a s JEWISH HOMEBOY from page R19 THE ORIGINAL tiewa 04. All. DinnerSP or salad, vege table Dinners start at $6.95 RESTAURANT Jimmy (of New Parthenon) & Leo (of Leo's Coney Island) invite you to enjoy big savings on us! THROUGH \Wide r 8 ik Off thc BUY ONE LUNCH OR DINNER AT REGULAR PRICE, children's streom to CLOSED MONDAYS Child-friendly • Very clean • Smoke-free environment GET THE SECOND FOR 6393 Farmington Road, st N. of Maple, Next tot S Club of West filoomfi 1/2 Off . (248) 539-88 Russian Style Catering Equal or lesser value EXPIRES 9/4/99 Not good with any other offer One coupon per couple 6676 ORCHARD LAKE RD. Michael Elkin is entertainment editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. SOUTH OF MAPLE, WEST SIDE OF J NCHES TART T $495 F l r INTERNATIONAL DINING NORTH SIDE OF , WEST BLOOMFIELD PLAZA (248) 851-8782 Wishing All Our Customers and Friends A Healthy and Happy BREAKFAST & LUNCH SPECIALS TUESDAY-SUNDAY 11 a.m.-5 p.m. r COUPON BUY ANY OMELETTE HENTIC CUISINE 7 DAYS WEEK RD LAKE RD. INDS PLAZA WEST BLOOMFIELD D LAKE & LONE PINE 9/10 1999 120 Detroit Jewish News 6000 didn't help that much. "Even in Hebrew school," Hoch recalls with a smirk in his voice, the kids wrote graffiti on their siddurs." His mother's prayers were answered when she pushed him to enroll at the High School for the Performing Arts in New York. This award-winning performer, who also has acted in films such as The Thin Red Line, draws a line in the sand on theatrical stages. Cross over into my world to see the hypocrisies endured by the outcast and the insult- ed, he seems to say to the audience, which usually is made up of a high percentage of Jews. But Jews aren't his only followers; Hoch also appeals to a cross-section of - cc my people," whom he considers ‘`people in Brooklyn, Queens, people who are second- and third-generation New Yorkers — and my generation." "The hip-hop generation is wide- spread around the world. I discover that when I tour, when I hit more universities, blah, blah, blah," he says. Or is that yadda, yadda, yadda? One of his more infamous stage bits focuses on the offer he got to do a Seinfeld segment in which he would ORCHARD LAKE RD. New Year Available for Private Parties After a bar mitzva at a Reform temple, he was ready for reform school. Two weeks after his brachot from the bima, Hoch almost hocked his happiness for a stint in prison. At 13, he became a man — and a juve- nile delinquent. "I got arrested for doing graffiti," he says, and, no, he didn't use any of the new pens he got as gifts. The writing was on the wall in other ways too: He was also charged with drug possession. "Stupid, eh?" Hoch still seems to smart as he talks about it. But he never lost the love and support of his mother, who raised him after she and Hoch's father divorced. Nothing's changed, he says of the mom who thought he was such a nice Jewish boy. "She still thinks I'm a nice Jewish boy," he says. But his future looked like a still life: no movement from the neighbor- hood, "where I participated in the hip-hop and street culture." Learning about his Jewish culture GET SECOND PLAIN OMELETTE FREE! (Gourmet Omelettes Excluded) _ •BAGEL, LOX & CREAM CHEESE SANDWICH . . . -SMOKED SALMON PLATE FOR 2 $395 $595 (Inc. 2 Bagels, cr. cheese, tom., onions, etc.) • • • BUY ONE SANDWICH OR ONE LARGE SALAD GET ONE CUP OF REGULAR SOUP FREE! j L CLASSIFIEDS GET RESULTS! Call (248)354.5959 JEWS AND HIP HOP from page R19 In his 1998 book Hip Hop America, music historian Nelson George takes a more nuanced look at hip hop as an aspect of black culture. "One of the prevailing assumptions around hip hop is that it was, at some early moment, solely African-American created, owned, controlled and consumed. It's an appealing origin myth — but the evidence just isn't there to support it." George goes on to document the Latino dancers and "tastemakers," Caribbean DJs and Jewish entrepre- neurs who nurtured hip hop in its infancy. He considers Rick Rubin, founder of Def Jam Records, one of hip hop's most successful labels, to be part of a long tradition of black and Jewish collaboration in grassroots music that goes back to the 1940s, when Leonard and Phil Chess and Jerry Wexler recorded early blues and R&B. Despite the presence of numerous Jewish producers and promoters, Jewish hip hop as such has mostly existed in novelty acts like Two Live Jews and Members of the Tribe (M.O.T.). Proudly derivative, these two groups view rap music and style through a Borscht Belt lens. Two Live Jews' 1990 album, As Kosher As They Wanna Be, parodied Two Live Crew's notorious 1989 disc As Nasty As They Wanna Be, while Dr. Dreidel and Ice Berg of M.O.T. take their sobriquets from L.A. gangsta rap- pers Dr. Dre and Ice Cube. (Satire is a two-way street, however, exemplified by rap producer Price Paul's cartoonish 1996 album, Psychoanalysis: What Is It?, which looks at Freud through the eyes of gangsta rappers.) One minor Jewish-defined rap act that developed within a hip hop milieu is Blood of Abraham, which first appeared in 1994 with its debut album, Future Profits, on legendary rapper Eazy-E's Ruthless Records. The most prominent example of a synthesis of hip hop and a Jewish sensibility is Remedy, a writer for the wildly popular Wu-Tang Clan, who's now a performer for the Killa Bees. His single "Never Again" off the Bees' album The Swarm, which sends a powerful message about post- Holocaust identity in a multiethnic America, has brought him onto the Jewish cultural radar screen, perform- ing at benefits for Jewish causes in New York and L.A. "Sixty- and 70-year-olds were lov- ing me, and I was the only reason the kids would come," said Remedy. His solo album is due out this month.