Top Jewish Bands Help Celebrate JDub’s 5th Birthday
On July 20, I traveled across the East River from Manhattan to the bandshell in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park for a day-long concert put on by JDub Records, the not-for-profit Jewish music label best known for launching Matisyahu’s career. The show did double duty as a fifth anniversary party for JDub and an installment in the free Celebrate Brooklyn concert series, which takes place in the park throughout the summer.
JDub offered a diverse program, with artists representing genres ranging from hip-hop to cantorial music.
The Tel Aviv-based DJ crew Soulico got the party started with extreme energy, spinning from five turntables as they intertwined Israeli hip-hop with popular Latin American Reggaeton sounds and old school U.S. favorites like Real 2 Real‘s “I Like to Move it.” They were joined onstage by the Israeli-Ethiopian MC duo AXUM and the Israeli rapper Sagol 59, who announced that he was happy to be in Brooklyn, the birthplace of hip-hop, but that now it was time to “make room for some Israeli hip-hop.”
When Sway Machinery took the stage following Soulico’s set, dressed in full rude-boy suits and wielding horns, I expected that some swing or jazz was in store. Instead, frontman Jeremiah Lockwood sang cantorial blues with a horns section blasting in the background. The supergroup features members of Balkan Beat Box, Arcade Fire, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
The crowd was sparse throughout the early portions of the program, but by the time indie rockers DeLeon appeared it had grown to a large gathering whose makeup was somewhat reminiscent of my high school NFTY events. Based in Brooklyn, DeLeon’s music claims ancient Sephardic influences. They performed a 500-year-old Ladino drinking song, along with another translated Ladino song about adultery.
The headliner of the party was the folk-punk sextet Golem. Golem was outfitted in shades of red and black, and fronted by an accordion, violin, and tambourine. Golem calls Brooklyn home, but finds inspiration in Eastern European and Yiddish musical traditions. They began with an anti-war song about Odessa, referring both to Little Odessa, near their homes in Brooklyn, and Odessa in Ukraine where their ancestors came from. The party really got started when Jon Langford of the punk band the Mekons appeared onstage to play along with Golem.
The celebration ended in full force with a Sergeant Pepper-ish horah, a collaboration between Golem and the Hungry March Band. It was as if all the sounds, influences, and cultures of the night were coming together in one crazy, celebratory song and dance.
