Gangsta rapper turned Orthodox Jew dropping beats in New York

He’s straight outta synagogue.

Nissim Black, a black Orthodox Jewish rapper from the streets of Seattle, landed in New York with a bang this week, headlining a live performance in Passaic, N.J., Thursday and talking as a visitor of honor at rooftop reception with the Israeli consulate the following afternoon. 

Black — making the most of a 7:55 p.m. summer time Shabbat begin — then made a bee line for Monsey in Rockland County Friday night, the place he’s celebrating the weekly vacation with mates throughout his go to.

“I believe he has very relatable music,” Raizy Damico, 20, instructed The Publish, saying she and her fiancé, Shua, braved the rain to make the two-hour drive from Waterbury, Conn., Thursday for the live performance, the place roughly 300 different principally Orthodox Jews raised the roof on the Factory220 occasion area.

“He takes rap and elevates it to develop into holy,” she mentioned.

Black, 34, lives in Beit Shemesh, about 18 miles exterior Jerusalem, together with his spouse and 6 youngsters and says he couldn’t be happier amongst his individuals in Eretz Yisrael.

“We moved to Israel 5 years in the past. It was the fruits of a whole journey,” Black mentioned. “If you wish to be nice in leisure, you progress to LA, however to be nice in spirituality, this was the place to be and I needed that greater than anything.”

Black’s journey has been an extended one. He was initially born Damian Black — with no Jewish ancestry —  within the inside metropolis of Seattle in December 1986. His beginnings have been bleak.

“My father was a giant drug supplier … I joined the household enterprise very early on,” Black recalled. “I used to be smoking pot by the point I used to be 9 and dealing medicine once I was 12 and operating with the mistaken crowds.”

He started his musical profession as D.Black, rapping about violence, blight and parroting the gangsta rap of individuals like 50 Cent. He was gifted sufficient to file his first skilled file at age 13. After a rival rapper was virtually killed, Black knew he wanted to get out.

A neighborhood youth group finally set him on the trail of spirituality, but it surely was an extended one. He bounced between Islam and Christianity earlier than deciding on Judaism.

“The Jewish story is about up and downs,” Black mentioned. “In each different e book, everyone seems to be all the time good. Jesus is ideal. Mohammad is ideal. And it wasn’t relatable to somebody like me who had many ups and downs in his life.”

The method, which he did alongside his spouse Jamie (now Adina) took greater than two years and required the grownup Black to bear a ceremonial circumcision and a grilling earlier than a courtroom of rabbis earlier than he was lastly within the membership.

“They ask you questions on sure legal guidelines and customs. How do you make tea on shabbat? What in case you are stranded in a non-Jewish neighborhood? Why not be a righteous non-Jew?” Black recalled, saying he breezed via the method.

He’s nonetheless engaged on Hebrew, however retains strictly kosher.

By all of it, Black by no means stopped rapping, although he’s since dropped the weapons and violence and focuses on extra uplifting content material. He says he can’t even hearken to gangster rap anymore.

In 2013 Black launched his debut album, “Nissim.” This was adopted by “Lemala” in 2017 and “Gibor” in 2019. His music movies on YouTube have racked up hundreds of thousands of views. Pros give him excessive marks. His most up-to-date single, The Hava Song — which includes the standard melodies of the Hava Nagila — hit YouTube in January.

“He’s good! His stream supply and music is nice! His movies are humorous! He may very well be a TV star. I may see him in a sequence,” Darryl McDaniels, of the long-lasting of Run-D.M.C., instructed The Publish.

McDaniels just isn’t Black’s solely well-known fan.

In 2013, Black was personally invited by President Obama to the White Home Hanukkah celebration as a visitor. As a twin US-Israel citizen, he nonetheless retains an in depth eye on home politics.

“I did expertise systemic racism,” Black recalled, citing his outdated predominantly black Seattle highschool that all the time had new sports activities gear however the place college students needed to struggle for brand new books.

However he had robust phrases for Black Lives Matter, a motion he referred to as “poison,” saying it didn’t deal with actual points and created pointless “division” inside the neighborhood.

“I believe it’s a sham, being fairly trustworthy. I’ve talked to many mates of mine from the African American neighborhood and I don’t see how that motion has been serving to the African American neighborhood,” he mentioned. “After I was rising up I used to be by no means afraid of the police.”

“Rappers discuss killing rappers on a regular basis after which they run round saying, ‘Black Lives Matter,’ ” Black continued. “The true black lives that matter are the kids which can be rising up with out a father. It makes a giant distinction.”