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#3644 -
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
The Nonduality Highlights
covers nonduality wherever it is found. Here are three unlikely
places: Jewish HipHop, Traditional HipHop, and a college
newspaper rant section. For me, this living stuff is what
nonduality is all about because it permeates the populace, it's
satsang for the people, it's nonduality in the streets, the
clubs, the quads, and the culture.
http://www.forward.com/articles/113249/
photo: Under the
Shadow of This Red Rock: Eprhyme, aka Eden Pearlstein,
creates multi-layered rhymes with Hasidism and pop culture
alongside kabbalah and klezmer.
Eprhyme —
Engaged and Diverse Hip Hop Jew
By Jay Michaelson
Published
Here’s what it’s not about: cute Yiddish puns, bar
mitzvah kitsch, Manischewitz cocktails, or the novelty of a
Jewish “insert unexpected form” (rap, reggae, whatever)
star. Here’s what it does seem to be about: post-sacred-cow
radical pluralism, pantheism, religious consciousness fused with
social action, and an uncompromising and unimpressed blend of
urban forms and neo-Hasidic spirituality.
This is Eprhyme, aka Eden
Pearlstein, whose debut CD, “Waywordwonderwill,” hit
stores in early September and was feted at a raucous hip-hop
shindig in
What media and funders
have largely missed about the so-called New Jewish Culture —
and the reason that attempts to co-opt it don’t succeed
— is its authenticity. This authenticity has an integrity
manifested precisely in its mix-and-match multiculturalism: a
particularism that thrives on interactions with the
“outside.”
All these are present in
Eprhyme’s music, but it’s the honesty that’s most
striking. So much of Jewish communal life is about something
other than what it seems: social status instead of worship,
nationalism instead of community, marketing instead of culture,
“outreach” instead of engagement. (They are not the
same thing; are you engaged by missionaries of Jehovah’s
Witnesses?) Eprhyme’s lyrics, music, politics, fans and
record label all cut in the opposite direction — and through
many layers of BS.
Lyrically, Eprhyme’s
rapid-fire word salads are a humanist vision of spirituality
fused with social engagement. Once upon a time, the sentiments on
“Waywordwonderwill” might have been dismissed as idle
raps of a naïve hippie — and only a few years ago, they
were paired with only the cheesiest of guitar-driven folk tunes.
But Pearlstein is not naïve; he’s naked and alone and
trying to fix what’s broken. And his
“Punklezmerap” is as cheese-free as a kosher pastrami
sandwich.
There’s a lot of
deceptive simplicity. Take these lines in “Pride and
Prejudice”:
We have only been chosen
for
that which is within us
to give back to Who Knows One
Bring it all out in the open
Who do you love to hate
beside yourself, which is where it originates
the fallen state
make no mistake.
Within 10 seconds,
Eprhyme (pronounced E-Prime) has railed against antisemites and
Jewish ethnocentrists alike; referenced the Hasidic understanding
that paradise, fall and redemption are all states of mind that
can be experienced here and now; sampled another Hasidic teaching
about the manifest world being the expression of the concealed
unity of the Ein-Sof (Infinite God), and, just a few lines after
quoting Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” and
Rodney King in the same song, insisted on a Jewishness that is
proud but not prejudiced, combative of antisemitism but wary of
elitism and patriotism.
Likewise, when rapping
over sampled klezmer and hip-hop beats, Eprhyme states:
“I’m a consciousness catalyst sent/to abolish
establishment/and this is why/with every word I try/to unify
earth and sky/bring about the renaissance of the Most High.”
He brings together the kabbalistic concept of the yichud
(unification) and a quasi-anarchist political sensibility, a
postmodern musical aesthetic (DJ Spooky, aka Paul D. Miller, is
probably the best source on the affinities between
post-structuralism and hip hop) and, of course, his own personal
vision. (Yes, it does go by pretty fast. It’s fun; it’s
densely allusive.)
Musically, klezmer
isn’t here because it’s clever; it’s here because
Jewishness is in Eprhyme’s guts, as he raps on “Pride
on Prejudice.” It’s as if these forms and languages
seduce some of us even when we try to exorcise them, and we make
them our own: not as a gesture of kitsch, but as an act of
appropriation. Yet it is no coincidence that many of the songs on
“Wayword” sample Muslim chants and Arab melodies, as
well. Part of this is doubtless due to Eprhyme’s own
interest in Sufism earlier in his life. But for the multiracial,
multi-religious mono-generational audience the other night —
Hasidim in semi-full dress, plenty of immodestly clad young
women, a few African Americans in hip-hop clothing, as well as a
whole lot of hipster Jews from a few stops down the L train
— it was clear that the inclusive medium is part of the
message.
To a previous generation,
multiculturalism — particularly when it includes Muslim and
Arab cultures — might have seemed at odds with fervent
Jewish religiosity. This is still the rap against groups like the
left-leaning J-Street: that they’re not Jewish enough, or
proud enough. Well, nondual Jews like Eprhyme believe in their
hearts that, in the words of the Hasidic masters, “Altz is
Gott,” “All is God” (“It’s all God”
is the title of one track), and that the kabbalistic unifications
of hidden and manifest, Holy One and Shechinah (Eprhyme chants
one such yichud on “My Mouth Is a House of Prayer”),
also extend to unifying friend and foe, and crossing political
boundaries with the same love that marks Eprhyme’s musical
excursions.
I wonder: If the message
our established institutions put out was, “The more Judaism,
the more love,” would they have more or less success in
reaching out to the Obama generation?
But all they seem to see
is the surface. A neo-Hasid who raps! Let’s exploit him to
get our kids to go to this party, and not intermarry! No, no, no.
What Eprhyme offers, like Matisyahu and Y-Love and others before
him, is a Jewishness that is part of a global polyglot of
choose-your-own-adventure identities, musical and otherwise. This
is a nontriumphalist, nondual Judaism that celebrates Jewish
particularism precisely because of its place within a
multicultural pluralism. “We’re all one but all
different — that’s what makes us so strong,” as
Eprhyme distills it.
Of course, what I’m
calling exploitation, some might call good marketing. But I think
there’s something deeper going on here. Eprhyme is signed to
Shemspeed, the underground record label of Erez Safar (aka
Diwon), but JDub Records — Shemspeed’s much wealthier
older brother (making John Zorn’s Tzadik its eccentric old
uncle) — has shown that it is possible to bring this culture
to a wider, more mainstream audience, as well. When JDub
co-founder Aaron Bisman suggested a few years ago that
tomorrow’s Jews will get their Judaism as much in music
clubs as in synagogues, he was seen as a radical, if not a crank.
Well, tomorrow is today, and history has proved him correct.
Jewish concerts and YouTube videos may not be a substitute for
summer camp and yeshiva, but they have replaced shuffleboard,
bagels and “Fiddler on the Roof” as markers of Jewish
identity, well beyond the 718 area code.
More power to JDub —
but I must say there’s a purity to underground cultures, a
thrill of the new that is lost when they become too well known.
While I like Matisyahu’s new work, especially his recent
collaboration with the Crystal Method, I still remember that
sense of excitement when I heard JDub’s pre-release version
of his first album, prepping an interview for these pages —
the first time he was covered in the media, I might add —
back in 2004. “This is actually happening,” I thought,
remembering Greil Marcus’s words about the beginnings of
punk rock.
I felt the same way
watching Eprhyme the other night. It was like going to a
synagogue where people really want to daven — not just punch
the prayer clock. They really mean it. This is it; it matters;
it’s real. And for all JDub’s deserved success, it is
amazing that Safar’s Shemspeed record label/promotion
company/posse has managed to create a thriving underground Jewish
music scene without a dime of philanthropic funding. It feels
vital, alive.
Eventually, such cultures
have to fade in intensity if they are to grow larger. It’s
as if there’s a conservation-of-coolness principle: The
wider the diameter, the thinner the depth. As Eprhyme says in
“Face to Face,” “I used to talk a lot for free/Now
I rock it for a fee/But it might be costing me.” Well, I
hope not. Ten years into this “new Jewish culture,” and
new faces, new sounds, new hybrids continue to emerge. It’s
an exciting time to break boundaries.
http://www.forward.com/articles/113249/
Jay Michaelson’s
“Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual
Judaism” will be published in October.
photo: Ascience Gnown,
nondual hiphop artist
http://www.myspace.com/worldwise
About Ascience Gnown and
the Ether Orchidstra
84-rhymin on the cheese bus 86-mastering the dougie fresh dice
roll 88-completely caught up in the beauty of hiphop culture
92-assembled first turntables and mixer from nuthin/learned how
to scratch/mix/began diggin 94-began seriously
freestylin....trust me...im nice with mine...../beatbox sick at
this point.... 96-bought an asr-10 and started making beats and
writing rhymes/joined and left my first crew 97-freestyle
mastery/still learning the ends and outs of beat making 98-first
performance at the Recher Theatre in Towson, Md. It was
hilarious.... 98-first performances with the Octonauts as
Phonetic Armageddon 98-first article writin in the Black Student
Union magazine on Hiphop Culture/Music Editor 98-freestyle
cyphers and L smoke all the time.... 99-performing with
Phonetic/making beats that actually are pretty good/freestyle mo
sicker/mo articles in the paper 99-infamous Towson Festival put
on by the Brotherhood: Hiphop Elements of A Universal
Culture...we killed that festival/music review in Towson's
Towerlight paper... 99-interviewd At Tribe Called Quest, Black
Eyed Peas, Outkast, Wycleff Jean, Pras, Jean Forte and Canibus
(all I do is rhyme....) 00-more Phonetic performances/making
beats still/i will kill you in a cypher.... 00-trip to Amsterdam
that changed my life...discovering the non-duality of Hiphop
during an Ayahuasca ceremony... 01-infamous South Dakota
shows...that was fun and devastating.... 02-teaching youth in
Baltimore City about hiphop and
psychoeducation/freestyling/writing dope songs/performing with
Phonetic/infamous second Elements show 02-bought the D-12, first
set of real turntables, Triton, MPC and all at.... 03-still
teaching kids/working on Integral Hiphop Theory based on the work
of Ken Wilber 03-present in St. Louis at the National Association
of Blacks in Criminal Justice about how to create and maintain a
Psychoeducational Hiphop group. 04-making dope tracks
now/freestyles is bonkers... 04-begin to study the
psychospiritual aspects of Hiphop Culture from the inside out
through Guerilla Journalism interviewing: Heiro, Gangstarr, Mr.
Lif, Aesop Rock, Afrika Bambaataa, Saul Williams, People Under
the Stairs, C-Rayz Walz, The Micronauts, PB Wolf, Murs, Dudley
Perkins....Dres ran from me. The infamous interviews were never
transcribed....... 04-performed with Tone to open up for
Akrobatic 05-beat making/writing with my man Duke/recording with
other folks 06-beat making/recording tracks at Buddhist Seminary
in Colorado 07-finally my first single Soul Controllers drops
........................J-Who Worldwise the Sun of
Hiphop............................
http://www.myspace.com/worldwise
WARNING: CRUDE LANGUAGE
BELOW
I track the use of the
word "nonduality" and my sense is that it is being used
more casually, telling me that the term is somewhat established
within the spirituality mainstream. The following comes from The
McGill Daily, the newspaper of
http://snipurl.com/rlig5 [www_mcgilldaily_com]
The McGill Daily
F*** This: Dear neighbours across the courtyard,
I know you’re trying
to reach transcendence, but could you please cut the f***ing
recorder routine out of your meditation practice? Or if you find
it absolutely necessary to play three notes over and over again
for an hour to attain nirvana, do you think you could do it
somewhere other than your deck? Listen, I know you really want to
understand the duality of non-duality and the impermanence of
existence, and I get it—the recorder’s essential to
your spiritual quest. But sometimes I just want to sleep in the
morning. So please, take the plastic flute SOMEWHERE ELSE.
F*** This! is a weekly therapeutic anonymous rant column. Send us your 200-word-or-less harangues every week. Nothing hateful—just frustrated!