Nissim Black Defends Rap to Ben Shapiro

so you've been listening to motherland and uh something different here on the ben shapiro show that's because we're joined by the creator of motherland bounce former gangsta rapper gang member and now faith seeker today he's an african-american orthodox jew whose recent faith-infused rap music videos have millions of views worldwide his name is nissim black and i thought we'd do something different here nissim thanks for joining the show really appreciate it dude man thank you for having me on man long time coming denny i appreciate it so okay i've been critiqued for my own genuine dislike of of the rap genre so i will give you the opportunity inform me why i am wrong uh about the rap genre of which i have been so critical for these many years listen you could be very very critical of the content right the content is definitely a problem um in terms of it as an art form for sure not you know what i mean you could use anything to be able to spread light and to spread positive messages it just matters what the person does with the actual with the genre you know so you may not be wrong in in terms of the content that's going out uh from the rap music but you know definitely rap could be used for for beautiful things it has been in the past so let's talk about the sort of your own personal transition in that way so you started off as a gangster rapper obviously you didn't start off as an orthodox jew now you are so right maybe you can tell that story i think this is kind of a fun pre rosh hashanah story for our jewish listeners it's amazing actually you know so i grew up exposed to a lot of gang violence uh i got into everything very very early myself i started smoking pot i was nine years old by the time i was 12 i was already dealing and it's very interesting thing because i did have two parents in the house my mother and my and my uh stepfather you know my dad he raised me um but i was exposed to everything in the house my house was like a trafficking house i got into it very early now moving on the first introduction to religion was actually islam my grandfather was a sunni muslim and after after he ended up in prison i had friends who brought me to a missionary group that had a hip-hop program um and that's what got me interested in christianity i eventually converted to christianity from a missionary camp um and then years later you know the rap just sort of took over my my life and consumed me and i got into a altercation with another artist and that led to a kill or be killed situation as i was calling in after i was able to squash that beef and put it behind me i really started seeking like you know what's what's going to be next and you know i just grabbed all the bibles i i wanted to know about i wanted to know about the jewish religion because i grew up very close to the jewish neighborhood and i didn't know anything about judaism so i had a jps tanakh i had a few different versions of the christian bible a quran and i sat down for eight hours a day until you know my soul was satisfied and uh judaism was what really stuck out to me out of them i think it was just sort of the honesty of the story you know so many ups and downs so many screw-ups and i was like i've been doing that my whole entire life you know what i mean and to see that after everything god says i'll never reject you and so that was the relationship with god i wanted to have so let's talk about some of the messages that you promulgate versus some of the messages that you know you were talking about earlier that rap genre tends to promulgate uh obviously i've famously been critical not only of rap as a music form but as i mentioned before rap content and i trended on twitter just a couple of weeks ago for having the temerity to criticize uh cardi b's new music video which is uh gravely concerned with the moisture state of her genitals uh so what what do you make of uh number one what kind of themes are you trying to push in your music and number two what do you see as sort of the negative themes and what are the impact of those negative themes that you see so much in in rap so i guess you know myself i want to be able to one of the biggest things like i don't know if you know how much you've been paying attention but i really made an effort to um broaden my message you know uh which means that sonically things have to be uh in a place where everybody can understand people that already listened to the genre um and at the same time i wanted to be able to put a message inside of that and that message is really that a person can overcome and conquer i often times speak in a very vague way about my relationship with god that somebody else could take in and look at it and make that relationship their own and it could be about a friend or a parent or something like that but i think the biggest thing is that you know just not only in rap but you look overall black entertainment you know what i'm saying has really gone down the tubes and i think that that's affected society for the worst for sure you know those records raised us as a kid you know what i'm saying the tupac and the biggie and everything else that was going on so those raise us um as a kid and and it's very very hard as it is to have enough positive black male role models um so i sort of wanted to take on the mantle of that leadership you know what i mean and try to run with it so in your own personal life obviously you've had a really interesting kind of up and down life as you've talked about how have you dealt with the issue of racism so obviously this very hot issue in the united states right now a lot of accusations on things like systemic racism um but racism is a real problem for a lot of folks have you dealt with racism to try and raise yourself up uh over the course of your life so i think the biggest thing for me is like you know what is you know when we talk about racism first off every person is going to experience something different right kids that come from the inner city um that were not privileged to be raised in the suburbs and and probably had more diversity or less whatever the case is they're going to have a different perspective right um so for me myself i definitely would say i've experienced it on on the system side i would say you know i went to high school that we didn't have books you know uh we had to protest and go out for books but somehow in some way um every year we had brand new football uniforms brand new basketball jerseys and we were killer in sports but we were last in academics you know and and and to say that that was a coincidence i don't think so um for me myself personally though i i think the more more you pay attention to it the more and more it pays attention to you you know what i mean and that's that's that's sort of the way that it has always flown even as going into orthodox judaism right where not everybody's my color you understand what i'm saying but i try to tell people at the same time you know i myself i'm not looking for people to be racist towards me so i don't expect i'm gonna experience that way less than a person who's looking for you know every person that has something wrong with them so i think a lot of those things are a person could conquer them you know what i'm saying in their own mind because you have such a unique personal situation nissan uh one of the things that uh i was wondering about is you know when we talk talk about racism but but also about anti-semitism by polls there's a lot of anti-semitism uh disproportionate uh in the black community of the united states what why do you think that is and how can that be healed i think the biggest thing is a misconception right so you look at it for for most african-americans um for sure um they're there obviously in america so in their mind when they think about a jew they think of european ashkenazi jewry because that's what they're faced with they don't even have that they have no idea that there's a diversity um in judaism uh and i think that that's one of the biggest things that there's there's different colors there's no it has not been expressed african-american community that it's just not one and i'm not even talking about black team i need safari you know jews from mizrahi um so when they think of you they think of only this and it's already a wool put over their eyes that anybody that is of european descent is your enemy right and a lot of times in in in america the jewish community and the black community is very close in proximity to each other right um and you have a lot of jews that are wealthy and we already know about the staggering numbers of poverty and the african-american community the whole thing to me feels like a setup right and when we put it all together and we look back in everybody's history the europeans kick both our butts so you know what i mean so what's the what's the real story the whole thing feels like a setup to me and i think that that's what it is well nissim really appreciate your time you can check out his music over at youtube he has recent hits including motherland bounty and rerun good to talk to you really appreciate it man good to talk to you also have a wonderful show all righty coming up we're going to be taking your phone calls at 8 5 2 3 6 32 28 that's 8 5 5 2 3 6 32 28 you're listening to the ben shapiro show

Channel: Nissim Black

Views: 849,003

Keywords: Nissim, Black, Rapper, Jerusalem, Torah, Music, Soul, Pop, Jewish, Kosher, Rap, Judaism, Ben Shapiro, The Ben Shapiro Show, WAP, Interview, Candace Owens, Cardi B, Donald Trump, Barak Obama, Democrat, Republican, Blexit, Kanye West, Positive Rap, Podcast, Racism, Antisemitism, BLM, Mothaland, Bounce, Rerun

Id: GYlAjw8sR8o

Length: 8min 27sec (507 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 13 2020