During a time when some Jews refrain from listening to live music – Jewish rap super star, Y-Love and beatbox superstar Yuri Lane (who has over 13 millions hits on youtube) create all their music non-instrumentally. One of the lead singles on the record is “Watch” (The Passover Song), ‘Passover is a time of year where there are a lot of elements to the holiday – the Ten Plagues, the 4 Cups, the 4 Sons, the 4 Questions – I wanted to give these elements a musical voice, using hip-hop. “Watch” is as much an educational tool about Pesach as it is a hip-hop track.” says Y-Love.
Darshan have dug up some traditional sources and remixed them in a modern retelling of the story found at the end of the Passover Haggadah. Together they create something all together new, and at the same time ancient. Deep and probing rhymes blend with evocative and uplifting melodies in “an uncompromising blend of urban forms and neo-Hasidic spirituality.” – The Forward.
“I new this one kid, from back in the day….” raps Eprhyme in Darshan’s version of “Chad Gadya”
Shemspeed is an independent recording label and promotional agency highlighting cross-over music artists with positive and unifying messages. Founded by Erez Safar, an American-Israeli DJ/Producer, Shemspeed promotes over 15 dynamic artists representing a wide range of genres including hip-hop, reggae, and rock. These artists include Y-Love (revolutionary Jewish hip-hop), Diwon (Yemenite / Sephardic hip-hop, Israeli music and more), DeScribe (soul-awakening dancehall, hip-hop, & soul), and Electro Morocco (Israeli rock, dance music.) Shemspeed artists, collectively showcasing the diversity in world Jewish music, have performed with musicians as varied as Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, Idan Raichel and Eminem; they’ve been profiled in Rolling Stone, SPIN, The New York Times and XXL; and they’ve been seen and heard around the world on various TV appearances (Conan O’Brien, CBS and BBC World) and global radio. Shemspeed’s mission is unifying people through culture and education, celebrating diversity and common ground. By way of this work, we add a public Jewish voice to multi-cultural, inter-faith, creative and collaborative bridge-building.