From the 'hood to Hasidim Ultra-Orthodox rap star's tale of tragedy and triumph
DAILY NEWS — BY SIMONE WEICHSELBAUM
Published · reached Usenet September 25, 2008
From the 'hood to Hasidim Ultra-Orthodox rap star's tale of tragedy
and triumph
BY SIMONE WEICHSELBAUM
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, September 13th 2008, 7:32 PM
He dodged bullets on a streetcorner. He watched his mother die from a cocaine addiction. But Flatbush's Yitzchak (Y-Love) Jordan is more Hasidic than 'hood.
New York's only known black ultra-Orthodox Jewish rapper left his native Baltimore at 21 for Brooklyn, converting to a religion that drew him into a far different world.
Jordan, now 29, travels the globe rhyming his views - as a black man and a Jew.
"The entire way I look at the world is a fusion between Baltimore and Brooklyn," said Jordan last week, finishing a performance at the Knitting Factory in Tribeca.
"Being black affects everything," he said. "I had kids stare at me like I was a gremlin in Borough Park."
In the song, "From Brooklyn to Ramle," Jordan raps about straddling two worlds:
The same racist systems create the same victims
Half-hour in the pizzeria, they ain't even ask me, man ... hattan I could spend 1/2 hour hailing taxis
That's how I live on the daily
Black man Haredi [ultra-Orthodox]
Can't let these haters faze me 'cuz if I did, I'd go insane!