There’s a minor kerfluffle brewing on the Jew music scene lately. Jewish musician Naomi Less has called out the Jewlicious festival for not featuring enough women artists in her blog Jewish Chicks Rock. She basically called the progressive festival an Orthodox front. She got a response today from David Abitbol, aka Jewlicous, politely telling her she’s got it all wrong. I’m not sure what to think. From my experience working on the Detroit JCC’s Stephen Gottlieb Music Fest there are some many different voices, opportunities, and constraints involved in getting a festival staged it’s amazing they happen at all. It may be that the subtle constraints that come from the individual tastes of the Jewlicious Fest presenters are leading to this outcome? Or maybe Less is just making noise about nothing?
One nice thing about Abitbol’s response was the list of female performers that have been featured at the Jewlicious festivals recently. I’m familiar with most of them, but there are some new (to me) names I’ll have to track down and some names that I’ve heard of but haven’t featured lately or ever.
One that list is Israeli rapper, Rinat Gutman. According to this great interview in the Yeshiva University Observer, Gutman comes from a Charedi Zionist background with some ties to Breslov and Chabad. Gutman performs some women-only shows within the Orthodox community, but lots of shows for mixed secular crowds (such as the Jewlicious festival), too.
“In my rap I speak about things that come from inside, about thoughts and insights that come to me in response to things that happen to me in life. At this point in my life, the central message that I am trying to convey is about the western culture, which dominates everything. I talk a lot about the ramifications of this on our lives, and in my opinion, the implications for the approaching time periods are destructive.For example, in my song Shekel v’Chetzi [shekel-and-a-half] I talk about our lives using the metaphor of a shekel v’chetzi store [dollar store]. In my eyes, this is the ultimate representation of western culture – the concept of instant gratification. You can find things almost for free, but you pass up on quality along the way. So I mention in my song all types of things that you can “buy” in this type of store, such as love, a professional degree, friends, etc.
I want to make a difference in the world of Jewish music because, in my opinion, it can still develop more. I want to take commonplace topics and make them humorous and lighthearted. For example, I have a Chassidic short story in a rap that talks about shidduchim in a funny and unusual way – it’s about a groom who’s too short and bride who’s too tall, etc..
Good stuff, too, from what I’ve heard. I haven’t seen her yet, but hope to. Get more info from Gutman’s MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter pages.
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