MEET A BLACK HASIDIC JEWISH RAPPER (a day in the life of NISSIM BLACK)

everybody I'm here with the men commit the legend no missing black in the house hey hey hey Shalom how you doing holy brother well my mother was a rapper my father was a rapper Seattle in Seattle they also sold drugs that's why I started first in Islam black pays very hard to maintain I like to break dance in it for multiple reasons but I would like to break the internet everything is about like I said elevation and everything should go from Darkness to light that the show is going to be tonight I was going through a lot also too my kids can't get into school they were told because of the color of their skin I was very much so it wasn't like it was just out of nowhere but like I came up looking for God like I'm I'm team guy I'm on team.com [Music] good afternoon from Shemesh Israel so today I'm going to be meeting really cool and unique and special he is Jewish he is a successful rapper he's Hasidic and he's black so we're about to meet Nissan black hey hey hey Shalom how you doing holy brother good thank God how are you I'm doing all right how you doing oh nice blue thank you thank you how's it going wonderful hmm so what's going on welcome to Bahama loud the truth is I know a lot of people say this but when I say it it's real my cleaning lady called in sick today okay so you get a little bit of my shop this afternoon okay so this is the family this is some of the family hello some of the kids this is uh three of the kids three the kids are not here yeah this is the black Estates okay stop the shop if you want to see my happy showers dishes sure uh from today you know that's some fish going out I'm a fish Guy Fish I eat fish I can eat fish seven days a week you preferred over chicken or meat I preferred over chicken meat is that like Health thing or just taste no I just I I prefer to I prefer fish over the chicken to me nice view yeah so how long have you been living here I've been here now for more than four years and do you have like a studio or something in the house yes for sure yeah for sure let's go we uh The Humble of those and this is where it all happens but first a word from our sponsor so you want to book a kosher vacation Sounds easy right not always you want to be within walking distance of kosher restaurants and synagogues plus you just might need a car rental for those harder to reach places [Music] introducing vakazi.com simply visit the site and enter where you want to go then you enter when you want to go go ahead hit that search button and allow because he to work its magic will then show you the best hotels and how close they are to the synagogues mikvahs and those delicious kosher restaurants that's right all the information you need in one place it's really that simple visit vacancy.com and start planning your kosher vacation today foreign so what happened originally was this was my his booty this is where you like meditate meditated this is why I will talk to Hashem obviously I didn't need any sound proof or anything for that that candles here even when this clock was that was like another thing for candles that had you know different things like that here and this was this was my room I came to get away from everybody but nothing was really big on all of his students having a room where he went to go meditate to go talk to God so this was my room for that what happened was 2020 happened Corona happened and they were going to do a big Sega here a big shutdown a big uh quarantine or whatever and I knew that I was going to be able to travel to yusheline every day to go to sue that's what I was doing before I learned for a little bit in the morning and then I was going and recording every day every day almost every every day a few times a week maybe four three four times a week I was going against your life if I wasn't recording I had to make songs and I was going to my guy Jonathan Freelander over in uh in your salon so I had a major problem I was going to be able to do anything I was going to be shut down how was I going to record so I had to go to all the different Studios on the lead and all these other places to go get it sound proof and then I turned this whole place into a studio and that's the reason why it's partly like a base magician also like a like a city at the same time so and and I think for me also too the two things go together because even when I'm writing music and I'm trying to get another pictures about the salary here oh yeah he's [Music] so question for you as we walk into the studio I know there's soft music playing are you more of a soft music kind of person or do you like to be it's very good question because I'm really both my daily preference alone is is soft music really soft music that I've been like for a while but I remember after I had Corona my I don't feel like my my brain has worked the same I've had to deal with like anxiety I get worked up very easy so I usually am playing soft music what I found is like you know I found a lot of these clips relaxing videos of water and different things like that as you see and those things kind of get me you know they calm me down a lot it really really helped me so I depending so I'm a soft music guy I love to create an atmosphere that when I walk into the house I can already be in that comb and I have a safe place sort of to be so I love that in addition to that that's you know I listen to most of the people I probably listen to mostly it's like Zoo Chef you know some carduna and cats and you know and you shot a rebuilding probably like one of the biggest you shot repo fans It's usually the opposite of my music but somehow when I go into music to make it that's just not what comes out you know it's not what comes out of me you know my whole Indian is I think I take it and then I I turn it into fire type thing you know and this is what comes out comes out for me okay so now that you mentioned Easter evil any chance there's going to be a Nissan Lucky Chip yeah live one day me and yisha have been talking about it we've been talking about it for a long time actually for a while this has been on the table we're going back and forth so every once in a while I'll send them something we'll go back and forth to see if it survives and different things like that so we I hope so he's very very uh into the idea you know he wants to do something I want to do something I think it's going to happen eventually he's got to find the right right right track I feel like that would like break the internet yeah two of you together wow that'd be something special I'd like to break the internet for multiple reasons but I would like to break the internet but it's also like the styles are so different right like how would his audience relate to and how would your it would be very interesting to say I think well that's always the thing for me is musically I'm always up for challenge like I love the challenge I generally would like to uh collab with people that people would say like there's no way that they made a collaboration like you know I worked on a song with zusha hopefully it'll be finished very soon but I I like that idea of of being challenged and feeling like you know there's no way everybody tell me no way it can fit and it's not going to work or whatever I'm just like okay I'll show you and I have no problem because I feel for myself that I know I shim gave me a lot of different gifts and a lot of ways that I can work that people have not seeing everything that I can do so I don't mind going into you know isharibo's world I can go into the world I can I could go into nbd's world I can go into anybody's world I feel like and find a place and be able to carve out something so I'm always up for that challenge and when you're doing these collabs are you like going into the studio with the other person or you kind of like they record their thing you record your thing and like keep the energy separate today usually most most of the times I record and I do collaborations are usually not in the studio together I used to really like that energy but now it's like you know having your own Studio after a while and you know because it was forced upon me by the circumstances in the beginning it was like so hard like I have to record myself I have to press all the buttons I have to go back you know it was like a very very difficult but then like afterwards it got used to so now I don't like even recording anywhere else you know but my idea is to eventually move the studio out of the house have a bigger space where I can actually be in the studio collaborating with people because I think sometimes we do miss that you know the input from somebody else who's there that has some completely different idea and then you like able to add in that whole and uh you know the natural creative juices that flow when people are together and they're coming from different worlds so that is a dream but most of the time these days everything's like in a different place I know I know for a fact you told this story so many times and I don't want to make you go through it again I know it's a long story but can you in two or three minutes summarize who you are where you came from and where you're at now I am Niecy black last time I checked my ID it's very interesting I I call myself more than a performer I think I'm a spiritual motivator more than I am this performer and with that that includes performing and the music as well totally and even the speeches yeah but my thing is like you know my motivations are different than when I was a young kid making music I recorded my first professional song when I was 13 years old you know so from then until through 19 when I've released my first album and then and you know a couple years after that releasing started releasing more like many albums or mixtapes or whatever at that time like I was consumed by the music you know I grew up very much so in the hip-hop world my mother was a rapper my father was a rapper Seattle and Seattle they also sold drugs and I joined the family business very early as I always joke and say I was dealing very early 12 years old already I was smoking pot at nine years old really the truth was it's just a product of my environment this is what was going on and Hip-Hop at that time was the soundtrack for life you know first Tupac and Biggie and then moving on I think the biggest rap about me was Jay-Z for a long time I think Jay-Z oh my God you know for a long time and then Kanye came and he offered creative outlets for me as an artist to look at things differently than what I would have done you know because in that world you know I always had a nice voice I was always afraid to sing because if I sing then I'm not a rapper anymore you know what I mean or if I you know if I you know so I always had this scary thing but Kanye came and started doing creative things so I think they're kind of to suddenly little bit as an artist and this was Kanye like of 20 years ago yeah not like Kanye today because now he's doing some really creative on a higher level yeah he's always he's just been a little bit a little bit crazy but it's always the way the way was was much more different than out there and yeah I and I think even Kanye from 20 years ago uh 15 years ago whatever was like it was in a difficult completely difficult different world completely do you think he's in a better place now or then I don't know as much because I I will be honest I haven't really listened to Kanye so much these days right I'm just being honest with a speaker I stopped listening to like a secular music even before I came Jewish really now here and there I've heard stuff because I'm out or you know hit by things but like actively been active listener of like secular music has been wow very very long time so maybe a little bit over 10 years of years so every new thing I've heard from Kanye has been in passing or somebody I'm riding in the car on the way to a gig and and somebody says if you heard the new Kanye they put it on for me it's all here then he's making crazy stuff and I think from the little bit that I heard he's just as genius now I think he may even got even crazier but even better are in a good way than he did you know 20 years ago are you wearing Yeezys good for you very nice I kind of you know there's an issue I don't know if you want to take a look behind you but my wife also would think oh wow you got a collection are they all the same black ones or yeah they're different I have two pair of these ones they're very comfortable yeah the first thing is now they're very comfortable before we get back to your story quickly I want to ask you you said you mentioned that you stopped listening to secular music now you didn't grow up Jewish right so you were like there was literally part of your life and your upbringing as you mentioned right and then you're on this journey when like I understand you've been through numerous religions right so you got here so what was that Journey like so religious wise I started first in Islam I was assuming Muslim my grandfather was a Sunni Muslim apparently yeah my parents were not religious so just kind of like grandfathered in my grandfather what happened was he came to live with us now he has spent most of his life in prison okay father and he came home for about maybe a year year and a half and he lived with this for a good amount a year and a half that he was out on parole and while he was there he taught me Islam that's that was what he knew and that was only really and my parents really didn't didn't really care so much about it they you know wasn't like they weren't so involved in God and that one year so I prayed with them five times a day he taught me Arabic I used to make certain blessings even before I ate I would go to with him to the mosque as a kid and when he ended up going back to prison from that point on anybody asked me I would say I was a Muslim even though I wasn't really practicing my dad times back in the streets getting expelled from school running with the wrong crowd joined the gang the whole everything but that's who you identified with yeah but that was what I identified with so when I was around 13 I started getting stronger stronger with it I don't know what happened it was like this major breakdown I was having I had a friend who invited me to go to this uh hip-hop program that was at a Christian uh Community Center so that gave me a great deal of exposure to Christianity now before that I had Uncle who was a pastor and feelings like that so every you know once in a while once in the Easter or a Sunday Squad we'll go but that was only for the food but I didn't really you know for the kids I didn't really get into so when I went there as a teenager 13 years old it was it was more so like a safe haven Haven for me nobody really talked about God too much or whatever you just seen healthy relationships I've seen it was a better place than for me at home with all the things I was dealing with and it gave me an outlet for music so that's what I did and during that time I really got very very um I started to feel a major emptiness major void and I felt like even then I was cognizant for some reason that that voice was God so naturally you know Islam was the religion I knew before I had an uncle who was also Muslim and so I started you know talking to him more about that and he got me more involved more involved than praying and all that he encouraged me so after a while this Christian's waste they ended up saying to me you know do you want to go to Camp I went within the campus like a missionary camp and I went so powerful this I'm not gonna lie it was very very very powerful timing what kind of Christianity was it it was uh Evangelical regularly Evangelical they have some very powerful prayers like I've been I was once at the White House and for like I think was the National Day of Prayer and president Trump is calling up different like religious leaders from so many different groups and evangelicals and they get out like they can really work up about even if you're not part of their religion you can feel the passion that can take you on a journey it could take you on a journey I mean you talk some of these guys the way they speak the music the everything that uh it starts you know now this is the biggest thing you know with all these motivational videos and different things like that if they even get into myself for the you're talking you hear this music behind the church has been doing that for years you know knowing how to work up the mood so I ended up going to this Camp powerful speaker he would speak at the end there'll be music and while he's talking they don't give questions you go back and you really sedated almost off of the what you just heard the content plus the music was a beautiful talk and I and for me it was the first time I was able to step out of my situation from being from the inside and look at it like this is dysfunction you know maybe there's more to life so I know your personal life was my personal life okay it's like you know growing up inner city kid used to seeing you know the things that you were seeing so I ended up converting to Christianity uh which honestly I still say saved my life I think that that time saved my life or where I was headed and where I was going in life it was a very big plus for me at that time however I get into high school you know go you go through all the emotions of the high school but I'll shorten it a little bit because it will be forever but going through all the Motions of high school trying to be religious and some what I was it was very very strong and got very Stark as a Christian bible thumper I was reading my Bible every five seconds and I had a lot of questions but you know in in the Evangelical World generally it's not so scholarly enough to answer your questions if there's something inside the Bible but when it goes to deeper you know deeper things it and it's not really you know you're more so pushed to believe things I think just believe um which I understand at some point it always gets that way but I feel like these were answerable questions but they didn't resurface again until after I got into it with another artist years later after I saw that my whole Christian thing at Wayne I lost my mother to an overdose and that was a very hard time for me emotionally spiritually and what happened was maybe a year or so after that there was another artist another rapper in in that world who made a song about me and at this point I was making completely secular gangster rap I've completely fell him back into that world for multiple reasons uh one in particular but there was multiple reasons and instead of making a song back we ended up in the altercation like you know got really bad and we ended up going to fight and ain't going to fight this guy at a nightclub and that ended up with a friend of mine trying to take his life and he didn't get him but he ended up in prison and they thought I sent somebody to kill them and they were going to come kill me if I you know if I didn't go retaliate if I didn't go do it first so after being in that type of situation I just I broke down and I realized for me that this is you know it's not just gangster rap it's not just like this is something where if you flirt with these type of things then eventually then they actually come true you'll actually be in a position where you know you could be losing your life or taking somebody else's life so that was too hard for me so I started praying and after I kept praying and kept praying and spent a lot of time I ended up getting a call from the other guy we swatched everything which that was a mirror upon itself because nobody ever called you so after that I stayed home I did a lot of self-introspection and a lot of walking around just thinking to myself I didn't really go out so much I just stayed home I became a homebody and in that time I started praying and then eventually I started reading the Bible again picked up like I never never left off and I was reading going very very deep and watching things on YouTube and then I started to realize you know I had a lot of questions when I was younger why didn't I look them up for myself of came across a lot of things that that discussed the original the origins of Christianity and different things like that that to say in the least I just discovered that at the origin of both Christianity Islam was Judaism you know and I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood and and and the more and more I grew on it it just it just felt like this is this is the truth that I had always been looking for right so in what year did you convert the Buddhism so I converted to Judaism and officially in 2013. okay almost 10 years ago now and you thought it was back in Seattle I was back in Seattle and then you ended up hearing so and when that house so the truth is I moved to Israel six years ago but it was in my mind and my heart to move from the moment I could you know I was a bible thumper so tonight was my thing who doesn't want to be where everything happened you understand so thinking about it before like you know we don't learn so much to knock Navi and different things like that yeshivas these days but a person that that you know was a thumper bible thumper like it's very hard for a person who especially converts to Judaism who came and questionable to not want to be in Israel because you're so connected you feel such Connections In the Land because you've been reading about it for so long and it means so much to you so you know we say like people give up everything that they they can in the world to move to L.A when they want to be the biggest Entertainer or actor of music or to Fashion they'll move to Paris or New York they'll sleep on couches and whatever they can to get their big break so in terms of spirituality Israel is a place where it's like that's what you do you know you move to this place when that's the most important thing to you yeah so foreign yes to them all white all white so generally sometimes I perform if I know I'm gonna do like a full content yeah like an hour and a half something like that and usually I start off in all black and then I change halfway through the show no white what does that represent so that that just what it what it represents really is just that in the beginning everything starts for darkness and then we go alike so when in a case like this where I'm doing like a shorter set I'm going to be speaking tonight but I'm also going to be doing a concert I do both so I keep the pants black but then I wear a white top you know so I try to try to do something just a little bit but I stopped performing in like just regular Casino I wear like a Becca shirt or something like that but only about I started to feel like you know it was so hard like to like string you know like you're trying to like maintain something to be yourself but you're not being yourself because myself is hot myself is very hot right and I'm schmitzing and I already I'm not making music like everybody else so why pretend to act like I I I'm okay being up to like that but outside of that I feel very uncomfortable right not to have one I have on my launch I feel very uncomfortable I'm on stage I need to be able to run around and get loose you know sure so that's sort of my things I wear like a hoodie I wear some you know a Decker show with it so tonight all you're bringing is the sneakers and I know oh you got a whole bag of cheese usually so what's on the menu so what's on the menu not so much so I just keep you know all always got to keep you sorry girl with you because you know you never know how it's going to end up when you I'll be straight up with you black pays very hard to maintain you know yeah not so easy to do black pays okay very honest with you curls are very tight gotta do something you got to keep some extra creams or something in there so always keep some extra cream okay to make sure that you know I'm gonna be on TV whatever they're filming me tonight so I got to make sure that everything's there Easy's got to have some pair of shoes to run around in you know the black white pair these are Cloud yeah with the black pants we're gonna go with the black pants not the white pants usually have the white bands and on this side for sure I have a white vacation okay wrapped up over here I know how to wrap it to whereas the least amount of wrinkles so I don't want to unwrap it you can get like a portable steamer really yeah like 100 bucks then and you'll look like straight out of the cleaners and then I have like a white hoodie here that I usually wear thin white hoodies very thin so I can catch my breeds at the same time so I wear that underneath and I have the tissues that you know I don't wear outside anymore because they're too dirty so I wear them underneath because I don't want to go without my tits so I want my knee and uh that's pretty much it for this show okay the white backisha is there any symbolism of like Yom Kippur Purity any any of that everything is about like I said elevation and everything should go from Darkness to light the spiritual elevation that I want that when people come out one of the biggest things about being a performer is that when you go out on the stage you're leaving a very very big impression on people right so there's no doubt about it like whether you know what you're doing or you don't know what you're doing so everything at that point becomes that people are locked in on you and the way that I perform generally is that I use a lot a lot a lot of energy right so what I'm doing it and I don't want that um anything should be lost from the show so meaning that if I move my hands a certain way if I do certain things and generally if I'm in a place usually concerts are very dark venues or whatever and you move your hand a certain way people all the time not gonna see it I'm a black guy you know so sometimes it gets hit in the dark so I think the white sometimes offsets that or for for people to be interesting um you know the movements it keeps it's easier for people to follow you around when they have spotlights on you and different things like that but I think overall just the white will just better look for me because because of that the spiritual aspect to it you know I wouldn't say necessarily Yom Kippur but yeah definitely I think it's more spirituality to wearing one um and that elevates things that people you know generally wear dark clothes so where are we going right now we are going to Mission I will show that and I'm also speaking a lot of kids who are in public school which you know I hope to inspire a lot of them I don't know what I'm inspiring them to do but hope for me to do better people so we're going to go there do like a rehearsal run through of the Talking part and then do a little sound check and then after that we'll do a concert what time is the show show is going to be tonight okay I never know I always say I have a everything where you know my job is to go and my manager's job is to you no get out of here foreign okay so we just got to the event here with Nissan and uh he's going in to the stage area to do a sound check I'm here with the man the black in the peace out okay I'm so glad you're here boy you just told me this is a good thing I know we talked about it here so I'm here with Nissan and we are backstage at the show that he's gonna be doing tonight kind of hot here I'm not sure how he's still wearing all of his gear um you excited I'm very excited um this is crazy it looks like it's going to be amazing audience huge stage a massive uh production reimbursement I'm so excited okay so there's just one question that I've wanted to ask you for a long time and that is that before you came along there were other people who tried to do um you know ultra-orthodox or Hasidic Judaism wall being in the hip-hop industry and the rap industry I don't want to mention any names but a bunch of people have tried this and nobody's been able to maintain both of them at the same time eventually one of them fell to the side why do you think or do you think that you can successfully balance these two so I think that uh to me also two of us very scared in the beginning and the reason why I was very scared was because I just don't want to lose my religiosity first off I I retired originally I thought I retired when I when I was starting to begin my conversion so I retired and then and then after some time I realized that this is really what I should be doing to use my talents use my gifts that God gave me in order to bring people close to to God to make God's awareness known in the world so for me you have to realize that was my whole entire Mission going into it I wasn't thinking about you know I didn't care anymore about being Mr famous so be any of those things I came back because I felt like I was being obedient to the call that was going on inside of my heart and you know from many different seaports I had a broken microphone and started working miraculously I talked to rabbis who encouraged me to to you know start making music again my wife was pushing me even though I was strongly against and the reason why was because I seen exactly that people can't hold on to both of these things one either either Falls as you said or or or the person loses you know that which is dear to them which I think is a relationship to God so for me I never wanted to um so in the beginning and and I think even up until you know recently like people would never know about this about me because I seemed so confident and I'm so whatever and that point there are times when I was more confident than others but always never lose their fear I think that that's the that's the key to success is always knowing that you can fall off at any time right and if you and if you don't put the proper boundaries up and get done then you will fall off you know I've done things in my career that I wish I could take back one of my biggest songs for instance motherland balance I don't like that song everybody else goes crazy over this so I don't like why not it happened from me and it's I had a lot of people my inner circle kind of changed you know and everybody had my best interests at heart when they were encouraging me you know to make the music and to different things like that but it wasn't it wasn't my Ms it was who everybody said I I was supposed to be you know and when you get in a circle a lot of times around a lot of people who's pushing you pushing you gotta do you know and and everybody nobody had bad intentions nobody was trying to destroy me or try to make me do something that wasn't me they thought all thought that you know when a person sees you know a person's black or Hasidic they come from the type of Lifestyle it's like everybody has oh you're supposed to be like this are you supposed to be if I put those two things together then it would be like this so for me personally um I feel like I I had to jump into something and I went forward and I tiptoed through that whole entire process and I kept on saying you're sure my wife said you're crazy what do you do like different things like that so I feel like sometimes uh and it's very hard but I know the difference what was I doing then and I was able to take that mistake and say like what was I doing that his body this wasn't as strong as it was uh you know I had a I had people like I said that that were around that didn't understand my world had people that was around me that didn't understand my world and where I was trying to go um and and I was trying to really in all out I was trying to do more Outreach and reach out to now the truth is on the back end I see that it was a beautiful thing that happened because it reached so many people that I would never been able to reach you understand because it happened but but I had no control I had no control with the video I had no controls but the record label they have control in the way that things went for the promotion of it and and so for me that put me in a place where I realized that you know this could be very dangerous so put me back in that place of fear so that was very good for me um and that obviously had a lot of time to think when I was in the hospital I got sick with Corona and I started rethinking everything and I started realizing everything was always going back to the root so I just I got away for a little bit that I spent a lot of time and he's go to this a lot of time in personal prayer self-introspection and and I feel like I'm back making talking exactly everything I needed to but I wouldn't even be able to make the records now had I not had that to cool for a feeling like I'm out of my elements you know sort of like so just to to follow up on that question how do you know now what the right thing to do is because as you said sometimes you feel like something's not the right thing right but then it reached so many more people than a different track would have reached so what's how do you find that balance and know what you're willing to do to reach people and where your boundaries are was like that's too that's too far out of my age out of my business so the biggest thing is like this is always knowing that I have to be looking for scholarship I have to be looking for God's voice and everything all right so that's the biggest thing so the reason why I say that is because like this although I did something and after the fact I could see that it had a big effect I still perform this I won't like not perform it you know they're gonna take it down or anything like that because that was a taku from where I was in life I was going through a lot also too my kids couldn't get into school they were told because of the color of their skin I was very much so it wasn't like it was just out of nowhere it was frustration but that's what wasn't the way I would have approached It My Way um but anyway so I think the thing is looking for Kohler shim and a person has to recognizing themselves it's impossible not only to be in music this is in any world any career and and just to be a person that's focused a spiritual person especially a person religious whatever word that you use a person that's searching for God in life if you don't have self-introspection every single day to really take accountant of how you are then for sure you're going to be doing a whole lot of things that are not right now because God loves us he can turn all those things into good and that's the way that it works okay so I learned so much from you today and I have many more questions where I want to try to keep it as short as possible one question that's still uh practicing in my heart is as somebody who is black and this is like a whole other discussion are Jews white or not but primarily in the world that you're living in right now with the the haradi ultra-orthodox world in Israel most of the Jews can't have lighter skin right did you feel um accepted right off the bat or was that a process are you still feeling um you know maybe some animosity or people don't feel comfortable with having you around what what's your take on on like racism it's a good question so there's a lot of questions packed into that one but I will say like this um as far as acceptance I felt a lot of love but also too one thing that I have that a lot of other people don't have is celebrity right so by the time I came to Israel I was famous even though I didn't know I was famous I just came out it exploded by the time I landed on my Alias like they're playing in shamela in the airport um it was like a whole big thing so even by the time I moved and I got into May shine maybe I would walk into a shop and then Sean told us on positive playing my song a million years or something like that so I felt that love however my kids had to go through it much more than I did you know nobody knew who they are my wife and different things like that but I've also talked to enough gaming or converts who were black who never experienced anything and no no experience at all you know and I've talked to a whole host of other people who have horrendous uh things that have gone through them so I think you know it's it's each person has to go through it and me personally so I can't say that I have a claw on what racism is like in order because I know too many different people that had different experiences but being somebody who's experienced a lot of love you know and I would say even a minimal uh amount of racism that that happens sometimes the racism is is is coming from a place where we have a problem I would say that the overall problem that that the world has and I think ultimately the the the focus has to be within is that we have a problem accepting anybody you know what I mean anybody who's different than us who doesn't come from the same background it doesn't grow up in the same type of neighborhood as us Ashkenazi Safari whatever so when I started to see that those are going to be issues I kind of I was prepared for not being accepted every place and different things like that but all in all most of the places that I've wanted to be I had I've been able to be accepted I didn't film anything but my kids like I said on the other hand they have to deal with things and I don't know what it's like to be like them so that put me in a place of being more open protective because everywhere I've been as a kid everybody's look like me you know a great deal of you know my circles I grew up but my kids are growing up in a place where it's just them all right and with their cousins and it's them you know and so I've always had to be very sensitive to that because I don't know what that feels like so I find myself being overprotective of that a lot of times um but because of that I think it's helped them to grow my kids don't really feel that they're not connected to racism like in America and and and and what they should think and that they have no no connection to that so their everyday experiences are their everyday experiences and they don't look for something more deeper than that so they they take it as at space value if this person doesn't play online go play with somebody else you know so that's a very it's a very good thing but it doesn't it doesn't mean that things it doesn't exist it for sure exists but the thing is is how how you deal with it and how you combat with it and I would say that overall if I was to give a summary of my whole entire Jewish experience I would say that the love that I've experienced is way up here in the amount of hate that I experience is way down here so are your kids like do you feel it in a good place now like in a good setting yeah moving to big shimmage was beautiful for us it was cooked in so many different ways you know future lime is beautiful but your Shalom is fire and you can be burnt so it's it can be a very hard place to live no matter what your color is no matter what your background is so uh your shalima has its challenges and moving the base shimish uh for us was good there's a lot of English speakers there in Olive we didn't end up moving Olive but uh it was good for us because it's more spaced out there's something more that I'm used to spiritually for me was much better it was hard for me being your slime I felt very pressed the kids felt very pressed and I seen a certain calmness happen once we moved out with the whole entire family so it's been very good for us okay now uh on I don't know if you want to get into this again but on the question of racism with the racism that you did experience in the Orthodox Jewish Community do you think it was specifically like racial like people genuinely had a problem with the fact that you were black or just because there are so few black people in the Orthodox Jewish community that people are just not useful like you think it's like malicious or do you think it's just people just are not used to having black moves around um I think it's more so people just not used to having people around and nothing felt deeper than that like you know when when a person you know the experience I must say somebody part of the KKK or something like that yeah that's a deep-seated racism they think you know obviously they have all type of ideas that you're below them you're less than human whatever the case is it's a different thing if you're not whatever uh you know Aryan people um but I think the difference is is that it's just it's something that's different and anything different you know in certain sets I would say by certain groups not everybody uh but in certain certain circles and anything different is shunned and and and and pushed away more than more than anything else and some people have said to me like wow you've changed my opinion on black people because I grew up thinking of them a certain way and like I said I know it's not 100 anybody that that's American at least has a different response to it than somebody who grows up if it's Israeli Israelis don't really generally have a stereotype of what black people like in America you know um generally not in the karate circles and the non-rated disciples I'm sure they're very aware of the typical stereotypes but they happen to be very big fans of the culture for some reason but as far as far as the Heritage they don't know from that so they just see something that's different so the kids are going to call you a genetic because you're different you know they just see something that's different so a lot of that is that took a while to get used also to realize that even though it hurts and this may make me feel that my kids feel a certain way it's not coming it's not that deep and once these kids see you playing as they go oh wow you know it's just just another joke so a lot of that has to do though with education like at this at this point everybody's still in survival mode or something like that and the education needs to be you know when you see books of kids coming you know Yeti out mid time and you see a hagada that's showing The Exodus from Egypt why is everybody look like they came out of man shine you know what I'm saying it's a big problem it's education you know and then every time if I open up a uh you know one of the Yiddish books that shows an example book house kitchen whatever when it gets to it's a black family so if you understand I've seen that many times many times yeah still do it so you understand the problem that if so when I'm at the store and this little girl goes you know tati you know why why is this dressed like a Jew she in the head this is what she was taught and the Father which I heard him say he's like no this is again he's not a boy you know and it took that time to explain but it needs to be from the education level that there's Jews and many different and it's not only for me how do they feel about you know the Safari or you know the Ethiopian other Jews that have more and more melanated so it's one of those things I think from the education level needs to be there but all in all if a person you know depends on what they came for I'm so confident that I came here looking for Hashem that this doesn't phase me them like I came up looking for God like I'm I'm team God I'm on team God I'm so positive of that that these things are so they're so small like when I see what's going on in America with that like from I understand that from a person who don't do God I can understand anything but the person that does God like I'm a team guy he's on my he's on my side I'm not I'm not too concerned about these things so it doesn't mean that these things don't hurt and the person's not not human but the more and more time that a person spills with God and you receive that spiritual validation unless unless you're worried about what's going on in the horizontal relationships as long as the vertical one is straight okay and last question if there was one message that you had to impart the world my audience is very diverse to go from consider people who tell others if they're not on the internet more modern Orthodox Jews to non-jewish people many Christians and Muslims people all over the world what is the one message that Nissan black has to share my one message is that God is real God is here and more than anything else is that I think especially in this time right now where there's so much conflict so much everybody's that everybody's throats about whatever it is and nobody realizes that you you hold a good amount I'm not gonna say oh but a good amount of your your most people's opinions is because it depends on which news station they were watching you know and and I think that it's sometimes that it's very good especially now to get away from a lot of these things and to be able to go deeper go in there to find out what it is that I hold this truth what do I really feel about things that I'm not going to let other things and I think that when a person gets there in that deep Discovery they're going to realize that there's a God in the world and he's and he's running the world and that he loves the world I want to reveal God's love in the world with all of my music and I want to reveal a path to be able to to be able to express that love and to go back to God uh with all of my heart so I think that that's that's my biggest message in the world team God okay so the show already started in the dressing room [Music] so Nissan's family just showed up they're here to see him perform [Applause] ing [Music] foreign you ready yeah you look so calm so this was about to go up what's going through your mind right now right now it's a lot of excited kids out there and I have to go and be my sphere and the only thing I am is I'm morphing into me seem the rapper missing the rabbi's over right now what users are going on I got the cloud white easies I got a little stuffed up in my last video shoot that's what we go with now I'm gonna change it from the All Blacks the truth is I know they have like all the status and I'm sure they're like probably good but I just need a comfortable shoes you know my toes need to be comfortable and then my toes ain't comfortable then nobody's coming so a little balance foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and I do [Music] [Applause] [Music]