Drake won his first Grammy last night, and it’s safe to say the award has already gone to his head. The rapper’s confidence has skyrocketed with each successive hit, and nowhere is it more visible than in his song lyrics. Let’s start with Drake’s claim in his new single, “Started From The Bottom,” that he wears “every single chain, even when he’s in the house.” It’s an odd type of brag that doesn’t even sound cool to imagine doing. It sounds like it would be really heavy and get in the way of regular tasks like opening the refrigerator or trying to find the remote. Drake owns what, like twenty chains? At least twenty. No one wears twenty chains at once—2 Chainz only wears two at the same time, which, according to Yahoo! Answers, is the acceptable limit.

What’s more, Drake might actually be telling the truth. Claire Hoffman’s memorable GQ interview, which ended with Drake asking if they would have sex, describes Drake’s house as the type of place where opening the fridge door is one’s last concern: “bronze animals—lions, elephants, giraffes!—checker the lawn, glimmering in the last light of the San Fernando Valley sun. A giant fire, fit for a king from Middle-earth, burns in an outdoor fireplace, and a flat-screen TV plays Sixteen Candles.” The man himself is humbly adorned with “two long diamond-rope necklaces.”

The king of bragging we hear in “From The Bottom” isn’t new to Drake. He’s as cocky as they get in the rap game. Which is fine, but what makes this single stand out, and what’s been drawing some ridicule, is its emphasis on class. The title gives it away—Drake started at the bottom, now he’s on the top. Along with the single he included a note on his blogspot (bless you, Drake) that partially read,

I feel sometimes that people don’t have enough information about my beginnings and therefore they make up a life story for me that isn’t consistent with actual events. My family and my second family (consisting of the best friends anybody could ever have) all struggled and worked extremely hard to make all this happen. I did not buy my way into this spot and it was the furthest thing from easy to achieve.

Drake’s background is pretty well-known at this point—I wouldn’t be writing about him for Jewcy if he didn’t have a Jewish mother—through a friend in school he was able to get onto the Canadian teen drama Degrassi as Jimmy Brooks, the nice guy (when Marco is having trouble coming out of the closet in Season 3, Jimmy organizes a sleepover with Marco and Spinner, where Marco saves Spinner from choking on a piece of cheese, helping them to later come to terms with Marco’s sexuality).

Drake grew up poor in a wealthy Toronto neighborhood, a child of divorce with parents living worlds away from each other in Canada and Tennessee. That’s got to be tough on a kid. But it’s not quite Chief Keef and Young Chop tough, growing up amidst Chicago’s shocking gang violence, murders getting announced regularly over the summer, and the mayor going on national television to plead with gangs not to target kids. That feels more like the bottom. And there’s no breakout role on Degrassi in that story.

Drake doesn’t try to downplay his squeaky clean TV past, but the choice to portray himself as such an underdog while 17-year-old Keef is heading to prison (and has a daughter) seems a bit much. Arguing with your mom “every month” is rough, Drake, but it’s not prison. The explosion of diversity of styles in mainstream rap over the last few years, an explosion Drake has partially led, has in turn expanded the range of allowable topics to rap about. So why return to the same old authenticity debate that we’ve been hearing since Ice Cube? Especially on a pretty lame track (to be fair, it’s got a great beat).

That’s the real problem here. Drake can talk about his upbringing as much as he wants, but he’s doing us all a disservice by playing this ‘I’m real’ game, because it’s 2013 and that shit matters less and less every day. More then any other type of music, rap has long been dominated by street cred—Lana Del Rey-gate was nothing compared to how 50 Cent ended (like really ended) Ja Rule’s very successful career with the song “Wanksta”—but it’s not 2002 anymore. With everyone creating, destroying, and reimagining personas on the Internet anyway, it’s increasingly pointless to rely solely on bragging about where you came from.

We know you’re at the top, Drake. Tell us what comes next.

(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

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What exactly inspired Rick Ross to name his latest mixtape The Black Bar Mitzvah? There’s not much in the text to give us any clues. Ross mentions the mixtape’s name a few times, but no more or less than he does Meek Mill’s upcoming Nightmares and Dreams (to be subtly released the day before Halloween!), his own previously released God Forgives, I Don’t, the upcoming Maybach Music Group tour, or the assortment of other projects and groups and associations that come with a mixtape released by the most powerful name in radio rap.

The only direct focus comes in the “Rosenberg” skit, in which New York DJ Peter Rosenberg sells out his heritage to take on the role of rabbi commenting on a “lavish” lunch spread and “the beautiful titties hanging out at the bar mitzvah service” (to be fair, I’d probably do this too if Rick Ross asked me). Weirdly, church organs and a Latin-sounding choir play in the background, strongly suggesting that Ross has never actually been to “Beth Shalom, Miami,” as Rosenberg claims.

Logic dictates that Ross got this idea from Drake. Drake, who brought the age of getting re-bar mitzvahed down from 73 to 25 with his “HYFR (Hell Yeah Fucking Right)” video earlier this year. Drake, who is actually Jewish. In the instant-classic music video, Drake’s re-bar mitzvah is a mixture of your typical synagogue-going crowd—and Lil’ Wayne and DJ Khaled. As Rembert Browne wrote in Grantland, the video was both ridiculous and deeply personal. Not entirely logical from the outside, it clearly felt right for Drake and the moment: “His world is a collision of cultures, so why pretend that any of them live in silos?”

Drake shows up on The Black Bar Mitzvah, but doesn’t bring any Talmud quotes with him. Instead, he’s got the most victory-lapping verse on the whole victory-lapping album; he sounds drunk and it’s terrific. “You let Drizzy get a verse, you gon’ get this worrrrk!” he slurs, like your best friend celebrating a promotion. Ross’ mixtapes have a way of bringing the out the best among those chosen to guest, and Bar Mitzvah is no exception. Rap baby Rockie Fresh steals the show with lines like “Like racism/I’ma be around,” 2 Chainz shows up because Obamacare made it illegal to have a mixtape in 2012 without him, and the whole thing runs pretty smoothly. Ross comes off as a slightly weird, very rich person who can make people feel successful just by being around them.

Basically, it feels like a normal mixtape, which makes the Jewish trappings even odder. The cover art, with a golden Ross popping out of a Star of David, feels like the end result of some historical fiction where Israel’s main export is customized 1970’s shag vans. It’s absurd—and absurdly eye-catching—which is precisely the point. It could raise questions about black-Jewish relations, but of course it doesn’t. This is a Rick Ross mixtape, and the guy who has claimed incarcerated drug dealers like Big Meech and Larry Hoover as role models isn’t exactly interested in an intercultural dialogue.

The closest historical point of reference is Jewish Mafioso Meyer Lansky, who’s been given shout outs from all-time legends Jay-Z and Raekwon. Lansky, who ran casinos in Cuba for a decade and was denied the right of return by Israel for his criminal activities, was also fictionalized as Hyman Roth in The Godfather. This would be a natural meeting point for Ross and The Jews, given how so many Maybach album covers tend to resemble the poster for Coppola’s masterpiece. Yet while the Jewish Mafia is given a namecheck on Ross’ version of Future’s “Gone to the Moon,” Lansky is nowhere to be found.

The Black Bar Mitzvah will definitely cement Ross’ place among 14-year-old Jewish private school kids looking to spend their bar mitzvah money while also wanting to be black, but that’s about it. He’s taken a stereotype once used as an excuse for vicious discrimination and presented it to be as harmless as it actually is. That we can look at an album cover like this and see nothing but the universally bizarre is without a doubt a good thing. If you’re keeping score at home, you can call this one Good for The Jews. Ross thought up at least one good tagline for The Black Bar Mitzvah, and it’s a fitting one: “Everyone’s invited.”

Previously: Watch: Drake’s HYFR Bar Mitzvah Wins Best Hip Hop Video at MTV VMAs
It’s Drake’s re-Bar Mitzvah, and You’re Invited!

From this author: Why I Gave Up God But Still Keep Kosher
The Beastie Boys Album That Changed Everything

The post Why Rick Ross’ ‘Black Bar Mitzvah’ is Totally Fine for the Jews appeared first on Jewcy.

I don’t care about food. Sometimes, I’ll forget to eat until three or four in the afternoon, at which point I’ll go to one of two cafes and get the same sandwich I always get. I often have the same meals day in and day out, with only the slightest variety in high-carb intake: instant mashed potatoes, seven minute pasta, raw cookie dough. If I ever tell you I’m going to cook for you, it will be a grilled cheese sandwich, maybe with a flourish of avocado if I’m feeling fancy. Beyond, needing it to live, food is just not a priority.

Growing up, however, I was told that God cared very, very much about what I ate. It was so important that God, and rabbis doing his bidding, created an elaborate set of rules to make sure I kept my body pure. Keeping kosher (kashrut, whatever) is ultimately the greatest divide between Judaism and Western Society, a day-to-day reminder that to be Jewish is to Not Be other things. Big Macs are not yours, Red Lobster is not yours, the food of a hundred other cultures from a hundred countries is not yours, nor are you to touch a piece of it. You have kugel.

I still keep kosher. I have, however, given up most of the other religious beliefs I was raised with. That makes me a kosher atheist, and I’m not the only one. A recent profile of Ezekiel Emanuel, wonder-doc and brother of Rahm and Ari, reveals that he, too, is an atheist who keeps kosher. Lisa Miller picked up on this, and questioned his eating habits in the Washington Post. Determining that Emanuel’s own reasoning is “wobbly,” she concludes that the real reason an atheist would observe these dietary laws is because—wait for it—they aren’t atheist at all! Rather, keeping kosher is a way to remain in contact with the “transcendent parts of life,” whatever those are. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be an atheist. She writes:

Usually when a person ditches religion, he or she also happily ditches the antiquated rules and regulations that go along with a strict observance of faith. Good-bye, stupid rules about who can have sex with whom, and under what circumstances!

Really? That’s what people are thinking about? I’d never claim to speak for anyone else, but my own coming out as an atheist was nothing but painful. I grew up in a proud, loving, religious community. Every aspect of my identity was defined by a religious Judaism: not just who my friends were, but every person I knew, and every activity I participated in. Maybe there’s nothing unique about being raised religious in America, but I remember every detail of it. A lot of that rests on food: Friday night dinners, seders, getting the toys from Happy Meals without the burger.

I also remember slowly starting to realize that none of it was for me. As a kid, I had assumed that no one actually prayed, and when I realized otherwise, it started to become clear the whole God thing wasn’t for me. The summer before college, the big question among the students at my yeshiva was who would stay religious and who wouldn’t. For many, the answer was clear: some were already sneaking in trips to In N’ Out Burger during lunch breaks, and others were going to Israel. It wasn’t until I entered my college dining hall, 3,000 miles away from home, that I first grappled with the question myself.

Faced with endless food options, I backed myself into a pizza-filled corner. I had no fully formed opinions about religion, but figured that I could play it safe by eating only pizza. Breakfast, lunch and
dinner, that’s pretty much how it went for that first year. On spiritual autopilot, my only real crisis came when I won concert tickets—for a Friday night show. Panicked, I called a high school friend, who asked me to weigh what was more important: one night’s fun or 5,000 years of tradition. It was an odd comparison, I thought, but I ended up choosing the latter.

Soon after that, a family friend back home, and a pillar of our synagogue’s community, died suddenly. I ran to American University’s Kay Spiritual Life Center to pray, but as soon as I opened the siddur I realized I felt emptiness in what I was doing. These were words written by wise men from the Middle Ages who didn’t know the man who died, and, even more disturbing, I knew their words were going nowhere. The idea of existence beyond the grave felt, first and foremost, false. All my past hesitations with religion suddenly made sense. I left the Spiritual Life Center knowing that I had no use for it anymore.

There wasn’t any joy in that, at all. No vitriolic triumphalism, no throwing the rule book in anyone’s face, just the knowledge that God wasn’t (and still isn’t) an idea I could accept. It was a very depressing thought, honestly. It led to hours-long conversations with my parents, since I was convinced that with one more explanation of the Jewish people I’d finally understand the concept of faith. I tried to embrace secular Judaism, a disaster which left me crying in a bookstore holding a copy of Hannah Arendt’s Jewish Writings. All I had left were the rules.

And then those fell, one by one. Keeping Shabbos was the first to go; the joys of Saturday Netflix came easily. Hanging out with a mainly Jewish crowd also quickly fell out, as all the kids who went to the Hillel were assholes. It became clear that the thousands of years of tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax, just didn’t mean a whole lot to me.

The one thing that remained were those sticky dietary laws. They felt removed from the culture they had come from, as if my parents had conjured them out of thin air. I was lonely on the opposite coast, and picking out what I did and didn’t eat gave me a tangible connection back to the warmth of Los Angeles. Months became years, and I eventually realized that I had stopped eating meat altogether.

In the profile, Emanuel plays coy about why he still keeps kosher, stating that “Orthodoxy and orthopraxy are not the same.” I’m pretty pleased with that obnoxious non-answer, mostly because it reflects my own uncertainty as to exactly why I keep these rules. Acquaintances are routinely shocked (shocked!) when I tell them I’ve never had the slightest curiosity about oysters, pepperoni slices, or that holiest of holies, bacon. Maybe someday, but I doubt it. And my knowledge about vegetarianism extends as far as the liner notes to Moby’s album 18 (he makes a pretty convincing argument about utilitarianism and the world’s resources).

A friend suggests that Emanuel does what he does because “it annoys people,” which makes sense to me. It’s a way for us to embrace our parent’s traditions and communities on our terms. I wish Miller would look past hokey terms like “transcendental” to describe decisions to remain involved in religious communities. I eventually came to realize that just because I was giving up yarmulkes and the six hundred and thirteen mitzvahs didn’t mean I had to lie about who I had grown up with. Keeping kosher is a concrete way to keep alive the ties to the people who raised me—my parents, my friends, my first community. And there’s nothing more real than that.

Art by Margarita Korol

The post Why I Gave Up God But Still Keep Kosher appeared first on Jewcy.

Paul’s Boutique starts off with “To All the Girls,” a slow beat, something you’d hear off a blaxploitation soundtrack. It quickly jumps into “Shake Your Rump,” the sonic equivalent of a roller coaster. A snare drum cuts in, MCA proclaims that he’ll rock a house party at the drop of the hat, that he’ll beat a body down with an aluminum bat. That little detail of aluminum makes you pay attention. The interplay between him, Ad-Roc and Mike D on the track is liquid, they flow into each other and could finish sentences if they wanted. There’s teasing, constant shout-outs to each other, and you can quickly see what Mark Richardson observed in his brilliant retrospective—that the “Beastie Boys are ultimately a celebration of friendship.” You can certainly witness that on Licensed, but it feels more mature here, like work was put into defining what that friendship means.

What made me pick up Paul’s Boutique in the first place was its back story of the Beasties fleeing New York, Def Jam, and Rick Rubin for L.A., where I happened to be living. While there, they hooked up with producers the Dust Brothers, and were able to convince them to use already-made instrumental tracks as backing rap beats. If Licensed to Ill sought to match rap with 80’s hair metal, the beats for the 1989 Paul’s Boutique feel like a blueprint for the Girl Talk remix culture that would spring up nearly two decades later. You’re never quite sure which of the 104 samples will come next, how exactly the beat will change (although this website helps). It still felt limitless, and was my first true realization of the endless scenarios and possibilities music can create.

There’s still a cockiness to Paul’s Boutique, a smarter-then-thou joking that’s a clear ancestor to Das Racist. There’s also an undeniable, inescapable horniness mixed with bravado, the same type you see on Licensed. But if that album is based around “No Sleep Til (Brooklyn),” then Paul’s is centered around “B-Boy Bouillabaisse,” a twelve-and-a-half minute suite that closes the album. For some reason, the 20th anniversary edition of the album splits each of its nine parts into different tracks, which is a shame. Taken all together, they intertwine the type of love for New York that only a self-imposed exile brings, along with their own personal growth. It starts off with a kind of gross description of a triple-team strip down of a girl, but quickly jumps into pure braggadocio and then even quicker into scenes from a cartoon-sized New York, bumping into a trigger happy Bernhard Goetz, funk parties in Jamaica, Queens, and liquor stores pushing porn magazines in seedy parts of Brooklyn. There’s nothing that you’d qualify as serious, but the twelve minutes snowball, picking up new ideas and building into “A.W.O.L,” the last segment which mimics the end of a live show. It then jumps back to the opening blaxspolation opener.

It works as a nice metaphor for their–and especially MCA’s–career. From being a partying jock in License to working towards freeing Tibet, Yauch never stopped changing and growing, letting new ideas build on top of old ones. That type of constant change is rare and special, and easily visible on Paul’s Boutique. So much so that it inspired a 17-year-old me to give License to Ill a second chance. And you know what? Flaws and all, it’s pretty damn good.

David Grossman is a writer currently living in Brooklyn. You can follow him on Twitter at @davidmeirrobot.

(photo credit: Thos Robinson/Getty Images)

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