Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
“Standing Silent” This is a profoundly disturbing film. It’s not just the subject matter, although pedophilia isn’t exactly popcorn flick material, it’s the way it’s shot, the color scheme, everything about it. You know how in the “Twilight Zone,” a man could wake up in a world where everyone had four stomachs and goat horns…
When I was at Shemspeed’s CMJ concert in Brooklyn, I got the chance to talk to Y-Love. He called out Jay-Z, talked about going more pop with his sound, and dropped some theology. KEISLER: Long story short, how’d you come to Judaism? Y-LOVE: I saw a commercial on TV when I was seven years old…
“Rare and based” according to random twitter cats. How many times can I say “hipster” without looking lame? Part one at Simi Lampert’s YU Beacon (opening acts): After Yellow Red Sky, Max Jared takes the stage. Jared bears an uncanny resemblance to Goldstein from the Harold and Kumar movies, and his music kind of sounds…
For me, hip hop is my secular music. After I’ve been working a shift at the Hillel for like 10 hours surrounded by Hillel-y Jews, I want to put on some grimy stretch and bobbito freestyles or some dirty south trap music. So I wasn’t sure how I felt about Shemspeed artist Y-Love, a Chassidic…
Dude hit me up on twitter so I had to post it. He says, “I’m late at night wasted with my sweatpants on”. He talks about cutting a hole in his sweatpants for sexual purposes. Like I said, I had to post it. Required reading: My interview with Kosha Dillz from a few weeks ago.
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…
When I first heard that Drake was firing shots at Kanye, I didn’t care. That’s the problem with yacht rap: It’s too comfortable for a real beef. Back in the day, rap beef was something entertaining. Who can forget when Cam’ron called 50 Cent “a gorilla with rabbit teeth” (below, rabbit teeth at around the…
I’m not old enough to have real nostalgia for the 1990s–the oldest music I heard as a kid that I still listen to has to be the singles off Speakerboxx/The Love Below. But I’ve heard more than enough about it—bands were ethically purer, less willing to sell out, hip hop wasn’t commercialized, the Simpsons was…
Crossposted from hipsterjew.com Maybe hip hop has just moved on from the Beastie Boys. I don’t want to be the one to say it, but listening to Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is, while not painful, not something I’d do more than twice. All the problems of the album you can hear on track 3,…
I saw (and interviewed) Yemen Blues back in March, when they did a set for the Boston Jewish Music Festival. Their album hadn’t come out yet, but live they were a tight band, experienced sounding. Their album came out a few days ago and I copped it, mostly on the strength of that concert. Considering…
When I’m in a cypher, I don’t have time to plan my rhyme, I don’t even want to use that part of the brain. I start thinking about your rhyme scheme, or even consciously formulate a rhyme and I lose the beat– and the beat is everything. A rapper who establishes a rhythm with their…
I have no idea why, but the Obama administration has been very warm toward the Syrian regime, calling the dictator/son of a dictator Bashar al-Assad a “reformer”. This leads to the obvious question, what does that make Pol Pot? While Syrian police have been killing protesters en masse, the US has been silent. In fact,…
It was small stuff, but it bothered me. At 3:45 PM, I was waiting for the bus, hoping I wouldn’t be late for work. It was Sunday afternoon, sunny out—I couldn’t find my ipod before I left my apartment so the wait was killing me. You know, playing tetris on my phone, texting people I…
Real talk, I hate Comcast. We pay 75$ a month for internet (which is way too much), and it only works around 75% of the time. That time did not include most of Thursday. When I call customer service to complain, they pretty much tell me to shut up. What else can I do? They…
Recent posts on Pesach got me thinking about my own kashrut practices. To my non-Jewish friends, I’m that guy that’s really Jewish. I have a mezuzah up on my front door and my bedroom door; I have thick glasses and a not insignificant nose; I work at a synagogue. And I kind of keep kosher….