Interview with Nissim Black

foreign black don't worry about it foreign I'd like to ask everybody to please silence their cell phones this is a live recording on behalf of congregation Torah in Fair Lawn where we are right now I want to thank the Orthodox Union the OU as well as Jeff Cohn and this Saturday the Chavez podcast and their whole crew and their whole team as well as decent black for this amazing event tonight you think you may be here to hear me some story and to hear the interview with Jeff and to hear a concert from Nissan afterwards and here he is beautiful deep Soulful lyrics which is all very true but I think we're here for something a little bit deeper at the end of the departure that we read this morning Jews around the world Red parces by Yates yaakov finds himself in the house of Love on and a mile like an angel comes to him in a dream and the angel tells him the following I am the god of Base Kell where you made a nether and yaakov right now it's time to go home and the mafarsham the commentators struggle why is this I'm the god of Base count the god of your forefathers of Abraham and Isaac not the god of Base Kell and they answer the following yaakov really has two dreams we're in the the month of Kiss slave right now it's a month of Nissim but it's also the month of dreams all the powershield that we go into right now all deal with dreams yaakov Begins the parasha with a dream of the Angels going up and down of a Sula mutsavartsa a dream a prophecy that has spiritual implications to yaakov's life at the end of the parashayakov also has a succession of Dreams in which he is dreaming about sheep love and tried to trick him pull some roses over him numerous times over and over again and he's dreaming about sheep Amala comes to him again at the end of the parsh and tells him don't you remember I'm the god of Base count when you started at your journey you had these this unbelievable ambition for spiritual growth for prophetic moments in your life and now 20 years later all you're dreaming about is sheep yaakov it's time to go home so many of us in our lives we have these spiritual aspirations and dreams and Ambitions when we start out our Journeys in life but there are bumps around you know bumps on our journey and twists that we need to take in our life and sometimes we find ourselves 20 years later only dreaming about sheep tonight we're celebrating two individuals not just Nissan black who we know so much about but Jeff Cohen as well two people that have keeping that spiritual ambition in check there are two people that are dreamers people that yes they may be dreaming about sheep but that's not only what's in their dreams what keeps them up at night is the future and Destiny of the Jewish people of cloud Israel they're dreaming about how they can change not just the Jewish people but themselves as well how they could become greater and tonight is really a night of inspiration we should tap into their dreams and to maybe go back to where we were 20 years ago try to fulfill those missed Ambitions and missed spiritual moments in our lives recalibrate ourselves recalibrate our dreams and maybe just maybe in the month of Kiss slave the month of Dreams the month of Miracles beginning tonight we could become that much greater and it starts tonight and it's with that that I call upon our host Jeff Cohn and the star for tonight Nissan black [Applause] foreign good evening everyone my name is Jeff Cohen and I am the host of an OU podcast called Saturday to Shabbos where we love to learn about people with inspiring stories to share about their Journeys to Jewish observance tonight is a truly special night as it's our first ever live event and we are thrilled to have nearly 300 people here in attendance and many more watching on the OU live stream I've got to give a quick shout out to our producer Rabbi Moshe brandsdorfer and the OU sponsor this [Applause] and of course editor extraordinaire Gary Wallick most importantly I'm truly excited to welcome our guest Nissan black so much [Applause] he's here tonight to share his personal story and is a special treat he's also going to perform for us now I know you know his songs but tonight you're going to learn about The Man Behind the Music how about a warm Fairlawn and show me tour welcome for Nissan black [Music] [Applause] thank you welcome thank you so much you guys can hear me I can't hear me so I just want to tell you how tonight is going to work we're going to do the interview and then thank you to my wife Carol and her team is going to bring out the desserts during intermission and then of course Nissan will perform for us so let me officially say Nissan black welcome to Saturday to Chavez thank you so much thank you so much Jeff appreciate it all right Saturday to Shabbos you're gonna have to explain that to me you can do it now we can do it later but I could explain it right now I'm somebody who grew up not religious so it was called Saturday and when you become observant you now call it Shabbos you got the name of the show got it got it got it got it all right but this is tonight is about you so give everyone just a sense of where your story starts where you were born and raised so my Story begins in a very far away land from here called Seattle Washington said if any in all New Yorkers and then yeah in New Jersey also too we love it all in nobody knows anything outside of this uh little State over here so um the very far away land on the other side in Seattle Washington my Journey Begins um I was born as an inner city kid uh witnessed a lot of violence growing up it's a part of it I've seen both my mother and my father were both drug dealers they were both musicians both my mother and my father pioneered rap hip-hop in Seattle so I do this because of my yikos um I didn't pick it up later on in life and you know I just grew up seeing a lot of a lot of different things and and as most people do you become a product of your environment and that's sort of what I did I became product of my environment very early on so bring that to life a little bit when you say product for your environment like what's your parents are doing and how that impacted you so on a any given day you will come into my house you'll see like a I know there's kids in the audience I'm sorry G-rated G-rated there's a lot of drugs a lot of involvement going uh gang activity I would come come home and see people in my house who had just gotten gun fights with bullets fresh in the body I had seen so much fighting I joined the gang already by 12 years old I was running with the street gang I was already smoking pot at nine so can you if you can imagine that you live a very fast life so I've seen a lot very early on it's definitely early on let's talk about the religious side what was your family doing religiously when you were young the religiously selling drugs but apart from that um in terms of any religion my introduction to religion was Islam my grandfather who was a Sunni Muslim now he had a really rough life himself he spent most of his life unfortunately spent in prison and that's actually where he found Islam he became a Sunni Muslim he came to live with us when I was around eight years old so that was a period in time I prayed with him five times a day he used to take me to the mosque with him on Fridays I will go with them to the mosque and so from that point on maybe until I was 13 maybe if anybody had asked me on my religion why I would say I was a Muslim even though my grandfather had unfortunately ended up back in prison where he was for the rest of his life but that was the initial relationship that I had with religion so by the time I was 13 I had a friend of mine who was very adamant about me joining him for this hip-hop program which was that after after school program after school program was a Christian organization and it really was crucial for me at that point that I had some Outlet to be able to express my gift and my talents because to be honest I wasn't heading anywhere fast you know and so having that experience actually helped me I think a lot to be able to have a place go there I'm right and what naturally happens is the more and more they reel you in the real you're in I ended up going to camp and I converted to Christianity when I was 14. wow so it starts with Islam and it goes to Christianity you're being like a connection I'm going in order that's it we're gonna get to Judaism don't worry have a good I want to order and that was what's interesting about it though was is that you you don't even realize as you're going through this journey I didn't know anything about what happened in chronological order and different things like that but it was almost like another Garment of God was being taken off you know nothing that wasn't talking to God I don't feel like I was it was uh you know this was a different God and this was a no I feel like you know Hashem was sort of revealing himself to me in stages in stages that I can take it okay so as you're Discovering Religion what's going on personally in terms of you mentioned being about with gangs and drugs like you're still dabbling in that or you've moved by the time I was 14 um that camp experience I had at that Christian Camp was radically life-changing I came back I stopped hanging around all the friends that I was with and um I it was good for me also too because prior to then I was expelled from the Seattle School District we won't talk about why I may have mention it something different interview but I wasn't allowed on the Seattle public school so after I had this transformation wasn't even connection when I came back from Camp I had a letter in the mail from the from the you know government there in Seattle allowed me to go back to a regular school so it was a new start for me so my whole thing was that you know all my middle school years I got in so much trouble I was expelled and I was a you know I was in the principal's office more than the principal so I figured that I was going to go into high school and I'm gonna be something different I'm gonna be a new guy I'm gonna be a quiet guy I'm gonna be totally chill and some things are just not in your nature right so even I tried to pull it off it it worked for about four four or five months or something like that I can't remember how long it was but we ended up doing a pep rally assembly while we were there now mind you everybody now at this point is like what happened to this guy you know they knew me before but so like what happened to this guy you know what's going to be so they did a pep rally assembly and they split us up by classroom so we were the Freshman on the classmen so we lost in every competition and the last competition they decided to do was a rap battle and so everybody's trying to push me to go out and I know that the moment I go out there the quiet guy thing is over all right nobody's buying it after this but everybody in my class is like you got to go represent us you got to go you got to go so we ended up going I went out and uh we won safe to say shocker and after that we were having a rap battle every single week you know what I mean so you talk about distracted I was so distracted from you know almost anything spiritually at this point between that I was on the on the football team I'm in America I don't have to say American football um real football um so I was on the real football team and and between that and school and everything I got you know very very you know involved in what I was doing and it wasn't until my 10th grade year of high school I remember coming in from my for my lunch period And I just had this moment I don't even know still to this day how to describe it but it was a moment where I was there and I'm looking around at every single person it just happened upon me and I felt like I knew something nobody else knew I felt that there was something deep going on in inside of me I felt I knew something nobody else knew I felt so out of place and I felt something inside telling me you don't belong here you don't belong here now I'm really tripping out I haven't smoked anything since I was 13 years old right so this is already 16 years old and my 10th grade yeah yeah so I'm I'm having a total trip out when I'm looking around and then after a while you know I always say the chicken nugget and the whole thing stopped but the truth was I I took it as a message that God was trying to tell me something I had no idea so I ended up going back to the Christian Center that I was involved with and I got involved in every single Bible study group leadership program I became a junior missionary they gave me smiha um so I got very very involved and before you know I had more than like half of the kids from my school going to these different programs and different groups and stuff like that I said and what's going on at this point musically are you thinking that this can be my career you mentioned your parents were in rap are you thinking this can really take off so musically at this point I was still producing like uh demos and mixtapes I recorded my first professional song when I was 13 years old so I always I would say I've been a professional since I was 13 at least um and I got like my first national press it was a big hip-hop magazine um called Murder dog anyway but uh that that was the first press that I got like International press and so that was sort of what put me on people's radar and then um you know as high school girls obviously the music couldn't sound as aggressive as it was because uh you know I was giving Bible study classes so what happened was around my say my 11th grade year a demo of mine made it to the desk of the a r talent scout at Virgin records and the biggest thing in hip-hop at that time was a guy by the name of 50 Cent we call him Shekel in Israel and um it went down you know inflation whatever anyway so we ended up we ended up saying you know talking and having a conversation and what they wanted at that time was something very similar to what was already popular which was gangster rap which was um something very against where I at least was at that point was it something I was unfamiliar with just something that would have been hard for me to do comfortably um so in the end they you know waved a lot of money in my face and I ended up biting the bullet and I thought initially that I would just make the music but I wouldn't I wouldn't conform or change my life to fit it but it was very very hard for me after a while I started being very confused about who I was as an individual and it was very hard for me to maintain the two so you thought it could be like a Persona on stage and then you would come off exactly a different guy because by the way that's what most of these guys are doing anyway this is stage act you know it's like the WWE wrestling you know what I'm saying like who buys that that's real so the same thing happens a lot in the rap World also too but but the problem is just like in that world and what was happening to me is After Time you eventually start to see that things start to actually you morph into that what you're talking about you know in order to um to be convincing of the Persona I needed people around me so naturally I started hanging around all the guys that stopped hanging around before became my inner circle again and that became you know my whole image and my whole everything that even though I was struggling on the inside outside they wouldn't be able to know it looked like this was the real thing so I would think this would have to come to a head at some point like you can only have this disconnect for so long so I would guess your popularity is growing musically but what you're feeling inside is getting like stronger and stronger so how does that come to a head for you so the way that it came to a head was um you know and shim himself as the master planner as I was becoming more popular there was another rapper who who decided that he wanted to get himself out here by the way she'll also mentioned that in between this time of speaking about I lost my mother of an overdose my mother overdosed at 37 years old I was 19. and I was in the studio the night that had happened and it was very very hard for me so I I sort of went into a stage of feeling very numb so to speak you know it was so abrupt so quick and it happened and it was such a shocker that I sort of and you know we didn't have a such thing as Shiva so I I did completely I drowned myself in the studio and music in order not to think about it right I was very close to my mother so in order for me to not think about it I surrounded myself with friends and more people in the studio and you know and I couldn't sleep she unfortunately she passed away in my bed so I couldn't even sleep in my own bed and so it was very very hard for me and so what happened after as the popularity has taken place I I remember a few days after my mother passed away I made a song for her and it was on that that first initial album that I released so for many different reasons the album kind of took off and got a lot of popularity and figured out who my parents were so it's like hip-hop's love child you know um and so as this is starting to spread this other artist you know he wants to get himself out there now generally what a person would do is like you just put more into your marketing dollars well in rap we have a shortcut shortcut is you this whoever's getting the most uh getting the most popularity if you can get that person to respond to you then more people are going to look at you no matter if you win or lose so he said some things in a song about me that was not nice it's very Uh Russian hard dick and my my initial response was that I would write a song Back and after I write the song back to him then you know at that point then we'll you know we'll keep the competition going so a friend of mine walks in and he says if you just go beat the guy up he won't make any more songs he's the type of pepper I was around you understand so this is what we ended up doing we ended up going finding him at a nightclub we get into this crazy fist fight outside the the nightclub and police come and break everything up unfortunately a friend of mine went up after me and he tried to kill the guy with a gun and he was a horrible shot he shot everything except for the guy by the way fire hydrant inside of the curb before everything got shot except for a person so what ends up happening he goes into custody but now I have a major dilemma because now the other guys think that I'm coming I came I sent somebody to take their life and now they're thinking if they don't come and take my life then I'm gonna come and take them so put me in a compromised uh situation and I always say it was a killer be killed situation it was very scary for me right so I can't even imagine what you're thinking at that moment how am I going to get out of this and like your life is like really come to a head at this moment so what did you ultimately decide to do very very scary so this was this this is why I say Hashim as an amazing plan and he knows how to reach every person my natural response was prayer I was in my living room you know after finding out what the whole situation was and I just fell to my knees and I started crying and crying and crying you have to understand this was interesting it wasn't like one of those things that like where Christianity was a fad for me I was I was really always sick in it by the when I was when I was involved I was involved in it so for me I was trying to figure out for myself as I'm sitting there and I'm crying and start doing this reflection and saying how did I get here like how was I like you know a few years ago I was like bringing people into Bible study groups and fellowship circles and leadership programs I was building orphanages in Mexico like I was very very involved and then like all of a sudden I'm back in this type of situation and it's worse than it's ever been right because now my life is on the line so I prayed and I prayed and I prayed and I always say Shem did for me a miracle we made a nice my phone rang at the same time and it was the other guy he also wanted to squash the whole entire thing the reason why I say that to Miracles because when you come from where I come from you know how many situations could have just been put away if somebody would have picked up the phone and call right so because I had that call I realized this for me that was a sign from God that he was giving me a shot to to do something different because nobody ever calls you to like ask if you're trying to kill them or not right I'm saying like it's not a passion you know so so when that happened I'm saying like this is this is this is for real you know I felt at that point that God was listening to me so we talked this man we squashed everything we put it behind us but now I can't go back I can't go back to pretending something like you know I put my life on the line for something I was pretending to do I was pretending to be a certain way right and now it brought me to a killer be killed situation that put my life on the line so I was at home and I was pacing back and forth and by this point I really I was uh I was I was engaged to my high school sweetheart which is my wife today so I've been with my wife since we were 16 17 years old and so this time I just started I I was just I was just in this state of like God you saved my life what's next what are we doing where are we going what are we doing what's next and so I stayed home and I was praying and praying and praying and praying and all of a sudden I just had this thought to like go pick up the Bible again you know so I'm starting to read it and I'm just looking at it a little bit differently you know I'm starting from the beginning and braces I start to realize that I had a lot of questions even when I was in the Bible study groups that I never had the answers for which even which religion came first because the Islam Christianity Judaism so I started doing this searching and I started watching uh a lot of stuff on YouTube you know that's that's sort of what happens uh you know every conspiracy theory I've seen already uh and and I started to watch debates between imam's Rabbi Christian pastors and stuff like that and so I started to order all the books I had you know a few different versions of the Christian Bible I had a homage JPS tonight I was reading the Quran and I was sitting eight hours a day going between all these different texts eight hours a day so I found myself very like uh confused obviously as you can imagine at the end of that and then I started fasting I was going three days at a time no food and I was going out crying crying crying my eyes to God and I I was getting to that point just because these are a lot of things I was reading right so I didn't really have anybody telling me like hey maybe you don't want to do this and I just I was searching for God and it was very very hard and very heavy on me but during that time time the very heightened sensitivity to spirituality during that time I felt the Hashem was with me the whole entire time but while you're doing the seeking your musical career taken off to this point did you have to like shut it down because the music's out there your popularity is there so what are you doing about it so the first thing that happened was religiously after I sort of like was going through my process of elimination right I didn't make my eggs in the Islam basket but Christianity and Judaism was very harsh I became Messianic first that was the first thing I did and I found a congregation that was maybe two miles or so from from where I was staying and it happened to be that this place was very traditional so they had a real Saint petora they diving out of article C during most of the services in Hebrew and and I had absolutely no idea what was going on when I walked in did you know wait but did you think it was maybe the Perfect Blend of Christianity like in like beginning of Judaism this could make it together is that the way that I'm wild I guess I should say is I'm a soul that craves authenticity right so for me it's always trying to get back to the root of something how did this happen now only after I get back there I could figure out whether or not there's something I actually need to make a part of my life but I was starving for something more than what Christianity had to offer because I just went through this book twice I understand that that Hashem has a plan at this point I already know that the the torah's and this is true and and I mean swells and shims people so I need to go there to be able to find what it is that I'm looking for meanwhile music is happening the more and more that I'm growing spiritually I can't make these two worlds fit right you know coming from the the world of rap that I came from was completely contradicting to the place that I wanted to be so I came to a point where I I really felt strongly that it was time for me to retire hang up my cleats so to speak so I'm Liberty meeting had at one concert and I remember looking at my business partner who also and the label that we're with and we had just did this deal and I told him I said listen I want this to be my last album I'm done after this I said but you guys can keep all the money anything that this next album makes is all of you guys you can keep the Masters I gave him the Masters lifetime you can have everything only thing I wanted was that they didn't force me to perform on Shabbat on The Young and Toby so I was working I took a job that year working in for property management like as a facility coordinator it's like that's not such a smart job it's like the janitor and then the facility coordinator you know it's on the chain but I got four raises and became one of the top leasing agents for that same company in the same year the same year and In This Moment you're thinking this will probably be my new career I've made peace with the fact that music was for that stage exactly done I'm gonna have this career and I'm going to explore religion and see what right I thought and it wasn't even so much so like I I'm gonna be doing this for the rest of my life it's just that I had to give up music and the way that I looked at it at this time I said that you know what I'm doing this because I feel wholeheartedly this is what I need to be doing right now but if not then hashem's gonna have to send them my life and tell me to take the knife and not to cut your stuff because this is my good stuff right this is my okay done and I'm gonna sacrifice this music was my life it was my my life I used to go to sleep at nine o'clock in the morning from pulling all night as being in the studio I was obsessed with music making music and being involved in me so for me this was like giving up a piece of me and I think I needed it at that time to be able to prove to myself and to prove to God that I'm on board I will Slaughter the most important thing in my life in order to follow you and so that's what I did and um and and it was very good for me it was cleansing for me because it helped me to gain and to gauge a better perspective of what music was that it wasn't a means in and of itself but it's a very powerful tool so now going back to the religious exploration that you're doing so amazing I said Jewish podcast dude we've got to make a bracha very good thank you for the tip okay so we know that you're doing religious exploration you're getting about the Messianic synagogue but everyone is looking at you sees a stream on your head so I'm guessing something about what you're learning in the Messianic synagogue is not where you ultimately land so what happens there and how does the journey continue well they didn't wear shrimals well the journey went from there was as I as I mentioned the whole entire time I'm there well not the entire time at the beginning it was a major culture shop for me right I thought you know somewhere in the middle maybe to be a little bit Jewish a little bit because this one was like way more Jewish than it was but the more more I went to go learn to find out like I went back to the internet obviously because Google happens to be one of the biggest guy in them in the generation so I went to google.com and I'm starting to Now look up at things because now I need to figure out why these guys are doing all this stuff what's toosh about what's the oral tour I don't know any you know what I mean so I'm trying to figure out all of this and so like anybody else who looks up anything Jewish on the internet I came to chabad.org so so I ended up on chabad.org I was there day and night trying to figure out what what is what and eventually that led me to go into a Chabad on the east side and I went to go for a tour class Rabbi invited us we told him straight up you know this is what we believe we just wanted to come he said as long as you don't come over here spreading the good word you're okay to come here so he let us come and the more and more that I'm in between there and I'm learning more and more and by this time I'm starting to learn you know I'm learning more and I'm like I I need more I need more I need more and um they had this major conference this is crazy the first time they were doing a major Messianic conference for this certain uh uh I don't know group group of people um the first time they were going to do it in Seattle they've done it every year in some other place like hot and warm where it makes sense right like you would never put the Super Bowl in Seattle right but they did it they did it this one year and I remember right before we ended up going to this conference they told us I said whatever you do don't talk to the Orthodox rabbis in the lobby this is going to be Orthodox rabbis there don't speak to them they're only going to try to debate with you and and whatever the bad news stay away from these guys don't even say shabbat shalom so it's like the missionaries anti-missionary whatever so that's it from the other side right so me and my brother-in-law because at this point it was me my wife my wife's sister's made to my best friend since kindergarten and we were on this journey together at this at this point and um so we decided I mean my brother-in-law that instead of going to the conference and going in like you know regular people we would just go and sit with the rabbis they told us not to for four days so that's exactly what we did we came every day we hung out with the rabbis there was Rabbi Michael skoback from Jews for Judaism and uh Rabbi Ellie Cohen who's also his laborator rap uh is it but he he also got very involved in anti-missionary work and now works for juice for Judaism as well so I'm there for the first time I'm asking you know rabbis all of my questions instead of Google right so I'm getting real-time response they knew the New Testament very well and I'm able to really talk to them and go deeper with him and it was such a powerful experience for me um talking with him and I never end up going back to the Messianic congregation I I went back home and me and my wife were growing I was moving faster than her but we were more or less still on the same page where we were in terms of spiritually and I remember the few days she came to me she says I want to convert I'm like really you want to do this like you know she said I want to convert or to that we're done with this we can't and I'm thinking like I I have that switch for her like she was the one in the beginning that was very hard for her but she had switched at this point and and I was excited but nervous because I was like I grew up in sewer Park I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood more or less I'd never seen black juice seen Jews in black but I've never seen black holes right so I'm thinking to myself what are we gonna what are we gonna do you know I mean of course as I've gone through the internet I've came across like you know the Hebrew Israelites and different people like them I've never seen you know actual Jewish people that were black so Chicago was amazing because I was in this self-checkout on the air Shabbos and my disciples already still winning keeper had sisters and there was a there was a a moment and break in between the self-checkout where I heard shabbat shalom brother I'm gonna turn around and it's a black Jewel and it's standing in the in the in the store and he's got a grin from ear to ear and he invites me for Shabbos his name is Jacob of London and uh he invites us for Shabbos and then he invites us another week another week so we're back there so now we know at least we're not the only ones right and we met more people and they started to invite us more and more people for Shabbos so at least make it shorter so we end up moving into the community and we start growing and there's no official back then at least I don't know what's like in Seattle but I think there was no official program really forgave him so some people sometimes they take five years seven years ten years you know what I mean for them to complete because as long as you're not pushing nobody realizes that you're there so we ended up finishing about two and a half years and I had like a little secret that was in my pocket that I I was always afraid to talk about even in the at the at least in the basement outside the basement and then when I could bring it up or whatever I had a love for Casitas I was really really into the best levels of form it was the first thing was uh the book uh The Garden of Peace by rajelo marush um that that book was life-changing for me life-changing for me and then I got the garden of amuna and then then enforce fields from rubber ocean and then he kept quoting remin so now I need to go check out maybe now so um I think the first thing I tried was to learn the liquite I I I'm not gonna lie and say I tried it I opened it then I closed it that's what I did because in the first few lines it was not for me um but then slowly started to come into different breast lifts to form like mashiva Snapfish restoring of the Soul or or the outpouring of the Soul he stopped with an effish and these books were life-changing for me and they saved me ultimately because what happens I came in as I'm telling I was fasting and I'm praying and I'm doing all these like you know what appears to be very wild even though it's like more Jewish than anything else but so I come in and everybody's like cooling me down cool down cool down is too much it's too much you ah you know take it here go to the cold you go you know what I'm saying like chill out relax dude and when I got his type of the nap and I'm seeing how much of announcements talking about his votedness and talking to Hashem talking to him it resonated with me that's how I discovered Judaism so that was the that was the one piece I think that really snatched me into like wrestler because see this was seeing the importance of talking to Hashem like he was your best friend and that's that's what connected me and then you mentioned in the supermarket there was another right you connected but like for me when I was becoming religious for me to look the part like I can walk in the stool put a certain action on I fit right in what was it like for you you mentioned not that there's like not as many African-Americans in the community what did that feel like um good thing that in Seattle wasn't I mean I guess there was maybe one or two people there was him and another individual but um by the time I came in my regular assistant law came it got it kind of got kind of thick peppering up the spot over there um so the the truth was that I didn't I didn't think about it I just stopped thinking about color I just I didn't think about it and nobody else was bringing it up so why should I keep bringing it up you know what I mean and so I didn't I didn't allow myself initial everybody told me it was going to be issue you know when I was leaving the Messianic place oh then I go blah and they're not like this and they're like that nobody knows because they're not from from over here anyway but um so I I thought that I had to have some guard on about it and I didn't I didn't I just stopped thinking about it and nobody else made big deal about it so I didn't think about it different any different than anybody else did and so I've interviewed a lot of people on the Saturday to Shabbos podcast to convert and they usually start by converting to conservative duties so did you understand levels and like what you were getting into by like you said your wife was like let's do Orthodox Jews and you understand all the things involved with it by the time we were ready to convert we did understand that um uh prior to no we didn't we only knew there was one Judaism right so a lot like a lot of our enemies so a lot of these these these different categories of things like that we didn't think about them until much later on by the time we're ready to convert there was this sort of like you know I've been asked this when I'm around conservative people also too which which have a great deal of respect and love for but I just went where Hashem was most popular you know what I mean she was more more popular by the Orthodox and that's that's who brought me into this own type thing so I went by him so that was sort of the way that it worked for me okay and so you had made peace with the idea that maybe your music career was done but that's not how your story ends up and you also get a new name so how does music and a new name come into your life so what happened is um I was this is right around the the time we were finishing our gave us that I was having a lot of people at this time in my life pushing me telling me you need to make music again namely my wife my best friend and um and a few other friends that I stopped hanging around they just called me randomly and was just like man you need to be making music I you know even if it's inspirational stuff and one friend told me like man I had a dream you're making music like it was like a it was a crazy time where I felt a lot of pressure which was interesting because it was at the same time where a lot of other known Jewish artists were not able to hang on to the faith it was the exact time that all of this was happening some people know of one person but it was like at the same time that it was like four or five other people that you know weren't this big that I knew of that were just like that year so I'm like if this isn't proof not to go back then I don't know what else is you know um so it was uh for me initially I fought it I fought it and then what happened was my son ended up getting sick with meningitis um he was four I think it was maybe four months old and very very scary very very scary and um I just read and and one of the books from Rabbi that when you need a major Yeshua you should try to dive into him for six hours straight let me pull the issue and you could bring a Yeshua from there and um and so I went home and I'd have them for six hours straight and I had a Breaking Point in the end where in this state I would say of meditation or I'm hearing all these voices of people and not literally voices but of everybody was telling me during that time because my question is all the time is like Hashem why would you do this what am I doing that I should be doing or what am I doing that I shouldn't be doing in my life at this point that you would allow this to happen to me was going through a hard financial time everything was just like coming to a head and and I thought about this old microphone that I had as an nt2 roads the microphone was dead didn't work anymore but I hang on to it I was making a joke the other night you know I also hang on to all my uh my original MacBook uh case that it came in I just listen they make it it works you know they they put a lot of time into this packaging you know it's hard to throw away some of these boxes they look nice anyway so I also had this microphone for no reason and I said to I said this I said if this is what you want me to do if this is coming from you I need a big Seaman I need something that is groundbreaking and I thought of this microphone said a if you make this microphone work then I'm gonna take this as a sign that this is from you so after it's done praying darling I I went I put hooked up the microphone and it worked like instantly the agathon worked so I said never mind Hashem it works already no I'm joking um I'm joking I'm joking so what I did though I was very afraid still so I I went to my my Ruby right by shmuel Brody who's uh he's originally from Silver Spring is now in Baltimore and I went and told him you know what happened I had been discussing with him a little bit that people were pushing me in that way and he was also very reluctant and unsure and I went talked to him and it took about two hours of Musa you know straight up Missy like you shine and he gave me a bracha to go to go back into it and that it should be good and I was also in touch at this point with the laser building also too that happened to both be from Silver Spring but he was in your salon at the time and I was very scared I'm very scared and I I would say that I tiptoed back into it it wasn't something that I went like full-on force and they looked that way on the outside but I was so afraid because rap has become such a arrogant sport you understand what I mean so it's very hard to try to to to to make these two worlds that feel so different you know together so that was a struggle for mine of mine and then after maybe you know I released a a whole album I had no idea I had no idea there was such thing as Jewish music but Cloud so I I just went back to working with all the old company and every people that I knew but I kept on getting pushback from all the marketing teams same people that I was on MTV bet and all that went back to the same team the same machine that it pushed me into success because I left at the height of My Success that was you know charting very high on College radio and and and uh at BT like I said the MTV had my single and four rotation and and this is the point that I left so I'm thinking let's just go back and let's go do it but now it's clean it's inspirational and all that and I kept on getting back because like listen this is like way too inspirational for what we're doing over here you know like they just couldn't do anything with us like nobody's but it's just too too like you know not enough you know and and so that was hard for me and I didn't know what I was doing but I felt at least that I'm in the back in the city of making music this is what I felt that wanted for me so that's what I'm gonna do but it was hard because I was still struggling I wanted to grow more spiritually and for me it was hard to make these two worlds fit so it wasn't until sometime later and I I ended up getting a call from a friend of mine his name is Elon Cohen Elon had a very interesting story he himself worked at a major record label before shuva and he discovered some some singer named Lady Gaga or something and um so he ended up ended up right before he consigner he went to Israel on a Birthright trip had a transformative experience and he never he didn't end up going back and he stayed there and she made like a lot of money that next year but whatever you know so he ended up uh you know years later you know playing and dibling and dabbling with music and and he he reached out to me and wanted to record a few different songs and the one thing he called me and said uh have you ever heard of the song and I told him yeah he said would you do a remix to it I said yeah he said okay I'll call you back so he gets off the phone with me calls God God help us God help us and they just got that by the way they got it yeah okay so and then he calls him back he says God said let's do it so we ended up making this song and it's a whole support to it but um and and the song ended up like I found out useless in the music and and it was very very powerful um the way that it all came together but that was probably my way back end of me realizing and knowing okay I said this is how you meant to do it this is how you meant to do it and so I'm going to ask you two last questions and then we're going to give the audience a chance to ask me some a few questions that you might come up with um you didn't mention how you came up with the name when you got back into it that you had to have a new stage name okay I named for not a stage name the name came before the stage came back so what happened was is that I was going through a few different names originally my my non-jewish name is Damien but before they made me Damien they named me Joshua for like the first 10 minutes of my life it was Joshua and uh I don't know who came in my father says it was him my godmother says it was her so it's not like because who changed it to Damien but Joshua's original name so I thought maybe yahushua maybe you know a few different names I'm going through because I know I was going to the base then soon and so lucky you can't have it written on your ketuba if it's not a name you're known by you know for a extended period of time and so I uh I was going through all these different names and I don't know how Nissan came maybe because I think one time I was in a social hall I seen a very strong guy with that name you know I know old picture or something I don't know where it came from but the name Nissan popped into my head and it started to compete with all the other names you know and I remember I was just so like you know obsessed with it after a while that was like I can't find my name you know how to so I at the end I asked this what do you want you know like what's my name I ended up going to the to the show early it was uh before mental and I'm sitting there waiting nobody's in there except for me so I said domination on my name and I'm praying to him on the name and I I specify said what's your names and whatever clock at seven o'clock people were going to come in it was during the summer time and I put my hand behind to grab a seat door and it said knee seem on it right there on the front of it now the truth is they say biggest brought down the commands definitely brought down the conceitage of support that at the time that the parents name a child is Opie Rockaway dish his holy spirit is given unto the parents in order to name the child right so I was my own parent and and I I knew it afterwards because I didn't realize until years later I just had my birthday this past week um which was on Zion Kiss Live which is during the month of Mayor of course the kiss love is the month of Miracles and not only that my second time I was born again when I was magaya was your design Adar so in both months that are called month of Miracles I was uh I was uh I came into being so um saw his shame in the end okay so last question I just wanted to ask you everyone's on a journey but yours has like some seriously dramatic twists and turns that wouldn't be common for someone who's growing in their Jewish observance what do you take away from your whole story looking back from starting in Seattle and the family who came from to where you are now like what do you think the journey was meant to all be about so the journey is for me I think we spoke a little bit about it yesterday was is that one of the biggest things I've always been fascinated by was that it says in in in Torah itself a few times in order to describe the spiritual success of that person everybody and others it always says afterwards and Hashem was with him and Hashem was with him and I remember reading and going through because I took the Tanaka one point after I figured out that this was my path that you describe as well and I sat it down I said Hashem was starting over I'm reading this book I only want to know your character I want to know what you love I want to know what you hate I want to know you know and so when I got to that point of me going through and I kept saying and she was with her I said I shouldn't want them to say that about me too and these semen Hashem was with him so the biggest thing that I that I've taken away my whole entire journey is that I I was implanted with this yearning that it should be said that Hashem was with him and looking back on my life I can look now and see every single moment of these different things and all the Seattle I mean we all could if we if we're paying attention to see all the Seattle help from Heaven that I had along the whole entire journey and I see hashems been with me he's been with me so now I just take out insurance policy to make sure that he stays there you know to him but uh that's the biggest thing for me beautifully said so we're now going to take a few questions from the audience so if you want to ask a question raise your hand rabbit Markowitz is going to find you with the wireless mic from there we're going to have a short intermission and we'll get to the desserts and then of course the concert so Robin Marco it's up to you to pick some people for questions no pressure this is an old friend of me Sims from Seattle so uh I'm listening to the whole thing and I saw that you immediately it over a course of a few months went from Christianity to Judaism but I was wondering how in that time could you have him learned Hebrew and like diving from a sitter if you were just got from Christianity because it's a very good question how how did I pick up like Hebrews so fast this is something the the Red Zone you know and I wouldn't say that you know I'm learning new words every day still but the truth is is that when we learned how to just like just to be able to read it it took me maybe 45 minutes because my right Zone and my drive are so strong that I wanted to and I started with the I think it was called the first Hebrew primer or something like that came a little disc showed you how to say it what to do you know it was already going by this other hover over here and they were praying so I was able to get familiar with the sound so to speak and and I just sat there and I went for it I really went for it and I put my all into it and so that's uh this will help me hello good evening um your lyrics really speak to me I'm able to they resonate with me very much thank you and uh big fan and um I'm wondering a lot of them seem to me to be prayers and I'm wondering if you have that anywhere in your mind as you as you write your lyrics it's very good question so um I have a practice of try at least every day to meditate and to talk to Hashem and something powerful about when a person sets aside that time that even after you're done praying some of those words they stay in your mouth throughout the day that you you do the exercise of of calling out to Hashem into speaking to Hashem on certain things they stay in your mouth throughout the day because you're speaking the desires of your heart so it's only so when I go into the studio for instance and I'm listening to music sometimes I'm very conscious of the fact that you know and I've said to Hashem you know I want to give people the words everybody struggles with talking with this Shin everybody struggles you know at some point no matter how much you do it or how much how little you do it there's a lot of times where we all struggle and so for me I I came to realization that I need to give the words I need to be able to give the words of of of of of what to say and how to talk and what to say to Hashem you know and what better to do it over a song than nobody's like paying attention and singing all the time so a lot of it is a lot of the words always say come out of this time of seclusion that I have with God and I and I speak to him and then Sometimes they come back and they just they pour out of me and by way of song okay we'll take two more questions and then we'll go to our intermission last two rabbit markets we have Leia Miriam over here hi I'm Leah Miriam um I'm Jewish and Asian I guess I was wondering like do you have any messages for other Jews of color like some kind of inspiration and stuff yeah um it's very hard for me because the the truth is is that you know colors a reality in a world that's called the alma dashikra a false world you understand what I mean ultimately it's been it's been one of those challenges for me um this in particular because it's like how do you see yourself how do you describe yourself are you a black Jew are you a Jew that's that like how do you see it so I think the the starting point always is is that first because there's no color on that contrary to popular belief there's no color on on your Yiddish guide in your relationship to Hashem and I found that the less I focus on my vertical relationship the more and more I have issues with the horizontal things right like the less I'm focused on that I have more issues in the horizontal which are things of colored and in in the way things that people deal with in the physicality of the person the more and more I'm Focus virtually meaning that I'm more focused on my relationship with Hashem I surpass and it doesn't bother me if I if I do encounter a little bit which I've encountered a little not a lot um but I think that's the biggest thing is keeping our eyes on the prize and not allowing that to be uh something that that catches us up like you know I always say you know which is probably going to be I don't think it's here but you know I don't know a white Jew myself every Jews if you're white you could be white passing but you know for sure in Europe they didn't treat anybody like Hey we're all the same color guys let's you understand it could be white passing it could be dark you can do all these other things but the main thing is like when you describe a person is Hashem with him there's a shim with her is it you know and so that's sort of the thing is I think is most important to focus on on the vertical the relationship with the shin okay we got our final question whether it's Mandy on a lighter notes what rapper do you look up to what rapper do I look up to it's a very good question I mean it's like almost like whoever's that morning right because we're wrapping the Tequilas every day no nobody's uh um I I don't know if there's so many rappers I look up to anymore you know I grew up with the typical rappers the Jay-Z's the nas the the Biggie Smalls that's those are sort of my era of looking up to people's Monumental and even a guy I won't mention inside the show anymore it's a very very instrumental in my in my musical growth but um but today it's very hard to say that there's somebody I really look up to um but you know I still like music fair enough and that's the one we will end on so thank you guys so much [Applause] I just want to say [Applause] on behalf of the Orthodox Union Fairlawn instrumentor Nissan black thank you for joining me on Saturday with Shabbos thank you thank you I appreciate it okay