Socalled

Socalled in October 2005 at the Théatre National in Montreal , with pianist Irving Fields in the background.

Socalled (born December 28, 1976 in Ottawa ) is the stage name of the Canadian rapper, singer, multi-instrumentalist (including piano and accordion), DJs, producers, visual artist and filmmaker Joshua David Charles Dolgin . He is known as a producer of hip-hop based on Yiddish songs and melodies, which he records live with numerous well-known musicians.

Live and act

Josh Dolgin was born in Ottawa, grew up in nearby Chelsea, Quebec and has lived in Montreal for a long time. He comes from a Jewish family, his paternal grandfather comes from the Ukraine. As a teenager he played keyboard in various bands, including a gospel band - although he was “ never so enthusiastic ” about “ making music about Jesus ”. He came into contact with hip-hop through a black band member and learned to make hip-hop beats himself on drum machines . During his studies at McGill University in Montréal , he spent a lot of time looking in record stores for usable records to sample in hip-hop pieces. He first became aware of Yiddish music in 1996 when, while rummaging through a Salvation Army record box, he came across an old album by Aaron Lebedeff, a Yiddish singer of the post-war period. Curious because of the colorful cover and the musician's "interesting appearance" - Yiddish music was not an issue with his parents - he took the record home with him. He noted that Yiddish songs often had a pause between verses so they would blend in perfectly with hip-hop rhythms. Dolgin thus invented "Yiddish hip-hop" rather by chance. He called his first recording The Jew Funk - a sung Yiddish prayer with its own rap and hip-hop beats over it. Over the years Dolgin collected around 5,000 records, including hip-hop and many with Jewish music, many of them in Yiddish and from the decades before World War II.

In 2000, at a Klezmer workshop, clarinetist David Krakauer , long-time member of The Klezmatics , became aware of Dolgin and hired him to compose hip-hop beats for his music. In 2003 Dolgin was contacted by Sophie Solomon, the violinist of the London group Oi Va Voi , to record an album with her. This is how HiphopKhasene came about . He rearranged Klezmer pieces, Jewish wedding songs and Yiddish songs with hip-hop beats and live recordings in the studio. He wrote and raped the rap lyrics, in which, among other things, he spins reflections on the meaning of traditions and social values ​​into confused rhymes. The album won the 2004 German Record Critics' Prize in the World Music category.

The second album, The So Called Seder: A Hip Hop Haggadah , followed in 2005 , on which he was able to win over Killah Priest from the Wu-Tang Clan and Matisyahu for studio recordings. In the same year he also recorded an entire album with David Krakauer: The Bubbemeises - Lies My Grandma Told Me .

Socalled with Gonzales .

His 2007 album Ghettoblaster was released on the French jazz and world music label Bleu . For this album, whose ambiguous title stands for the demolition of the ghetto walls, in which Jewish music is enclosed, but also points to the hip-hop connection, he had around 40 musicians and singers come to the studios. The tracks were recorded in different locations depending on where the musicians who contributed to the tracks are based. Among these musicians are David Krakauer, who has contributed to several titles as a clarinetist, Theodore Bikel , who intends to sing Yiddish songs with Belz and Bikel Family Sign , and rappers C Rayz Walz ( You are never alone ) and Gonzales ( Baleboste ). Irving Fields, whom he once became aware of through old records, has accompanied many of his pieces since he found out that he is "still" alive, even during live piano performances. Two single releases from this album were also released, You are never alone (with C Rayz Walz, Doris Glaspie and Katie Moore) and These Are The Good Old Days (together with David Krakauer, Subtitle and Fred Wesley ).

From an idea to travel to his grandfather's place of origin in the Ukraine, the plan developed to travel the Ukrainian part of the Dnieper river with various musicians on board and to give concerts in the towns along the river. This trip was completed in 2007, and local bands were also taken on board. This trip was also filmed and will be part of a planned socalled movie . Socalled has now completed numerous European tours and festival appearances and, among other things, played in 2008 in the Vienna Konzerthaus at the Spot on Yiddishness Festival with David Krakauer.

Discography

Albums

• HiphopKhasene , with Sophie Solomon (Piranha, 2003)
• The So Called Seder: A Hip Hop Haggadah (Jdub Records, 2005)
• The Bubbemeises - Read My Grandma Told Me , with David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness! ( Label Bleu , 2005)
• Ghetto blaster (Label Bleu, 2007)
• SleepOver (2011)

Singles

• (These Are The) Good Old Days (Label Bleu, 2007)
• You Are Never Alone (Label Bleu, 2007)

Awards

• Prize of the German Record Critics 2004 for HiphopKhasene as Best World Music Album

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} www.exclaim.ca ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Interview with Josh Dolgin, by Helen Spitzer, September 2007 (accessed September 19, 2008) 
2. ↑ ^{a b} www.socalledmusic.com - Jew Funk ( Memento of the original from August 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , The Walrus Magazine , August 13, 2005 (accessed September 19, 2008) 
3. ↑ Biography on www.label-bleu.com , 2003 (accessed on September 19, 2008)

Web links

• www.socalledmusic.com - Official website of Socalled
• www.label-bleu.com - Socalled on his label's website