Ben Solomon

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Ben Solomon (2015)

Ben Salomo (real name Jonathan Kalmanovich ; born 1977 in Rechovot ) is a former rapper, YouTuber and book author from Israel who grew up in Berlin and founded the Rap concert series on Wednesday . In November 2016 he released his first solo album titled There's Only One , and in 2019 he released a book.

Life

Ben Solomon was born in the Israeli city of Rechovot , about 20 kilometers south of Tel Aviv . His father's family comes from Botoșani , Romania , and his mother was born in Odessa , Ukraine . When the boy was four years old, the family moved to Berlin, where his mother's parents had lived for several years. When Ben Solomon was a teenager, his parents separated. He stayed with his single mother and grew up with his younger sister in Schöneberg . He was often ostracized or discriminated against by Turkish or Arab youth as soon as they found out that he was Jewish . According to their own statements, sometimes the pupil had to use violence to defend himself against anti-Semitism in his neighborhood or at school. Religion did not play a major role in Ben Solomon's everyday life, as he sees his Judaism more as an ethnic affiliation to the Jewish people and Jewish history, but as a boy he celebrated his bar mitzvah in the synagogue on Joachimsthaler Strasse in Berlin. At the Bar Mitzvah he was given the Hebrew surname Ben Salomo ( son of Solomon , after his father), which he bears as a stage name. Ben Salomo still lives in Schöneberg today and is the father of two children. His YouTube channel RapAmMittwochTV had over 420,000 subscribers and up to two million views a month. He does not rule out a return to Israel, especially because he has been very concerned about the growing anti-Semitic tendencies in Germany since 2014.

In April 2018, Solomon announced his protest withdrawal from the hip-hop scene. As a reason he cited "anti-Semitism within the rap scene - often with the guise of anti-Zionism, the hatred of Israel". The hip-hop media would not question this critically. In addition, anti-Semitic conspiracy myths are reproduced in the lyrics of many rappers and Islamism, terrorism, contempt for women, homophobia and crime are glorified. On April 19, 2018, Solomon also announced the end of rap on Wednesday .

His autobiographical book Ben Solomon Means Son of Peace was published in February 2019 .

Rap on Wednesday

The event Rap on Wednesday , resumed in 2010 after a ten-year break, took place twice a month in the Berlin club BiNuu. It currently only takes place once a month, but across Germany. The show is produced and hosted by Ben Solomon. The event has achieved national fame through prominent participants and the regular broadcast on YouTube and is currently Germany's largest live battle rap league. "Battle rap is verbal war - any means is right as long as people can shake hands afterwards," said Ben Solomon in an interview. Racist or anti-Semitic statements are not welcome at his events, but they still occur when artists want to specifically provoke, which repeatedly causes controversy inside and outside the battle rap scene. In April 2018, Solomon announced the end of the series of events. He observed and experienced “a large amount of real anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia and contempt for women”. The scene now has to consider how this can be reconciled with “hip-hop values ​​such as tolerance and respect”. Since he was personally seriously threatened, he did not want to take part in the closing event.

Own music

Ben Salomo began his first rap productions in the late 1990s under the stage name Joka . Together with a friend he founded the Department FlowJoes and thus came the label Artikulabor below. First publications followed. In the years to come, Solomon formed the Illuminati crew with Asek and Floe Flex . Around 2001 he founded his own label Tempeltainment together with Asek , on which the KaosLoge was later created together with head chef (real name: Paul Maaß ), Damion Davis , Mike Fiction (real name: Mike Adler ), and Dj Pete . Various albums and samplers published there followed. In 2006, the group around Solomon disbanded. In November 2016 he brought out his debut album There is Only One on the Baba City label (Chapter One / Universal Music). The cover shows Ben Solomon standing in front of a Star of David and hiding his face with his hands, the A in his stage name is represented by the Hebrew letter Aleph (א). In an interview on the cover he explained: “With this photo I wanted to hold up a mirror to the German rap scene and the general public, what it means to show yourself in front of a Jewish symbol. Unfortunately, you should do this facelessly in Germany, otherwise you will run into problems. With the cover I explain exactly that on several levels. You don't want me to show my face when I talk about it. The topic should stay in the background and ideally not be mentioned at all. "

Solomon raps in German, but occasionally also on Ivrit . According to his own account, he sees himself in a line of tradition with German Jewish poets, whose books were burned and banned by the Nazis: “Since rap is the newest and most popular form of poetry, for me it is definitely a statement that the Phoenix is ​​out rises from the ashes and that Nazi Germany, Nazis, Adolf Hitler and everyone who shares his ideologies have lost. "

Ben Solomo's music is assigned to Conscious Rap , the politically and personally reflected genre of hip-hop. In his texts, he describes his life as a self-described “Israeli Kanacke” or “Jew from the street” in Berlin and comments on religiously motivated differences: “You call him God , you call him Allah , we say Adonai / ... and so like God gave the hand more than just one finger / he gave people more than just one way to God, ”says the title song of his album.

reception

In the Jüdische Allgemeine, Mike Samuel Delberg gave a positive review of the album There is Only One : “There is only one thing is rap, detached from the superficial bling-bling and the usual dull phrases of the proletarian dominated scene. That makes it a rather atypical album - and a special work. On well-produced beats, Ben Salomo tries to speak to Jews in Germany from the soul and encourage them to think along. The album by the Jewish rapper is already a novelty in German hip-hop history - and hopefully soon in the charts too. "

Awards

For his commitment against racism and anti-Semitism, he received the Robert Goldmann grant from the city of Reinheim in 2018 . It is awarded to people who are concerned with safeguarding human dignity, taking particular account of the German-Jewish relationship. In 2020 a jury awarded him the International Pforzheim Peace Prize, which was awarded for the first time. The laudation said that he was “a role model for civil courage and peace work”.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ein Jude von der Straße , Jüdische Allgemeine on January 15, 2015, accessed on November 2, 2016
  2. ↑ “People saw me as Israel's foreign minister - but I was just a little boy,” autobiographical text from November 7, 2016 on Vice.com, accessed on November 7, 2016
  3. ↑ Rapper Ben Salomo announces withdrawal - The anti-Semitism of the rap scene . In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur . ( deutschlandfunkkultur.de [accessed on April 18, 2018]).
  4. ↑ Exclusive: The Jewish rapper Ben Salomo announces the end of "Rap on Wednesday" . In: watson.de . ( watson.de [accessed April 20, 2018]).
  5. ↑ “Complete idiot is okay, but not a shitty Jew” , Deutschlandfunk on April 15, 2015, accessed on November 2, 2016
  6. ↑ "Like 8 Mile, only in Berlin and without beef" , interview with Ben Salomo on laut.de from September 3, 2014, accessed on November 2, 2016
  7. ↑ Parts of the hip-hop scene are anti-Semitic , Tagesspiegel on October 12, 2016, accessed on November 2, 2016
  8. ^ "Rap on Wednesday" in Berlin: The battle on the Schlesi can begin , Spiegel article from December 9, 201, accessed on November 2, 2016
  9. ↑ Because of threats: Ben Solomon will not be in the last "Rap on Wednesday" show , interview from April 29, 2018 on watson.de
  10. ↑ Artist portrait on laut.de , accessed on November 2, 2016
  11. ↑ Ben Salomo: “Art does not always have to generate identification” , interview with Backspin from November 4, 2016, accessed on November 7, 2016
  12. ↑ " The Nazis have lost" - Interview with the Jewish rapper Ben Salomo , Vice interview from November 2, 2016, accessed on November 4, 2016
  13. ↑ challenge to the bling-bling rap , Jewish General on 24 November 2016 called on November 26, 2016
  14. ↑ Goldmann Scholarship. In: Website of the city of Reinheim. Retrieved August 7, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Besim Karadeniz: musician Ben Salomo first recipient of the International Pforzheim Peace Prize. In: PF-BITS. August 6, 2020, accessed on August 7, 2020 (German).
  16. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Musician Ben Salomo receives first Pforzheim Peace Prize. Retrieved August 7, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Ben Solomon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kalmanovich, Jonathan (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli rapper
DATE OF BIRTH 1977
PLACE OF BIRTH Rechovot , Israel