(De)constructing Yiddishland: Solomon and SoCalled's HipHopKhasene

Abstract

The scene is set for a khasene, a traditional East European Jewish wedding. The musicians will lead the wedding guests through the ritual components of the ceremony: the seating of the bride, the walk to the wedding canopy and the seven wedding blessings. This marriage, however, celebrates the union not of bride and groom but of fiddle and microphone. Masterminded by London violinist Sophie Solomon and Montreal DJ SoCalled, HipHopKhasene seeks to turn ‘an authentic East European Jewish wedding, the khasene, into a hip hop extravaganza complete with old-school Yiddish freestylin’ on the mike from shtetl-MC Michael Alpert. By using the framework of a traditional wedding to question mainstream concepts of musical and cultural authenticity, Solomon and SoCalled pose timely questions of the flourishing Yiddish music revival: what does it mean to construct a contemporary Yiddish cultural world, and how is this meaning changing for a new generation of musicians and their audiences? This paper explores the concept and construction of the Hip Hop Khasene, contextualising the album within the klezmer scene and using this as a springboard to the wider discussion of identity and cultural space in contemporary music revivals.