Mon, Nov 29, 2010 page13

• Jewish rapper takes Orthodox path back to stardom

  After a spell in the clink seemed to put an end to his fledgling career, Shyne is staging a return with sanitized lyrics and a newfound respect for the Torah

  • By Gildas Le Roux / AFP, Jerusalem
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  Scantily clad women writhing to the beat are part of the formula for almost any music video, but rapper Shyne prefers to see women more modestly attired, preferably with their arms and hair covered.

  That might make him a minority of one in the rap world, but as a black Orthodox Jew who comfortably sports an outfit that has its basis in 19th-century eastern Europe, Shyne has no qualms about being different.

  He can lay claim to at least three names: his rap moniker Shyne, his birth name Jamal Michael Barrow, and the name he now uses to introduce himself to admirers in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City — Moses Levi.

  

  Photo: AFP

  And he happily mixes the patois of the Brooklyn streets with the language of the Torah, interchanging phrases like “You dig?” with Jewish terminology: “Hashem,” meaning God, and Shomer Shabbas,” for the observance of Shabbat.

  He might seem like a walking contradiction, but Shyne could be charting himself a highly unusual path back into the music business, 10 years after it seemed his short-lived but promising rap career was over.

  In 1999, he was the protege of superstar rapper Sean Combs, better known then as Puff Daddy.

  The pair were at a nightclub with Combs’ then girlfriend Jennifer Lopez when Shyne spotted some people he was convinced were there to hurt him.

  “Somebody was trying to kill me, Combs and Jennifer Lopez, so I gotta defend myself,” he said.

  “I had a gun because, 30 days before that, I was going to the studio and I got shot at ... and once somebody shot at me in front of the studio, I went and got a gun, that’s the only way I know.”

  In the retelling, with Shyne wearing the religious garb preferred by Orthodox Jews, including a knitted skullcap, short trousers, and a pinstriped overcoat, the story seems almost unlikely.

  But at the time, the incident made headlines around the world, and while Combs was acquitted of any violence, Shyne ended up with a 10-year prison sentence for assault, gun possession, and reckless endangerment.

  In the nightclub gunfight, he was accused of firing directly at people, although he denied this and said he shot in the air.

  He admits feeling some bitterness, particularly as he was already religious at the time, praying and fasting, though without a specific framework.

  “I said to myself, why I am in prison, why me, why not the other guy? I pray all the time, I’m fasting,” he said.

  But he came to see the time as a chance to learn more about Judaism, inspired by the Biblical stories his grandmother had told him.

  “I was always praying to the God my grandmother taught me about, which is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses... all those Biblical heroes.”

  Gradually he became an observant Jew, keeping kosher, observing the Sabbath and wearing a skullcap for his daily prayers.

  It was an unconventional turn of events for a man with an already unusual past, born out of wedlock in Belize to a mother who moved him to Brooklyn, New York, away from his father Dean Barrow, now Belize’s prime minister.

  But he liked the structure and confidence his newfound religious framework provided, and upon his release from prison opted to come to Israel to study the faith further and resume his recording career.

  Most days he can be found praying or studying at a yeshiva — a gender-segregated religious school.

  The quiet, all-male environment is a far cry from his pre-prison days, when he sang expletive-laden tunes about “slinging in the streets” as amply endowed women in denim hot pants shimmied around him.

  But his new music has not been scrubbed of references to his old life, and he isn’t following in the footsteps of Orthodox reggae sensation Matisyahu.

  “I’m not making Torah raps, I love Matisyahu, I think he’s a great singer, but I’m not making Hasidic rap, I’m still talking about poor people in Brooklyn.”

  And despite his religious garb, which Orthodox Jews wear as a nod to humility, Shyne wears Ray-Ban sunglasses, a gold watch and drops references to shoe designer Christian Louboutin in a new song.

  With his move to Israel, he is trying to understand the political situation, although he admits he finds it “very complicated.”

  “I pray that there’s a Palestinian state,” he says. “I definitely don’t like anybody trying to strap a bomb to themselves ... But at the same time I don’t believe women and children should starve and suffer.

  “It’s complicated, it’s very complicated. This is not a black and white question, so all I can do is pray.”
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