning Gold,” which opened in theaters last week, tells the real-life story of Neil Bogart, the founder of Casablanca Records and a top music executive of the 1970s. It breaks from the mold of most other music biopics in a couple of key ways: The protagonist is a music executive, not an artist or a group, and the music mogul character — in this case, another Jewish one — is not treated as a villain.
The Jewish Brooklyn native whose given name was Neil Scott Bogatz helped promote bubblegum pop and early disco, signing artists such as Donna Summer, Gladys Knight, Cher and the Village People. A notable rock signing was Kiss. In one scene of “Spinning Gold,” the Bogart character (played by Jewish actor Jeremy Jordan, who starred in the Broadway hit “Rock of Ages”) implies to Kiss’ Gene Simmons that he signed the band, in part, because Simmons’ and guitarist Paul Stanley’s real names are Chaim Witz and Stanley Eisen. He relates to them, the film argues, as fellow Jewish guys who hailed from the outer boroughs of New York City. Bogart died of cancer in 1982.
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I’m telling y’all, we first colonized, we Jews are missing something here! We still have a chance to be a true light unto the nations!
” יש לי עסק שחור יש לי עסק שחור
יש לי עסק שחור ואני האדמ”ור
יש לי עסק שחור יש לי עסק שחור
יש לי עסק שחור ואני האדמ”ור “
” I have a black business, I have a black business,
I have a black business, and I am the admor
I have a black business, I have a black business,
I have a black business, and I am the admor ”
This is all of us, Jews, who grew up in the Jewish tradition!
וואלה עכשיו תשמעו כי שמי האדמ”ור
ויש לי תורה חדשה ממש
[פזמון]
תנו לי ראגאמפין תנו לי ראגאמפין
יש לי חסידים חסידי ראגאמפין
[וורס 1]
מה זה ראגאמפין אתם שואלים
זה התחיל בג’מייקה ה-ראגאמפין
באיים הקריביים יש ראגאמפין
הראפ בג’מייקה הוא ראגאמפין
זה כבש את אמריקה ה-ראגאמפין
באירופה ואנגליה ה-ראגאמפין
ביפן הם אוהבים את הראגאמפין
האפריקאים משתגעים על ראגאמפין
כל העולם אוהב את הראגאמפין
ב-MTV שמים גם ראגאמפין
אבל בארץ לא שמים מספיק ראגאמפין
[פזמון]
תנו לי ראגאמפין תנו לי ראגאמפין
יש לי חסידים חסידי ראגאמפין
[וורס 2]
לסובב את הגוף זה הכי מתאים
אני האדמור וכתבתי שירים
Yossi Fine – יוסי פיין – Sim Ragamuffin – שים ראגאמופין
For those non-Jews and successfully colonized (thus, uneducated) Jews, what is meant by the phrase “have a black business” within this song: In Jewish mystic tradition, the page of our scrolls and books have two dimensions that become three with the reader. The words are black but the deeper meaning is in the white between characters. Thus, as a wordsmith, he has “the black business.”
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