Mordechai Shapiro Interview by Rabbi Benzion Klatzko - Amazing🔥🔥🔥

okay wow that does look like a studio mordecai you weren't lying okay i'm gonna i'm gonna highlight you okay what's up welcome welcome uh we are we're so glad that you're here and uh yeah what are you singing now uh are you on mute well oh here i am can you hear me yeah i could hear you yeah what's up everybody they're all muted oh they're all muted okay i was waiting for like a whoo yeah yeah well okay here they come on they're on so we have people on facebook we have people on youtube we have people on uh on zoom and um and they'll be able to watch this afterwards as well so what are you doing today what's good what's on the agenda in studio we are working on new a new song um it's been a long day it's been a long day i mean i know you have your fair share of uh of of songs out there so you know what it's like to be in a studio it's just exhausting i'm i'm finished people don't realize how exhausting it is it really is it's just it's endless i mean the the vocals the back vocals do it again do it again do it again you're just ah are you a perfectionist i am i mean we all think we're perfectionists right i mean maybe not some people just are okay with with immediate mediocrity but yeah i'm i'm nuts i'm nuts about performance pitch um everything um the production of the song i'm very involved um how many people are here well i i you i won't know until afterwards but the past three weeks we end up with over a thousand people watching all together wow you're on a lot of different groups now first of all it's been a while rabbi since we've since we've connected i mean we spoke this week but but do you remember where we were last hanging out bordeaux bordeaux you made me a nice video for shabbat.com that was uh with fish that's right but even before that i think the first time we met was on that shavus program that's right years ago oh my goodness and you also sang from my organization um you're not if you're a member oh that's right that's your organization yeah i work with rabbi butler it's his organization i work under him but yeah you were just getting started then i mean i don't know remember that of course of course i do i remember singing my my i think my first album may have just come out and i was singing these songs and everyone's like what what is he singing totally i felt so honestly can i just be honest i really felt bad for you i really did because like you were like giving it 110 and just a clientele by the way it's just an older clientele and they music is not even their thing like they had a comedian like the year before and i came out i was ready to rock and roll yeah and they were like can you just can you just lower it just lower it down and it's too loud yeah yeah but uh you you aced it you did not let you don't put your pedal off the metal the entire time right you know it's uh it's funny within the last year i've been doing so many virtual events and people the common question people always ask is like how do you how do you perform how do you how do you have any excitement when there's no audience there and you just said i gave 110 there i always i always give it my all um you know and i tell people actually on the contrary virtually there's the opportunity for for for people to watch you know when you're in a theater so you have a thousand seats two thousand seats five thousand seats was maybe the biggest show that i've done in the last few years but when you're virtual i mean the sky's the limit you can have i mean some of these events hot solo events or some of these events in the last year have just been hundreds of thousands of people watching so even though there's no crowd there i know that there are so many people watching and i just i'm just you know i feel that i feel i feel the energy even though i don't i don't see it well you know first of all the camera likes you so that's a good thing that's a good thing i do do you even feel like there's a certain comfort zone just being in a camera like i actually love sitting here giving classes and doing i just love it because like i could you know grab a drink and you know you know you got your diet dr pepper i don't have anything to drink i i would get niko or something but okay well we'll have to do one in person on some patron platinum or something yeah for sure for sure wow okay so um so we have some questions well first of all your history we had your achaemeal on two weeks ago and um yeah has been a dear friend for years i took care of the choir a few times and um one of one of the um one of the claims to fame is who went through the system and um so of course your name was really prominent so tell us about the journey from like a child star to this was there like an in-between where you weren't singing were you always involved so my story is i'm the youngest of seven my father and mother both sing my mother is an opera singer trained professional opera singer she's i mean you gotta whatever you can hear her but she's she's amazing when she was like 20 and she was working with a coach and she was thinking of going you know pro she ended up becoming religious and you know she didn't grow up she grew up i guess modern orthodox maybe even a little less um and then when she got a little bit more religious she decided to get married and and and have a family my father was also a singer um you know he's about he's a he's a cantor about feeling he back in the 70s he used to perform a little bit he he toured with kyle bach a little bit um want the genetic dna he won the genetic lottery yes so my six siblings all sing so you can imagine the shabbat dinner by us was just non-stop singing i mean from from beginning till end it was just harmonies and it was amazing so when i my older brothers were in a choir from muncie slova's emmer which i'm sure you know and as the family you know as my siblings all got older and i was the youngest so me and my brother divvy who's two years older than i um we were always big fans of miami boys choir was a huge choir at the time and my mother said why don't you try out you know when we were babies she couldn't travel to brooklyn without with all my other siblings you know running around the house but when when my siblings got older and it was just me and my brother she said i think we on sundays we can go to brooklyn now so my brother and i tried out i think i was seven when i tried out wow and your rachmiel actually said i don't know if he remembers the story but he said i'm going to take divi and morty's a little young so maybe we should just maybe wait till he's eight or nine you know he's a little young um and my mother said listen if i'm coming to brooklyn it's either both of them or none of them so mummer that's my mama so so yeah said okay so he took me in so i joined i think when i was literally you know it was a few months till till the new group came in i was just eight years old i was a little pisser and i went through the system i learned so much from yahmia we traveled we toured the country we toured outside the country um i you know i started off as just another kid in the choir and then eventually i became a little bit more of a soloist i gained a lot of experience on stage um so i learned a lot i mean that was i i hours and hours in the studio so the experience was was amazing and then i my voice changed i i didn't sing you know i kind of quit when i was 14 and i was pretty much quiet until i was maybe 20. i mean professionally i wasn't really doing anything except for singing you know in the shower and buying my piano whatever but my voice was was changing so when i was about 20 i started getting some voice lessons i was living in israel at the time i made aliyah with my wife and kids and so i'm israeli now so i can go into israel actually which is great um and we were there for a few years i was trying to sing wasn't really working my hebrew wasn't great it was it was it was a tough three years although rewarding in many other ways it was you know it was spiritually it was amazing but financially and it was it was tough so we moved back after a few years i continued taking voice lessons and when i got back um i think i was like 24 when we moved back 20 yeah probably 24 i started getting voice lessons again i started doing uh i made you know first thing got to make business cards because that makes you legit you know it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what business vistaprint.com this depends you know if you put vistaprint.com on the back they give you a bigger discount so you know but people know you use vistaprint exactly so i'm in my business cards weddings bar mitzvahs brit mila shabbats me wrote whatever you want me to do i'll do it you know so i start i bought myself a keyboard i barely had any money when i moved back to israel i literally had nothing um so some friend hired me for like a shabbos weekend and you know i dove and then and they were very generous they gave me like a thousand dollars which at the time was which was crazy so i went straight to uh sam ash i said i have a thousand dollars i need a piano i need some speakers whatever you can give me they're like a thousand dollars for all of that she's like you can't really i said listen this is all i got give me give me whatever you have so they gave me some two speakers some poles a little keyboard and then i was able to start you know um i was able to start doing some bar mitzvahs and some engagement parties and some some smaller events and then you know one led to another and another and then i was able to buy a little bit better equipment and a little bit nicer keyboard and you know what did you learn from the piano or keyboard so i took lessons when i was a little kid i took lessons when i was also like seven or eight and believe it or not i hated it i hated every week it's like oh it's tuesday night time for lessons and i was like oh come on mom mom you know like any kid would do and um i really hated it and my teacher after a year you know was well she would check in with my mother obviously you know every few weeks every few months he's not really progressing he's not he's not practicing if he doesn't practice my mother you know whatever we had a busy house my mother couldn't force me to practice so i was essentially just meeting with a piano teacher once a week and and i just i don't know maybe it was the fact that my piano teacher stunk like cigarettes like he came in and he absolutely stunk and i was like i just the whole hour i was like oh boy i can't even you know oh my goodness yeah i mean he was a nice he was a nice fellow but he stunk so i i after after a year and a half or so i just said you know what i'm gonna quit and then the funny thing was right after that i i fell in love with my piano i started playing by ear and when i didn't have like the you know i didn't have the pressure to be with the teacher i just i would come home from school and sit by the piano i mean i just sat and sat and now you know and and i just learned how to play i'm actually sitting by a piano now yeah let's do it let's hear something rachmael played on the zoom he began playing uh let me play i don't remember oh um y'all love the elbow he played a little bit of the new song a new song can i give away if there's a thousand people watching i don't know if i can give away just the hook i'm just just wanted no i'm kidding but i'll do uh what should i play so this is one of my old songs it's an interesting story mahara was like the first song that i that i really wrote that that did anything i you know as as a singer i guess it's like this in in whatever any of you do you know there's things that you're good at and there's things that you're bad at and it's important to find your your strengths and it's also important to to separate your weaknesses and say no that's not for me so when i put on my first album i didn't think i could compose i said it's not really my thing i'm working on my voice let me let my producers pick the songs you know i was involved i like to be involved but i didn't think composing was my was my thing i ended up writing this song you know it goes i don't know if the piano is coming through clearly yeah we could hear it it goes [Music] okay [Music] so i wrote this song put it on my first album and it went nowhere like nowhere i was trying to push it i tried to sing it i'm like i wrote this song i'm so excited about but it didn't really go anywhere so that killed my conf like that just i didn't think i was a writer now i know i'm not a writer you know and then i remember i guess my second album i started working and i was looking for songs and i would still play because i still love to play and i just had this moment of inspiration where this song the hook came to me [Music] oh [Music] so i wrote this hook and i'm like this sounds kind of cool but again i didn't trust myself you know i said i can't write so i showed it to my producer i showed it to my wife and they're like that's really cool you know it's like it's good good vibes so i ended up running with it i ended up uh i wrote the rest of the [Music] song and then i ended up producing that and the song went hashem it went really crazy and that gave me like just a lot of a lot of confidence that oh maybe i can write maybe maybe i just need to develop maybe i just need to develop this you know so i started sitting and writing more and sometimes you just have moments where you sit down and it just comes to you like that and other times you don't and you have to just kind of keep playing till you you know until you find a good groove and a good a good hook um and since then i actually wrote most of my most of my hit songs i wrote myself wow um i wrote we can all sing we can all sing we can all [Music] so i wrote that and thank god i just i ran with that crazy stuff can i ask you how how is your hebrew so good that you could compose songs in hebrew i i'm sorry to ask that but it's like i'm really impressed so first of all a lot of my um i mean that's another as it's another challenge that i'm i'm trying to work through so first of all i i made aliyah right my wife and i got married and we said we want to live in israel nothing else matters i didn't really have a plan i don't want to say i you know i don't want to say i regret it because you know god god planned and planned that for us but i feel like maybe if i would have set myself up a little bit with with some sort of profession and and maybe it would have worked out differently but whatever this was this was god's plan so we moved we got married we moved with our first baby we got to israel we were expecting our second things were hectic i mean i needed a job i didn't go to learn i needed to support my family so i was i was working i knew somebody my brother-in-law had a had a connection there was a school in catamon for those of you who know you know jerusalem a little bit there was a school for children with uh with autism and i worked at hask so i said you know i i have an appreciation for that i i mean i love i love working with kids um so i i i started working there i was an assistant i didn't you know i didn't really have a like a masters in teaching i had a bachelor's i went to college but i didn't really have a master's in teaching so i was an assistant teacher uh for two years and i took as many hours as they would give me because i needed the money so i opened the place up at 7am and i was there till about 5pm and it was all israeli i mean the kids were israeli so i had no choice i mean i was lucky enough to get the job and then i worked with israeli teachers and the administration i mean there were some americans that that helped me through the ropes but that's where i that's where i picked up a lot of my hebrew i'm still not you know i'm still not fluent fluent but i could sing and i i have a decent uh a decent hebrew um it's very impressive it really is thank you because and that's the that's actually what we talked about before he came on is that that wave of people pouring their heart out to hashem in hebrew in the same way we used to do it only in english and it's not secular it's like a jewish hashgraphically powerful song but it's not from apostol not from the sitter it's just and it's the fact that you could do it as an american now you're an israeli uh it's just uh it's really special yeah yeah yeah thank god can you can you take a few questions absolutely okay so um uh we have someone here named here tell put her on she is a a musician a composer she's performed in concert and she's learning more about her judaism and um and i'm gonna put her on uh and she's from brazil but she's in new york now okay there you go hi what's up tiata hi it's so nice to uh see you i remember like um a few years ago maybe not not too long ago your for the first song that i heard by you was booker tov yeah it was like my hit up song many mornings when i didn't want to go to school yeah that's a really fun song yeah it's a fun one yeah and i see that i probably read it somewhere but you had a vocal teacher like a voice teacher in in like as for us um like performing artists like you know that we try to sing and compose songs for the irish guide would you say it's important for us to have um voice teachers to develop our voices and to help us out throughout the way it's like it's a do you think it's a very necessary investment would you say absolutely absolutely um voice teachers for so many reasons obviously you know in any profession obviously any athlete always have coaches um any profession really you know it's always important to have a mentor um you know even if you're a lawyer if you're a doctor you know have somebody to look up to somebody who can just show you know what you're doing right what you're doing wrong but so much more than that it's it's showing your it's taking yourself seriously you know it's not just like i'm a singer it's i'm i'm spending money i'm trap for me it was actually i was traveling to the first my teacher one of my teachers was in brooklyn and it was such a pain it wasn't just an hour of the voice lesson it was driving there in traffic and it was the hour there and it was the hour and a half back in traffic it was like half my day if not more and it was that time and that money that i was investing in me and my in my career that made me take myself seriously aside from obviously all the i mean i could tell you myself when i started when i started singing and i told you i was playing keyboard and then i i the wedding market i started singing at one wedding and then i put out an album of things you know a little bit more when i started doing weddings i would i would i would leave after the wedding like this oh no i would wake up the next morning and i would have a wedding the next night and i would wake up and i would you know tap my wife and be like i got nothing i had nothing so you can imagine it was very stressful so you know i would just run and i would take an hour shower with the steam and i would do honey and i would do you know hot tea and honey all day and occasionally i would take some steroids which is a great great little trick for all of you that have been in it's not a long term uh yeah yeah it's definitely not a healthy long-term plan but you know for the occas even today i i rarely take them because thank god my voice well let me just finish so when i started taking voice lessons i would say i would do a wedding and i would feel i mean i felt great i would wake up the next morning i would do another wedding and i was doing four weddings a week five weddings a week and obviously i was exhausted you know it's tiring and but i was i was vocally there i was vocally strong um and it was only because of voice lessons i mean only there's there's and i took it seriously i didn't just commit to the hour and the drive there and the money and the money that i didn't have at the time but i practiced every day i did the exercises every day if you told me a half hour in the morning a half hour at night and sorry about that i just got a call um so i was very serious about the about the practices and it's it's very important voice lessons are very very important okay and like you said to avoid injuries and to have a long lasting voice and absolutely yeah yeah no question yeah thank you of course nice to meet you have a moment for uh a little bit more a little bit more absolutely so first of all you have over here a number of musicians do you remember moshe yes from the old nades and zaydi made us laugh sure say his son is a singer named tali tala yes and tali's on well uh he's an upcoming singer so we'll hey dolly we're all big fans over here thank you that's tally and uh and what we're gonna do is we have a question we have another musician named yankee flossberg so yankee uh it's all yours he just recovered from very life-threatening kovit he was incredibly sick we were diving for him so we're very grateful that yankee is actually on um what's up yankee how are you is my buddy i mean i haven't seen you in a while but yankee and i uh have certainly met we've uh we've we've chilled and um yeah my son is a huge fan as you know um i wanted to know how how do you manage you know especially being a singer and also mormon bands that have this problem how do you struggle being out all night every night with family and coming home to the kids and the wife that's a great question great question so the answer is it's every every every professional really has their own way of of of having this challenge family work family work you know some people um you know people some friends in investment banking that that see their families less than i do you know um it's just about having good boundaries uh you meaning you know setting yourself up for for participating in in being with a family um it's not easy i can tell you it's not easy um although i don't i'm not out every night these days um especially because of covid but but in general i mean my kids are in school during the day and they get home and i'm i'm like bye guys you know i'm out to a wedding sitting in traffic and i gotta head out to uh to a gig and it's not easy so shabbos becomes crucial critical critical time that i you know even if i'm tired i need to be i need to be laser focused i need to make the the shabbos table uh exciting and fun for my kids um and obviously any night that i'm not uh that i'm not working i try to to put my phone down although it's not easy we're all i shouldn't speak for everybody right we all have uh phone addiction issues and now i have five kids thank god i just had my fifth kid a few weeks ago okay thank you and i try to put my phone away and i try to do homework i study for tests with my kids um i try to you know since i'm home during the day i i get uh lunch often with my wife or breakfast because i i have you know i work for myself so during the day i i run my my management whatever phone calls emails contracts um studio but when i'm home i often you know get to go out with my wife so you gotta you have to be creative um especially with with weird hours um you know hadim and yantif and holidays when people are with their families i'm often not i'm often working um so again it's not easy but i did i did want this so i try not to complain my wife supports me she always knew that i wanted this so badly um i really wanted i really wanted this i love to sing i love music i love you know trying to inspire and influence through music so now that i was given this platform i try to just make the best of it try to make the best of my family time and i try not to complain uh you know people say even when you get to go out with your wife and i know this is gonna sound really arrogant but i'm just you know people come to my table all the time whatever it's it's it's it's part of the it's part of the gig people come to my table and sometimes sometimes it's a lot you know and people say it must be so annoying you know so i say first of all it's not annoying because if people didn't come up to my table i'd be like yo where are my fans you know if i go to the supermarket on thursday night and nobody says hello to me i'll be depressed okay joking but in all seriousness um it's part it's just part of the job and this is what i wanted and i don't i just like i said i try not to complain i try to i embrace it my wife understands and i try to just make the best of the balance thank you beautiful such an amazing answer um there are two questions people don't want to ask but they're right in one question is is there a friendly competition between is very friendly is that no no it's a totally fair question um not really um i mean it's funny because i'm younger i'm younger than dubious and divy still lives in israel and he's like my best best best friend um not just my brother but we are super close so i've been trying to help him um you know with in any way that i can you know obviously he wants to try to be his own which is which is great because you know we shouldn't be the same product and the same kind of thing but i try to help him in whatever way that i can composition production um i've i've been with him in the studio coaching him vocally um yeah i try i i there's there's not really any uh competition um we're rooting for each other and thank god it's it's good vibes amazing amazing and someone else wants to know your songs are so varied in genre do you take any inspiration from not jewish music good question so the answer is yes i do so i grew up modern orthodox i grew up i went to a co-ed school co-a day school a modern orthodox high school um i grew up although i was in miami boys choir most of what i listened to was secular music believe it or not um i think people can probably gather this from from the way that i sing and you know some of my runs and my style and my you know because it's hard to just have that i really grew up on that i grew up on a really a wide span of of from frank sinatra which i don't really sing like that but i learned a lot from the great well from from the way that from the way that frank sinatra delivers his messages the way that he chews on every word and like every every word that he says you know that he means it so i learned a lot from him and then michael jackson and pop and then michael buble who's a little bit more like you know and then you know boy bands i mean backstreet boys i grew up on in sync on justin timberlake on justin bieber was a little bit later he's like more contempt you know he's more like he's a few years younger than i so i didn't grow up on that but but i have a lot of influence from secular music um and that and and and like i said i i love big bands i love pop i love country i love you know um i love i really love a lot of different uh genres and that's why i i have you know a bunch of different genres on my albums wow you know there's no such thing as trey music it's just music waiting to to be infused with roches and i think you inspire a lot of people and the coolest thing is and i i i just i gotta say this this man does not need auto-tune i heard him a number of times i i was i was explaining in the first half an hour why there are so many new jewish singers today and we explain all the factors of bigger jewish population uh much easier to produce you don't need analog tracks uh there's youtube to get your stuff out there and every day i'm i'm guilty i'm one of them i'm an old man but i put out i put out a video almost every weekend it gets really nice play in israel and but i'm a nobody you know like but it's so easy to do because that's today's world um so a person like you to actually garner millions of views you sort of are separating yourself from the pack in the most amazing way and the fact that you don't need auto-tune guys like me need autotune like i'm not gonna i would i would never try this thing without autotune even if people say you sound okay i said no i have a much better ear than voice that was so pitchy and like and the microphone the studio microphone is unforgiving so right i saw i first of all thank you i appreciate that i think that you're right you know part of part of what i tried to deliver at live events and some of the greatest compliments that i've gotten was that it's it sounds like you're just playing your album you know halawa we jewish singers don't really do the lip syncing thing i mean unless some guys do i've never done it even though my mother always tells me why don't you just lip sync you're killing your voice you know you work every night of pesach just just play the album and dance nobody will know you're so cute anyways i'm like mom i just can't so that's the greatest compliment when people say that you know your live performance sounds like like the track itself um you know pitch i'm still not sure if pitch is something that you can perfect i guess with voice training can you perfect pitch maybe my voice teachers some of them did say that as you strengthen your muscles and your technique it will help with your pitch it will but i think a lot of it is just you know what what you're born with um you know can somebody who's tone deaf go get voice lessons and become a singer i i don't think so but somebody who's a pretty good singer and gets voice lessons will probably improve their pitch right but but almost every singer needs auto i mean it's just it's so unforgiving and and you know you know i'm just uh i don't want to gush over here but i do want to tell you i i you know i i'm an old man i i'm i remember whenever i'm free came out with this first album like and be like and i was very i've been involved in music uh with mandy walt and schlammy that these were my heaver and i was a little bit jaded when another guy shapiro is such a common last name and you know mordecai actually my new son-in-law is getting married to my daughter's name is mordechai so mordecai is a nice name but when i heard you with that singha versus benny friedman i said oh my goodness he's actually really really freaking good i i if you haven't seen it you should go to youtube and look at it because it'll give you an appreciation that it's not just about a nice niggin but there's a craft going on here and uh and really i think you're you're literally one of the best out there i produce penny's album you know and he has a stunning voice as well i'm sure you're friends with him but what you what you did with that rock hauler with that with that that's great great stuff thank you yeah um i forgot what i was going to say but the um yeah so oh that's what i was going to say the the the pitch thing is and i'm sure you probably touched touched upon this but as more people are using pitch so we all kind of have to do it you know back in the in obviously in 50s and 60s and 70s i'm not even sure when auto tune probably started in the 90s maybe not quite sure about that but when nobody was was first of all when nobody was was tuned when nobody was using melodyne in the pitching so it really did sift out the bad singers um you could you couldn't fake it you know um but as more and people more and more people started using it so even good singer i mean i you i itunes we don't we all tune um you need to you know you really do you're you're but your tune is minimal like you cannot hear your tune but could you imagine how sad it would be if kalbach used auto-tune so his pitchiness was his charm exactly it's just like right even a b rod i mean abs had a beautiful voice but if if you wanted to know all of it it would be mechanical and that would be you know right exactly yeah ab called me the other day i was i was literally like i was fangirling i was like i was like honey it's amy rottenberg he's calling me i don't know if you i'm sure i don't know if you guys know abby rottenberg he's like prolific composer one of the oldest um and he's just amazing i mean if you haven't heard his stuff you should check it out youtube or wherever you stream music he has the most amazing song whenever i need a good cry when i'm driving and i need a good cry just turn on you know taurus scrolls or we danced round and round in circles as if the world had felt no wrong yeah he's got the most oh so it was pretty awesome to get a phone call from him wow did he uh did he want to be on your next album or you should be on his it's stopped secret but good things coming he's coming out with an album now you're asking or you no no i'm telling you i announced it on on my zoom oh okay good good good yeah that is he yeah he said every eight years that's his pattern with three holocaust songs with three holocaust songs right eight years wow i wish i could come up with only every eight years and still be as amazing as abby rottenberg right yeah part of the part of the youtube phenomena um with some exceptions you may you may be one of them is there's so much music coming out now that it's it's sort of like um a a movie that comes out that that the second week of the box office it's got half the viewership and the by the third because there's just new songs that that replace it so quickly so the singers don't have that luxury of coming out with stuff every eight years because you will be forgotten exactly i mean you have to find the right balance between staying current and not over saturating because you know you gotta this song the song needs love needs it needs spotlight it needs its own it needs its own spot for i guess everybody has their own level of what of what that amount of time is you know i'm i i'm feeling desperate to put out new material but i've just just had a baby and i was really hoping to put out a song for purim but i guess god had other plans for me i was here trying to finish it up to see if i can get it out for perm but it's uh perms tomorrow so that's it's just not happening you know um and then of course we have pesach around the corner so there's always that and it's not so simple for for us jewish singers you know we always have to plan in advance you know i i i can't put out a new music video a week before pisa and then people won't well so you have the week before pay stuff you have hola and then people won't listen to it because of spira so i have to wait now until probably like omer so it's it's a it's a little frustrating but it's uh it's in his head i'm doing the best i can they won't forget by the way you've got a response to your quest to the question about non-jewish music the the young lady wrote back thank you for your answer i totally hear all the genres which is great i can listen to your music i know it's kosher but still jam like i did in the 90s hello boys to men and justin timberlake uh yes i appreciate that because as i started in the in the industry and i started to some would say i i stretched the cord of what was considered appropriate jewish music and like you said rabbi i feel that anything that's that has soul and and jewish messages and vibes so the production sounds like 2021 that should be a problem i i don't think so but i did get some slack i still get truth is i still get some i mean i still get a little bit of of slack you know people from i don't wanna whatever don't call it call out any communities but there's certain communities well they'll say uh you know it's a little it's a little guy-ish a little ago sounding for what i want my kids to to grow up on but i i tell people that a lot of jewish music that you heard first of all kambach or jesse green a lot of these guys were also copying the vibes of the 70s and 80s where there was folk music and and the 90s i mean it was was more like rock music i mean people think there's like jewish music and secular music i i don't really see it that way i just see anything that has jewish words or jewish message uh that that's inspiring it doesn't matter how contemporary it sounds you know it's it's jewish and it's um i think that's what it's speak for themselves um someone just wrote it's so nice that mordecai should be on live his spark and joy and honesty is amazing the song is coo from his first album is still one of my favorites got me through hard times and all of his song and songs keep me going thank you so much what a treat to have him on live i love getting feedback about that song his group because i love it too and i regret so much not putting out a music video for that song i had big plans frisco you know it's always hard you know especially back then now now that i'm three albums in it's it's a little bit easier to like kind of pick okay you know how komashima i think is gonna be a hit i'm gonna push it i'm gonna put my money into a video for that my first album i didn't really know what i was doing so i had this song mitzvah which was i didn't even want to buy it i thought it was so weird you know the original demo i if i ever see you uh rabbi i'll play it for you the original demo was like so weird and i was like i'm not you know it was like and i was like what is so slow you can't dance to it it's not a ballad it's not a fast song it's like what is it you know and then my one of my producers convinced me to take it so i did and then the arrangement came back and i was like oh my gosh this song is really cool um and then i put a music video out too and then frisco i wanted to put a music video out too but by the time i was gonna get around to it i was already on my second album um and but the song is great the message i i loved it um and i feel like if i would have maybe put out a music video maybe it would have given a little bit more more light to the song but [Music] so thank you for that absolutely one person wants to know is one in a million an original one in a million one in a million actually was played for me by a guy named mordecai brazil he's um he's a fairly known name in the business he composes he called me up he said i have this song for you i went over to his house played it for me and i was like wow wow so he he happens to be he doesn't really play and he doesn't really uh he doesn't really he's not super musical but he knows how to write a hook and so i i kind of built it with him i did co-compose it with him even though the lyrics were him and the concept was him it's basically all him but i i came up with the chords and and the vibe you know um you know the way that we [Music] you know the vibe and the arrangement style obviously i work with i'm here now with some of my producers daniel kapler john frater i'm sure you've heard of who have like been a huge part of my my success they arranged that song um the reason i i asked it's just it's so perfect that i know all of your music is perfect thank god everything you release i think is perfect but that one in a million i don't i don't listen to secular music anymore it's all jewish for me so when someone comes out with something i don't know that it's a you know it's a copy it's a not a parody or a an adaptation so you should go off on everything and i left you some comments for the rabbi to tell you how i love your sense of humor i love when you were in costco after waiting an hour and you said i'm buying everything i love that so i was just sharing that with a friend of mine who is a big fan of yours now so just sharing and how you're terrific in the kitchen how helpful you are i think it's awesome thank you thank you it's good to see you thank you so much it's a real treat it's a real treat thank you for doing this with the rabbi thank you you know judy right yeah of course yeah of course judy is like she's one of my big fans and i'm a big fan of her she's like a huge thank you which is jewish music and her passion for jewish music is really it's truly uh it's it's amazing it's just you're you're thank you so much your friend benny really uh gave me a lot of props so he's given me the encouragement to do what i do he said he appreciated my enthusiasm so uh that keeps me going yeah keep it up as you're saying as you're saying i can't drop the phone i'm up until 4 4 30 in the morning and then i can't wake up for my own show so i just too busy trying to share music all the time well thank you thank you so much for everything that you give to us because you're amazing your energy i'm just going to give you a bracha that hashem should keep you safe please get in all your travels because i always worry about you being tired like somebody asked how do you do it all so uh just stay safe please god i'm mean thank you and healthy because i don't know how people are doing it at these weddings i have no idea how everyone's dancing with no masks on and i just pray for everyone to stay safe and healthy assuming that that most of them had covert already yeah that's we have to hope somehow everybody is already healthy and safe and they almost had vaccines right yeah or they had it i mean i i had it yeah a long time ago thank god i still have antibodies i didn't get the vaccine yet but we'll see we'll see what happens today glad you survived the profession thank god your food should uh should get better and i hope that uh we can have these meetings in person soon oh man i mean one last question for you uh where did you get that sweater i looked over for sweaters like that the zipper i love that question second of all where i got it from is even better okay laguardia airport is the worst the worst airport like in a world i try not to fly over there um it is just such it's a train wreck every time just the ubers and it's terrible i try to fly to jfk i'm very close recently laguardia is trying to revamp and the first time that i was there they have this whole beautiful sorry that was my kids calling and they're probably going to call another 100 times till i answer uh because kids are great um so i was in laguardia in this new beautiful section and i saw this store and i was like this is great laguardia airport picking up their game so i went to the store and they really had beautiful stuff and i was like i i need that sweater so it was uh i think it's hugo boss and i saw it and i was like it's perfect and of course i you know i'm always like i try to fit into the small but i'm really not a small i'm really a medium sometimes you know it depends on the brand sometimes i'm a large but i was like i put a small on and i was like talking to the guy my flight was in like 20 minutes of course and i'm like can i pull off the small he's like i think you can i mean it's pulling a little bit you know i was like so i should go medium he's like i think so i was like but i really want the small you know so in the end i got the medium it fits well and and it's got pockets oh my god yes oh that's a dream sweater and it's got this nice little detail over here the women i i don't think you appreciate the quest for the perfect sweater that men have oven in it it's like a jacket i don't need i could take pictures in it i can give all my life i'm looking for that sweater that's great so true so true mordecai you're the best thank you thank you thank you for having me hello i'm just swiping to see who's here modi i just got one more question she can sure my wife would like to know how long does it take you to leave when you pick up your son from yeshiva how long does it take you to leave without those kids around you well now because of covid so everyone pretty much you know stay well well my son actually is old enough that he's um he's not a bus now but my daughter who's three i have to pick her up and i think it's already gotten old it's not that cool to see morty shapiro anymore because i'm there you know i'm there every day always cool yeah yeah um but uh especially because of covet everyone's kind of keeping their distance so you know it's all right i'm i'm i'm in and out all right you're amazing that you uh thank god are such a helpful dad and god bless your wife to stay uh strong and energetic to take care of everyone when you're uh when you're away yeah but um i i'm so blessed that i see it more and more the more that we have you know we just had our fifth kid as i told you and um you know i wake up in the middle of the night just just to turn over she's always awake my wife is always awake feeding or burping you know i wake up to like i i feel i hear the burping and i'm like honey go back to sleep but uh yeah yiddish mamas are amazing especially my wife keep the pancakes coming okay well to all of our watchers on facebook all of our watchers on youtube live all of our watches on zoom uh we first of all we thank morty i can't believe after a whole day in the studio you wouldn't believe i'm about to go to studio actually really wow it's the end of the day actually but whatever still got to sing um but yeah thank you for giving up us your that's a perfect perm coming in thank you thank you afraid i'm excited i'm excited perm is not going to be exactly the same because of covid but uh but just because the kovitt don't let it uh don't let the the day escape you embrace it feel the joy and um mr shem these masks should be and covet should be done with really soon and maine and um and everybody should be healthy and this was this was awesome this was a great way to detox after a day studio exactly what i needed so thank you rabbi fantastic take care thank you god bless you safe travels home thank you thank you are you in jan freighter's studio or someone else right now i am yes so i do have that you have a trip i've been there i i was able to visit ethan frey left there so uh stay safe i do really good to you thank you thank you thank you good night everybody continued success