HIP HOP HOODÍOS
RAZA HOODÍA
JN MEDIA
Forget the Beastie Boys: Jewish rap has always been a respectable genre within a genre, from 2 Live Jews to the deadly brilliant Dr. Dre Del. The Hoodíos (a play on “judío,” the Spanish word for Jew) take this joke-within-a-joke attitude one step further on their debut EP, Raza Hoodía (“Jewish Race”), bringing equal parts chutzpah and cojones to the hip-hop world's first acknowledgement of the Latino Jewish experience. Although the EP is only five songs long, Raza Hoodía packs in enough musical diversity and topics to make you want to say shalom to the Beasties and adiós to Kid Frost. The group—consisting of Latino Jews Josué Noriega, Federico Fong, Abraham Velez and Adam Salzman de Weinstein—start off the biethnic madness with a merengue/rap version of the Jewish standard “Hava Nagila” (here renamed “Havana Nagila”), in which they outline what a Latino Jew is all about in English, Spanish and Yiddish. Nothing is too serious or kosher to make fun of: even lyrics like “My nose is large/And you know I'm in charge” on “Kike on the Mic” are rapped with a wink. But it's the little touches that make the album irresistible, like using the South American Spanish word chancho (pork) rather than the more common cochino on “Dicks and Noses” and incorporating traditional Sephardic Jewish guitar melodies into rap/funk/punk beats. After hearing the album, you'll be shouting “Oy güey!” for days.
