FW: RUN-DMC?

[Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl...>]

Someone just wrote and asked me for a copy of what I wrote earlier today

> What you write is absolutely true and some of us know this already.  The
> fact also is that it is mostly Jews who are crafting the markets of just
> about all the chief musical genres in America, including as I wrote a few
> months ago the hip-hop and rap markets.

I just discovered that I posted this info on another mailing list (my 
2G-Legacy mailing list) and not on jewish-music.  Since I think this might 
be interesting for others, I am posting an excerpt of it on this list.   I 
wrote this in reference to the Littleton tragedy, how certain kinds of 
music have negative effects on children, and the role of Jews in this music 
scene.   The original, long article on Cohen in the Jewish Week may or may 
not still be on the web.


Reyzl



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I also recently read that a former Israeli, observant
Jew has managed Public Enemy all these years...

The man who is the main force behind the business and success of Rap
and Hip hop music, including Rap's violence, misogyny, anti-Semitism
(Public Enemy) is Lyor Cohen, born to Israeli observant Moroccan
parents in America, and the great grandson of Israeli Rabbi Daniel
Sirkus, a signer of Israel's Delaration of Independence.  You can read
about all this in the April 23, 1999 front page article of Jewish Week.
He was/is the agent for Run-DMC, Def Jam, Public Enemy, and a whole
slew of others.   He is seen as the one "who helped rap and hip-hop
cross over from urban America to become the dominant musical taste of
the white suburbs, in whose shopping malls 65 percent of all rap
records are bought.

Why did I raise this issue?  Most rap lyrics have been condemned as
glamorizing ghetto life, inciteful speech and lyrics that the
Anti-Defamation League called "toxic" in its 1992 special Report on
Hateful Lyrics in Rap and Rock.  The article says "The report
specifically targeted Public Enemy, a group signed to Def Jam
Records, and whose members were devotees of Louis Farrakhan."
Cohen staunchly defended Public Enemy when their songs rapped about
Jews crucifying blacks and made comparisons to Jesus a few years
back.   He is the one who oversaw the top hip-hop groups and has
just now been upped to head a major section (Island Def Jam Records)
of Edgar Bronfman Jr.'s Universal Music Group and so he will now
oversee Def Jam, Mercury and Motown.   Bronfman will now have overall
control of this whole music industry in America and his company will
be responsible for 25% of music produced worldwide.


Reyzl





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