Dreidel I'm Gon' Play…
In an earlier post, KRG put out a call for new and listenable Hanukkah tunes. I nominate this year’s big Hanukkah release, “Songs in the Key of Hanukkah” – an eclectic anthology compiled by Erran Baron Cohen and featuring songs performed by Cohen, Idan Raichel, Jules Brookes, Yasmin Levy and Orthodox African-American rapper, Y-Love.
Cohen has been fairly visible promoting his disc. He was recently interviewed by Scott Simon on NPR’s Weekend Edition, where he had this to say:
I remember from my childhood, listening to Hanukkah songs at home and listening to these children singing slightly out of key and some wonky old piano player to make a terrible record. The idea was to create a new concept in Jewish holiday music, something that everybody would enjoy listening to.
Click above for a taste: Cohen and Y-Love (along with some other unidentified hasidic-looking folk) performing “Dreidel” on Conan O’Brien.
If “I have a little dreidel” is on it, I’m not sure that’s so “listenable”…
Dude, don’t complain. It’s a nice hip-hop version with a Yiddish rap break by Y-Love.
Herb Alpert horns + a march beat = hip-hop?
I find the Hasidic drag pretty offensive, and pretty unnecessary. I’d be more compelled by the project if he hadn’t decided to go there.
I find the Hasidic drag pretty offensive, and pretty unnecessary. I’d be more compelled by the project if he hadn’t decided to go there.
To say nothing of the Yeshua (Jesus) graffiti in the video.
Someone posted this to another email list:
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Since the Hebrew name in the background reads “Yeshua” (Jesus), people might want to know what one of the comments said, “Actually, the ‘Yeshua’ was a mistake – it was supposed to read ‘Yehoshua’, which is the singer’s Hebrew name. He was apparently highly embarrassed when he was alerted to the rather ironic mistake.”
If this is true, I’m glad to hear it. (It does seem like it would be a way too subtle way of getting people interested in Jews for Jesus to spray paint “Yeshua” in the background.)
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I think it’s slammin’.
Why is only Y-Love given a religious and racial description in this post? Just because whiteness and liberal Judaism is invisible does not mean that it should pass without comment.