During my interview with Kosha Dillz, he mentioned how rappers often portray Jews as “record label executives and lawyers who hoard rappers’ cash.” I decided to do a bit of research, and it turns out that he’s right – pretty much all the references to Jews in hippity-hop are as lawyers or rich kids—in fact, Jewishness is often set up as being diametrically opposed to the street mentality of the authentic rapper (Redman on Def Jammable: “I’m trying to be set for life like a Jew kid”). At the same time, the Jew in rap is clever, especially at manipulating the law.
Jay-Z references the Jewish lawyer a few times in his pre-retirement work (post-retirement Jay-z shouts “L’CHAIM” in his songs to access the coveted Bar Mitzvah market). On Cam’ron’s 2002 single “Welcome To New York City”, Jay-Z raps “Coverage at Centre Street/Got Brafman defending me/’Cause New York will miss me if I’m locked in the penitentiary/The judge says ‘is this that thug/From the kit kat club/But I got enough chips stacked up to make that bitch back up.” He’s talking about a 1999 stabbing incident at a nightclub, playfully referencing his own guilt. The chips that Jay stacks (“came in the came 400 deep”), both from illegal hustling and rapping mean he can afford the best lawyer, which means 3 years probation, and no jail time.
On “Can I Live”, off his own 1996 debut album, the lawyer appears as “Channel 7 News, ’round seven Jews, head dead in the mic/Forgetting all I ever knew, convenient amnesia/I suggest you call my lawyer, I know the procedure.” It’s very visual, with Jay-Z talking to a reporter while surrounded by Jewish lawyers. Rappers from Jim Jones to Jadakiss have used the Jewish lawyer line, to the point that you could call it a trope of New York gangster rap.
Looking at rap outside New York, however, references to Jews are less common and more hostile. The most famous may be Ice Cube‘s “It’s a case of divide and conquer, cause you let a Jew break up my crew…You can’t be the n**** for life crew, with a white Jew telling you what to do.” It’s hard to see this as anything but hateful—Cube was known for his essentialist racial views at the time (around 1991), endorsing The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, a book which blames Jews for the slave trade. Cube marks the Jew as an Other—not only White but somehow more sinister. The Jew subverts brotherhood and destroys society. Isn’t that from Henry Ford?
I can’t find many references to Jews in more new school stuff – as rap migrated commercially from New York to the South, where there are fewer Jews, I think we became less of a reference point. Additionally, as rap moves away from the street-hustler narrative that dominated the music of the 90s, references to lawyers become as dated as slinging crack and gunplay.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind a comeback. Shanah tova.
Max Elstein Keisler is a third-year journalism major at Harvard Extension School and a writer for New Voices Magazine. He’s involved in the local music scene in Boston and the coverage of Jewish music worldwide. His writing can be found at http://maxelsteinkeisler.com. His column, The Product, appears here on alternating Thursdays.
